Spencer Strider’s Return to the IL Complicates Atlanta’s Season

The Braves entered 2024 with excessive hopes for the approaching season, however their marketing campaign led to disappointing vogue. After making the playoffs by the slimmest of margins, they had been unceremoniously eradicated by the Padres. It’s now been greater than seven months since Atlanta’s early exit, and the calendar has flipped to a brand new season. The identical can’t be stated for the workforce’s fortunes.

Certainly, the Braves have began off this 12 months in a funk, and never of the nice Sly and the Household Stone selection. A season-opening collection in opposition to the Padres, adopted by a visit to Chavez Ravine for a matchup with the defending-champion Dodgers, left Atlanta with seven losses to begin the season and Reynaldo López on the IL for many, if not all, of 2025. A sweep of the equally underwhelming Minnesota Twins staunched the bleeding considerably, however one other wound opened up quickly after, as Spencer Strider strained his hamstring taking part in catch on Monday and returned to the IL only one begin after getting back from main elbow surgical procedure.

A 9-14 begin, even when coupled with the lack of López and Strider, doesn’t make 2025 a misplaced trigger, but it surely does complicate issues significantly. Let’s first look again on the ZiPS preseason projections for the NL East standings.

The ZiPS projection system noticed Atlanta as the favourite, however solely by a hair, with the Mets and Phillies projected to be primarily as harmful because the Braves. There was vital daylight between ZiPS and the FanGraphs Depth Charts projections, which pegged Atlanta with a six-win margin over Philadelphia and a seven-win cushion over New York. A big a part of this distinction doubtless comes right down to methodology. Within the FanGraphs projections, for ease of calculation, innings pitched and plate appearances are static, which means that Chris Sale would all the time be projected to throw 182 innings, Ronald Acuña Jr. would all the time be anticipated to take 525 plate appearances, and so forth. ZiPS makes use of a Monte Carlo strategy, which means that in some projections, Sale would throw these 182 innings, however generally he would attain 190, or solely get to 150, or 100, or generally even 0. Telling ZiPS to match the FanGraphs taking part in time precisely would have given the Braves a 91-win projection and almost the identical margin of victory over their NL East rivals.

So, what’s the distinction? Merely put, ZiPS appreciated the Braves finest if issues labored out, however attributable to their lack of depth at most positions, noticed them as much less resilient than the Phillies or Mets ought to issues go mistaken. Shedding López for an extended stretch of the season is one thing going very mistaken. The extent of Strider’s hamstring harm continues to be unknown, not less than publicly, however my private perception is that the workforce is unlikely to be aggressive together with his return, contemplating he simply missed a whole 12 months after present process an inner brace process to reconstruct his UCL.

Coming into 2025, ZiPS noticed the Braves with a .550 roster. Earlier than the beginning of play Tuesday, which is after I ran the projections for this piece, that had declined by 11 factors of successful proportion (the identical decline as on our Depth Charts) to a .539 projection. Once more, not deadly, however if you happen to consider the remainder of the season as a footrace starting now, the Braves are beginning off behind the opposite contenders, fairly than even with them.

A number of groups could be proud of a 44% probability of constructing the playoffs, however for Atlanta, it represents the evaporation of greater than a 3rd of its playoff odds in simply three weeks. With the Mets and Phillies each faring nicely in April, the Braves have seen an much more vital slashing to their odds to win the NL East, which is down almost two-thirds since Opening Day.

How a lot may a significant addition assist the Braves? How a lot may one other harm hinder them? To reply this query, I reprojected Atlanta’s playoff odds, altering the projected roster strengths in intervals of 5 proportion factors.

The underside of this chart highlights one of many issues with a state of affairs by which the Braves make an enormous acquisition: The mixture of the present standings and the power of their opponents limits the utility of an enormous commerce with regards to successful the division. And that’s necessary on condition that successful the division is important to have an opportunity at skipping a coin-flippy first spherical of the playoffs. For those who add 40 factors of roster power to the Braves, mainly the equal of buying Bobby Witt Jr. or Aaron Choose, which might not occur with out breaking many state and federal legal guidelines, Atlanta nonetheless wouldn’t get all the best way again to its preseason outlook. The acquire of 16 proportion factors of divisional likelihood is lower than you’d get from repeating the identical train with different disappointing April contenders, such because the Orioles (19 factors, 20% to 39%), the Twins (23 factors, 13% to 36%), the Cardinals (25 factors, 7% to 32%), or the Astros (29 factors, 39% to 68%).

Unusually sufficient, contemplating a midseason acquisition isn’t prone to have that a lot of an influence, essentially the most logical strategy for the Braves may merely be to attempt to get everybody wholesome, keep the course, and cross as many fingers as can be found.

Nonetheless, no matter whether or not or not the Braves swing a big swap, if they will make a comeback, they’d higher get began quickly — with out Strider and Acuña, who continues to be not less than a couple of weeks away from coming back from his ACL surgical procedure. Even with one other matchup with the Dodgers set for the primary weekend of Might, ZiPS tasks these subsequent few weeks to be the softest remaining stretch of Atlanta’s schedule, with collection in opposition to the Rockies, Reds, Pirates, and Nationals. As an instance this, I projected the NL East standings on Might 23 if every NL East workforce performs as much as its projected preseason report for the subsequent month.

In different phrases, if over the subsequent month the Braves they merely win as usually as they had been anticipated to again in March, they’d see their October probabilities deteriorate additional. They may nonetheless limp into the playoffs as a wild card like they did final 12 months, however that may be extraordinarily unsatisfying given their optimism coming into the season. No person ever wins a division in April, however you’ll be able to lose a division in April, and except a turnaround comes quickly, which will simply be what has occurred in Atlanta.