So, we’re just over 10 games into the season for the Atlanta Braves and the on-paper results have been encouraging — even if the on-field results have the Braves just one game over .500 as they look to avoid dipping below that mark as they deal with the seemingly impossible task of winning baseball games in the state of California.
Let’s start with the good, which is that the pitching has been outstanding so far. Through 11 games, Atlanta’s pitching staff has an ERA of 2.23 (57 ERA-) and a FIP of 3.29
(82 FIP-). If I had to predict it, I’d imagine that the ERA will move closer to the FIP as the season progresses but as long as both the ERA- and FIP- stay well below 100, Atlanta is on track to be much improved in the pitching department. There’s plenty of room to improve on last season, which is when they finished with an ERA of 4.36 (103 ERA-) and a FIP of 4.20 (103 FIP-) and assuming that what we’re currently seeing from Bryce Elder and Reynaldo López is real, that improvement should be on its way.
In fact, I’d say that the best early story so far has been Bryce Elder’s apparent improvement. Of course he’s not going to carry a 0.00 ERA over the course of this entire season and he’s going to have a rough day eventually (everybody has rough days — just look at what happened to Chris Sale last night. Yikes!) but the fact that he’s carried his strong end-of-season form from 2025 over into 2026 is certainly encouraging to see. Maybe there’s something to getting advice from Greg Maddux, himself.
The bullpen (outside of Joel Payamps) has been chugging along just fine as well and they’ve been helped by performances from Osvaldo Bido and Martín Pérez being able to go out there and eat plenty of innings when called upon. Having long relief like that could go a long way towards preserving the rest of the bullpen and helping to ensure that we don’t see such a revolving door for this staff like we did in 2025 when the Braves set records for the sheer number of guys they were sending out there to pitch.
Can things get better? Of course. Chris Sale still hasn’t really gotten it going just yet, the fifth spot of the rotation is still in a bit of flux and I already mentioned Joel Payamps and his tough start to the season right now (a 20.16 xERA is jarring to see, early or not). Still, it’s encouraging and also lends a tiny bit of credence to my personal theory that good health alone would give this pitching staff a huge boost. As long as guys continue going out there, tis pitching staff should be fine.
The staff has also benefited from getting some great defense behind them as well, which is always encouraging to see. Being tough to score on (whether it’s via lockdown pitching or lights-out defense) can go a long way towards making this team a serious candidate to play some important baseball games once we get into September and October.
Now we get into the offense, which is doing “fine” on paper but as we all know, “fine” has never ben the standard for the bats around here. Through 11 games so far, the Braves are hitting .249/.319/.414 as a unit with a .732 OPS, a .165 Isolated Power number and 106 wRC+. That number has them tied for 10th in all of baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates — and it’s honestly a testament to how well the rest of the Pirates are hitting that they’ve gotten that high considering that former Braves DH Marcell Ozuna has started this season looking like one of the worst hitters in baseball.
Still, as evidenced by the fact that the Braves have been scoring their runs in fits and starts, it’s something that could definitely do with improvement. They have a walk rate of 9.2 percent along with a strikeout rate of 19 percent. It’s interesting because the Dodgers have a similar BB/K split but the Dodgers are making up for it by absolutely crushing the ball to the tune of a .299/.366/.523 team slash line with .224 in Isolated Power and 149 team wRC+. If you’re going to have that type of split, you better be mashing the ball every night and that hasn’t quite been the case for the Braves so far outside of a couple of really big games.
Drake Baldwin has gotten off to an excellent start and we’ve also seen some unexpected contributions from guys like Marucio Dubón and Dominic Smith. One of those two guys was seemingly a glove-first guy and the other is a guy who came on as a non-roster invitee and made the team, so getting stuff from them has been bonus. You’d also expect that the reigning NL Rookie of the Year would be crushing it as well, as Baldwin is now taking strides to being recognized as one of the best-hitting catchers in the game right now.
The issue is that the rest of Atlanta’s stars have been scuffling right out of the gate. Matt Olson has been doing fine and Ozzie Albies has been faring okay, himself. The problem right now is that Ronald Acuña Jr., Michael Harris II and Austin Riley have been wandering in the wilderness to begin the season. Acuña is currently sitting on 51 wRC+ so far and that’s the high mark for this trio, which tells you just how rough it’s been for these three guys so far.
I’d imagine that we’re going to see Acuña and Riley get going at some point but I think we’re at the point now where seeing Harris struggle like this is concerning. Sure it’s early but we’ve also seen this before from Harris when it comes to starting the season off in poor fashion. He’s certainly got just as much potential to bounce back but the question is whether or not he’ll do it as quickly as Acuña or Riley should bounce back. I don’t think that anybody around here has the appetite for seeing another 70 or 80 games of Harris trying to figure it out at the plate while serving as a void of offense in the lineup. I hope he can get it together soon but if I had to say I was worried about anybody in the lineup right now, it’s Money Mike.
Now granted, we’re still only talking about 11 games — a drop in the bucket when it comes to this long, winding river of a regular season. However, there’s already been some stuff that’s worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses. Can Bryce Elder, Reynaldo López Mauricio Dubón and Dominic Smith keep this up? When will the star players on this team wake up? When will we see Didier Fuentes again? Will getting their injured players back be a boon for this squad? Will the Braves win more than one (1) game in California this season? Do the new City Connects have an option for powder blue pants? Okay, maybe the last question isn’t as pressing as the rest but it’ll certainly be intriguing to see if and when we’ll get answers to these early questions.
