The Atlanta Braves are now into the offseason, which means that it’s time for General Manager Alex Anthopoulos to speak with the media and give his thoughts on both the season that was and what’s on the horizon for the team going forward. There’s a lot (and boy, do I mean a lot) to discuss from the time he spent speaking with the local media via Zoom and as you can imagine, things ran the gamut from the usual GM-speak to some general thoughts on the club, all the while giving everybody the slightest
chance to do some speculation about the direction that the Braves are going in for the future — whatever the future may hold due to the impending labor war on the horizon.
I did ask AA about what stood out to him about this team relative to the expectations that he had for this ballclub back on Opening Day and his answer kind of ran parallel to what manager Walt Weiss had been saying about his ideal clubhouse.
“I probably started focusing a little bit too much on talent and less on how the pieces would fit. I was pretty determined this offseason to get back to that…We really got back to really focusing on makeup, character, team fit with everybody that we brought in…That’s probably the one thing I’m most proud of.”
“On paper, we obviously have a lot of talented players but I’ve always said that the one thing that you shouldn’t get wrong is the makeup and the character. You do enough work and make enough phone calls, you’re probably not going to make a mistake on that one. Guys might get hurt and may not play well and you’re going to make those mistakes but in terms of knowing who you bring into the room, you should bat 1.000 on that one. Maybe occasionally someone surprises you and they slide under the line [of character expectations].”
“I’m really proud of the fact that when it came to that, we got back to who we were and what we’re about. We’ve talked about the word ‘culture…’ The culture is the players that you put into it….You bring in the right guys, they come together, those 26 each year (because it’s never the same), they set the culture. They set the attitude, they set the vibes. I feel like we were successful in getting back to that and sometimes you have to…continue to evolve and continue to self-reflect. I feel like we got back to that, which was pretty important. It doesn’t mean you’re in a World Series each year but I love what we were about and the way that the group came together.”
AA did mention that he was proud of this Braves club for keeping it close against the Dodgers in the NLDS when he was asked during the press conference about whether or not he had any regrets that he’d take with him to the offseason. “All the games, except for the last one, really through the seventh inning, they were close,” stated AA. “Obviously Game 2 we won, Game 1 we had the tying run at the plate late so they were all close except for the last one. We had some moments (obviously with guys on base) but we were right there. You wanna get the big hit and you wanna score more runs but you also know you’re facing great arms on the other side too. You’re trying to walk the fine line between ‘Should we have done this’ and being able to respect the other side.”
“You can walk through so many things but you also respect the fact that you’re going to face a great team. The series was close and each game (except for the last one where we didn’t really threaten at the end) was close.”
While plenty of the focus in the aftermath of the Postseason has been on the lack of offense near the end, Anthopoulos has chosen to take the long view of things. He repeatedly mentioned that the team finished in the top 10 in batting average (.246, which was tied for 10th with both the Diamondbacks and the Nationals) and slugging (.409, tied for sixth with the Yankees) while also mentioning that some work needed to be done with their on-base percentage, which was certainly below average at .309 and 28th place in all of baseball.
Still, it doesn’t seem like it’s the type of thing where Alex Anthopoulos would be putting pressure on Walt Weiss to potetially make a change at hitting coach. “If we had a good year, I do believe in continuity from a coaching staff,” stated AA when he was asked about his thoughts on Jeremy Hefner and Tim Hyers, specifically. “That’s not to say that you keep everybody for the sake of keeping everybody. If you think you can get better, you need to make adjustments. I haven’t had any conversations with Walt — this will be me and Walt’s first offseason together and there’s no rush on that type of stuff.”
“I think continuity is important for a few reasons. One, new coach comes in, you don’t know them and you don’t get the trust factor immediately,” continued AA. “It takes time. There’s times where you’re willing to do that and wait and obviously we did it this year with a ton of new staff but it takes time,” continued Anthopoulos. “I think there’s upside for guys to continue to get better now that potentially some of them are going into year two. In terms of [Hefner] and [Hyers] again, we were top-3 in the NL in basically everything [pitching-wise]. From an offensive standpoint, we were top-10 in the Majors in a lot of things. Second half of [2025] our on-base was lot better, it’s a lot of the same guys. This past year, on-base was low but we did all these other things well. We obviously have room to get better so I’d say that I think continuity is important…I think eveyrbody did a really good job and I’m pleased with all of them.”
At multiple points during the press conference, AA was grilled about the positions that he’d be going after during the offseason, with one question going as far as to ask Anthopoulos straight-up if they were going into the offseason looking for specifically two starting pitchers and a left fielder. As you would imagine, AA was cagey about it and stayed cagey as other media members continued to push the issue — especially when it came to players who may or may not be available via trade.
“You gotta remember, our players are going to see that stuff. ‘Hey, he only mentioned these 1 or 2 guys. Why didn’t he include me?’ Now I have an agent calling me and a player calling me…There’s zero upside to that. I get the question and I get trying to piece it all together but I will tell you this: We will go into the offseason open-minded about all kinds of stuff,” stated AA. “That’s how you have discussions and that’s how you get creative. THat’s how things go. You never know — I’ve always said that everyone has a price. There’s always a deal even on a player that you’re unlikely or reluctant to ove. At some point, you include guys. I have no idea where those things are going to go but I don’t think we’re in a position to rule anything out. I just don’t believe in doing it.”
AA did go on to mention that the Braves are planning on using their exclusive negotiation rights with both Mauricio Dubón and Tyler Mahle to the best of their ability, so they’re going to give it a good shot when it comes to retaining those two. When it comes to the team options on both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies, AA didn’t commit to a decision for either player but I’d imagine that it’s safe to assume that both of them will be back.
Anthopoulos did also directly address the Jurickson Profar situation and while he did mention that Profar is under contract for 2027, he definitely stopped short of guaranteeing that Profar would indeed be back next season.
“Those are conversations that we’re going to have,” stated AA. “We know it’s coming, clearly. We know he’s under contract for 2027, we knew the suspension was gonna be a year. That’s obviously a topic we’re going to have to address and talk about, we haven’t had that discussion yet.”
“I wouldn’t be prepared to give you a definitive answer one way or another,” continued Anthopoulos. “That’s not to be cryptic or hedge. I know it’s tough because you guys can only work with what I say…There wasn’t anything for us to do or address [when it came to Profar’s suspension], he was out for the season…What I can tell you is that we’re going to have to sit and talk internally across the board about the whole thing. This is now the time to have those discussions.”
Anthopoulos also talked about Spencer Schwellenbach and Spencer Strider and while our article from Sunday touched upon those (and other) topics of discussion during the press conference, further detail really illuminated the matter. “Strider was in Florida throwing bullpens and feeling good,” said AA. “Again, you’re still far away from rehab games, innings and things like that. Schwellenbach had surgery. I think from a planning standpoint, I don’t think it’d be responsible to say ‘Okay, those guys are going to start 30 games and throw 180 innings,’ right? That’s something we’re definitely going to have to account for and talk about when it comes to where we’re going to get our innings next season.”
“I remember telling Grant Holmes even last offseason at the beginning that how he progresses was going to tell us what his potential role would be. As we sit here today, I don’t think you’re going to see us come in and say that we expect those guys to be locks in the rotation with Sale,” said AA as he continued to explain the situation. “I don’t think that’d be a responsible thing to say. We know what they can be when they’re healthy and they’re right and the upside is off the charts but right now because of the lost years for basically both…we’ll just see how the offseason progresses at this point. It’s not something going into November that we’ll have any clarity on going into next Spring.”
AA also seemed to confirm the idea that Didier Fuentes would be starting games in the future — with the future being 2027 (or whenever the next season is) if his audition for a starting rotation role goes well during spring training. “We view him as a starter long-term,” confirmed AA. “We’ve been consistent with that. We know he can be a great reliever — we just saw it. On the one hand, you have a bird in the hand that you know you’ve got a really impactful bullpen arm that we believe it’s real and that he can continue to do this — health-permitting, of course.”
“Those are things we have to weigh. We think there’s tremendous upside,” continued AA. “It’s nice to know you’ve got an impact arm out of the ‘pen but you also know that there’s tremendous upside. He can put it together as a starter since he’s still so young. The development of both the changeup and the slider are pretty encouraging.”
“What we don’t know is the workload. Can he handle 25-plus starts, 150 innings. All those things, we’ll have to have those conversations. And then, can you do that in ‘27? Are you going to go from 70-plus innings and jump to [a higher workload] and those are all things that we’ll have to talk about.”
The General Manager was really gracious with his time on Sunday, as he took questions for an hour — something that is definitely out of the ordinary. While Anthopoulos has never been shy about sharing his opinions on the team, we were certainly in uncharted territory when it came to this particular press conference. That just goes to show just how intriguing the Braves are at the moment. The current NL East Champions have plenty of questions surrounding them with an uncertain offseason looming. It’ll truly be interesting to see how things shake out for this team going forward — and whether or not we’ll have to wait out a long lockout in order to get questions to those answers. We’ll see what happens.
