During Wednesday night’s win for the Atlanta Braves over the Miami Marlins, it was certainly interesting to see one of this team’s strategies successfully work out when it came to dealing with Eury Pérez. Two moments in particular came to mind.
The first one happened in the second inning. After Ozzie Albies coaxed a walk out of Pérez, he took off on a 1-0 pitch where he more-than-likely would’ve taken second base on the steal. Fortunately, Mauricio Dubón got something he wanted to hit and he shot
it up the middle for a base hit and Atlanta had runners on the corners with one out.
The hit-and-run touched off a big inning for the Braves where they plated three runs and they weren’t done there. Following an RBI single in the third inning to make it 4-0 at that point, Dubón took his chance on a pitch and ended up easily stealing second base. The stolen base didn’t ignite a rally like Ozzie Albies’ running play in the previous inning but it put pressure on Pérez, who was already laboring heavily at that point in the contest.
The fact that the Braves knew that they’d be able to run on Eury Pérez isn’t the interesting part here. After all, teams have been running on Pérez all season — Pérez has a Net Bases Prevented number of -13, as opposing teams have stolen 17 bases on him compared to three caught stealings and he’s surrendered 18 Base Advances allowed so far. Teams have recognized that as long as Pérez is going to employ a big ol’ leg kick while pitching with runners on base, they may as well take advantage of it. The Braves did so during on Wednesday night.
What’s interesting is the fact that the Braves were able to be successful on the base paths in the first place. Baserunning has been something of a point of emphasis for Walt Weiss and the Atlanta Braves since he took the helms from Brian Snitker last offseason. There was certainly room for improvement for Atlanta, as they had been one of the worst teams in baseball when it came to baserunning production for the past couple of seasons. In 2024, the Braves finished with the fifth-worst number in Baserunning Runs according to Statcast as they finished with -8 on the season. The number actually got better for Atlanta in 2025 (-4) but they were unable to keep up with the rest of baseball and ended up in a tie for 22nd in Baserunning Runs.
There was a clear mandate from Walt Weiss’s hiring and the addition of first base coach Antoan Richardson that Atlanta had to improve on the base paths. Sure enough, we’ve arrived in August and the Braves have made a steady rate of improvement. While they may not be an elite baserunning team so far this season, they have taken a decent-sized leap to at least being middle-of-the-road. Heading into action here on August 6, the Braves are tied for 12th in Baserunning Runs and have a value of 1 in the Baserunning Runs department. For the first time since 2023, Atlanta is on track to have a positive season in terms of Baserunning Runs. Release the confetti, y’all.
While the baserunning overall has improved, the base stealing still isn’t where it needs to be at in order to satisfy what Weiss and Richardson would surely prefer. Atlanta is currently tied for 21st in Net Bases Gained via stolen bases, as they’re currently sitting on -8 for the season. That might seem underwhelming (and there’s still plenty of room for improvement, sure) but they have taken a bit of a leap when compared to the all-around woeful baserunning stats that this team had over the past couple of seasons.
Atlanta finished the 2025 season in 24th place when it came to Net Bases Gained, as they finished with a pretty bad -17 number in that category. It was even worse in 2024, as they finished next-to-last with -32 Net Bases Gained. It’s not what you want to see and while you could argue that injuries may have played a role in wreaking havoc on Atlanta’s running game, it’s still pretty wild to see that much of a dropoff from where they were in 2023.
Where it gets really interesting is seeing where the biggest changes have come from on an individual basis. Bringing in Mauricio Dubón and Mike Yastrzemski has been a positive and you can say what you want about Austin Riley lately but he’s definitely improved his baserunning lately. It’ll be very interesting to see how they make up for Jorge Mateo’s absence and we’ll see if Lane Thomas can be able to pick up the slack in his absence.
However, the biggest improvement has come from (wait for it) Matt Olson. Now granted, Olson is still not going to be a great baserunner due to his, um, lack of quickness but he’s at least taken a leap from being a serious liability on the basepaths to just a slight one. Olson was responsible for -4 baserunning runs in 2025 — that number has gone up to -1. That’s something! Drake Baldwin has also made a slight improvement in that department as well, though similarly to Olson, he’s gone from being a liability to simply being able to hold his own.
(Note: This isn’t the best example of Olson’s improvements since it’s such a wacky play. I just wanted to include the wacky play.)
What’s a bit concerning is that guys like Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies haven’t exactly been burning it up out there and Ronald Acuña Jr. appears to be turning into being simply an average baserunner, which is to be expected after all of those lower body injuries. The Braves are going to need those guys to bounce back and get back cooking on the basepaths again if they really want to get to being a truly dangerous team while on the run.
Still, the improvements are there, even if they aren’t stark. Plus, we haven’t seen a lot of the weird gaffes that we saw while Antoan Richardson and co. were getting used to things in their new environment. Wednesday night was a small example of the process starting to pay off for Atlanta when it comes to their baserunning. Atlanta isn’t an elite running team at the moment but they’re improving and if you want an example of Antoan Richardson’s impact, just go look at how the Mets are doing in baserunning now compared to when he was there. Hoo boy.
