I’ve been pulling a lot of “upheaval but it’ll all be okay” cards recently, which I take ominously, but I’ll take it a a good sign that the cards generally have had a positive spin to it. They’ve even
given me The Sun a few times, so I’ll go touch some grass and enjoy Second Summer in the Midwest.
As for the Braves’ season, there was a lot of upheaval, and we hope things will be okay. But it didn’t go that way for 2025.
Now that the season is over, I figured it was time to take a look back at what the tarot cards said at the beginning of the season and see how accurate they were. Preseason comments are in italics.
Chris Sale – Nine of Swords
Welp. Pulled this one out again, and given Sale’s injury history, a season of anguish is probably more likely than a repeat of 2024. Unfortunate.
We’ll say accurateish here. Sale did suffer an injury that kept him to 125 innings and 20/21 starts, but those were very high-quality innings. He was still worth about 3.5 wins, and he had an FIP under 3.00.
Spencer Strider – The Hierophant
We step back into the Major Arcana for Spencer. This one is intriguing because it is less about his performance and more that a teacher will appear that will have a great impact on him. Maybe he will learn a lot from Chris Sale once Sale goes down with whatever horrible thing is going to happen to him.
Uh, well he did have to learn the hard way that it’s not always easy to come back from a major injury. It was a tough season for Spencer – strikeouts went down, walks went up – but hopefully, he learns from it.
Spencer Schwellenbach – Nine of Wands
Another re-pull from the other day (Austin Riley). Spencer is going to have to work this season, and it won’t come easy for him (sophomore slump, hello). But if he sticks with it and grinds through the tough part of it, he will come out so much better on the other side.
Oof yeah, this one tracks.
Reynaldo Lopez – Two of Cups
Sometimes, pulling cards is kind of hilarious. The Two of Cups is a card of romance, and Reynaldo is … married. So hopefully, everything stays good there. Otherwise, it can point to the beginning of a strong friendship, so let’s just hope for the sake of his marriage that he becomes good buddies with someone, maybe Profar.
The only romance or new friendship here was with the Injured List.
AJ Smith-Shawver – The Hierophant
I promise I’m not rigging the results of this. Another re-pull within the post, literally almost anyone could become a teacher for AJ because … he’s a rookie, so I’m going with the deck trying to guarantee itself a win here. Cheeky.
Maybe the connection here was with Spencer and all of the other guys on the staff who’ve gone under the knife.
Grant Holmes – Mother of Swords
We finally get one of the family cards. The Mother of Swords is perceptive, but this can tend to go overboard if the one in question doesn’t keep it in check. With Holmes coming off a strong but small sample size season, he’ll need to pay attention to what he’s doing, but if he becomes too critical of his performance, he will struggle due to overanalysis. Just pitch ball, man.
In some ways, this one could’ve been fine. He started off a bit rough, simplified things, and then he got better before he got injured.
Raisel Iglesias – Father of Cups
Just like that, we have another one. The Father of Cups is a bit of a standard-bearer and a man of integrity, but he’s not afraid of being in touch with his feminine side. As the leader of the bullpen, he’ll need to use this to guide the others … mostly because I’m kind of concerned that he’s cooked.
He was not, in fact, cooked, but his results looked like it for a while. By the end of season, the results were much more in-line with his peripherals, and he was the leader of the bullpen.
Dylan Lee – Two of Swords
I’m really annoyed that we keep pulling swords. In this case, Dylan must be facing a situation that he doesn’t actually want to face or address. He must confront this head-on in order to be able to succeed.
Maybe the situation he faced that he didn’t like was just the season, in general. He was really good, yet again, and he looks like a central cog in this bullpen for the foreseeable future.
Pierce Johnson – The Devil
Yikes. Another card from the Major Arcana, pulling this isn’t as dire as it might appear, but it needs to be addressed immediately or disaster will strike. Buddy, if you have some sort of mechanical flaw or working on some pitch, let’s get a move on.
Pierce was fine. The peripherals weren’t great, but the results were just fine. Lots of swords and the devil might’ve just been a fine about the bullpen.
Aaron Bummer – The Hierophant
Haha! The deck is probably like Mark, please stop. Just stop. Listen bro, I’m your teacher. Just stop. I’m tired.
At this point, my assumption is that Sale’s injury leads to him becoming some sort of great teacher or Raisel leans into his Father of Cups. My fear is these guys are gonna end up in some cult.
Eh, I don’t know. Number wasn’t as good a he was the year before, but he was fine.
Daysbel Hernandez – The Sun
Oh yeah, baby. Unequivocal goodness. This is Daysbel’s year.
Lol. Lmao even. The ERA was somehow fine, but he was not good, got sent to the minors, and ultimately ended up on the 60-Day IL.
So we got two strong connections, but the rest were mixed at best, including a couple that were definite misses. I won’t blame the tarot, though.
Let’s just chalk it up to me being a novice at pulling cards.
I’m working on it, though!
