So, it’s May 7 and it’s the day after the Atlanta Braves finally lost their first series of the season. Getting that deep into the season without dropping a season is simply fantastic. I’ve always maintained that you shouldn’t start taking the standings seriously until around Memorial Day but in this case, it’s extremely hard not to take a look at things and get excited about what may lay ahead for the Braves.
As of right now, they’re 8.5 games ahead of both the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia
Phillies and they’re 11 games clear of the New York Mets already, as well. Getting that much of a gap early on against Philadelphia and New York is huge since those two alongside Atlanta figured to be the real contenders for winning the NL East crown this year and also fighting for any potential postseason spot as well. Assuming there isn’t a complete and total reversal of fortunes in the very near future, the Braves should be going into Memorial Day with a comfortable buffer as they head into the Summer stretch of the season.
So what does it mean? Clearly it’s good, as the chatter about the Braves potentially having the NL East title wrapped up already is beginning to start. It’s certainly premature as there’s still over 120 games left to be played in this season and anything can happen in the span of 30 games — much less 30 multiplied by four.
Still, the early signs are certainly encouraging and indicative of a team that didn’t just get hot early — this team might be here to stay for the whole season.
- The Braves currently have a run differential of +79 and an Expected Win/Loss and Pythagorean W-L record record of 27-11. Nobody else in the NL East has a positive run differential and everybody else is still under .500. Plus, the Phillies are actually overperforming their current record of 17-20 by two games, according to X-W/L.
- The venue hasn’t mattered. Atlanta’s 12-6 at home and 14-6 on the road, which is certainly a positive sign in its own right.
- The projection models also think that the Braves are for real. PECOTA has given them a 96 percent chance of making the Postseason with a 77 percent shot at winning the division. Baseball-Reference has Atlanta at 93 percent to make the playoffs with an 97 percent shot to take the divisional crown. FanGraphs has the Braves at an 81 percent chance of getting back on top of the NL East with a 95 percent shot of making the Postseason. Again, this is all dynamic based on how the team is playing but as long as there isn’t some sort of ridiculous drop-off, this is a very, very nice place to be in at the moment.
- As Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection model indicated in the linked article above, this isn’t as if it’s a case of a lot of players doing stuff that’s unsustainable. While the pitching might be punching a bit above its weight at the moment, a lot of the contributions that they’ve been getting from the guys at the plate appear to be for real and in line with what’s on the back of their respective baseball cards, so to speak.
From Szymborki’s article:
Of all major league hitters currently projected to get plate appearances over the rest of the season, the Braves have nine of the top 100 [hitters], more than you would expect from random chance. Only three players — Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Mike Yastrzemski — have taken big hits, but they are still projected to be real contributors, though I’m a bit worried about Riley personally.
- It’s still relatively early but Matt Olson appears primed to break his pattern of having a great season in odd years and a relatively disappointing season in even years. He will shortly clear his 2024 season in terms of fWAR production (he’s already at 2.3 fWAR through 38 games — he produced 2.6 throughout the entirety of the 2024 season!) and if he keeps this up, he will also clear what he did in 2022 (3.1 fWAR) as well. If this ends up being at or near a career year for Olson, that would be huge for the Braves. In fact, his 2026 Statcast metrics look very, very similar (and slightly better) to what he did during that amazing 2023 season of his. Watch out!
- It also helps that Ozzie Albies is on track for his best season since 2023 (he’s already cleared his fWAR production in 2026 (1.6 so far) for both the past two seasons (1.3 each), Drake Baldwin appears to be on track for establishing himself as an elite-hitting catcher in baseball and the changes that Michael Harris II made in the second half of his topsy-turvy 2025 season appear to have stuck around as well. Maurico Dubón’s plate production has also been a very pleasant surprise.
- As mentioned above, the Braves have gotten this far with Austin Riley being mediocre at best, Ronald Acuña Jr. performing below his superstar standards, missing Sean Murphy for all but three games and still not having Ha-Seong Kim play a single game. There’s a decent chance that we still haven’t seen the Braves lineup perform at full-strength, which is a frightening thought for the rest of baseball.
- We’re starting to see the pitching fall off but Bryce Elder being for real is a major bonus. JR Ritchie potentially being a regular productive contributor would be huge as well. Walt Weiss’s management of the pitching staff going forward is going to be crucial when it comes to determining just how successful this team can be going forward.
So basically, there’s a lot to love about how this season has started for the Atlanta Braves. I think we’re all smart enough to realize that the division ain’t over yet — not while the Phillies are attempting to ride this “new manager bounce” until the wheels fall off. There’s a lot of time between now and October but with what they’ve done already, the Braves are in a very good position to make sure that they will be playing once October rolls around. The standards are high around here and it appears that the team is back to meeting those standards, so far.
