Atlanta Braves: Player Stock Report and Expected Trends Entering May

Heath Foster | May 6, 2024

ATL Braves | 2024

Some context

History tells us that teams produce a record-setting season because multiple players have a career year, and that’s exactly what happened for the Atlanta Braves in 2023.

Ronald Acuña Jr. was on base 41.6% of the time, drove in 106 runs, and, for the first time in his career, finished the season with a .337 average, leading to 170 wRC+ and a 9.0 fWAR season.

Austin Riley virtually duplicated his 2022 season, batting .281/.345/.516/.861 with 127 wRC+, launching 37 homers, and 5.0 fWAR.

Matt Olson led the league with 54 homers and pushed his average over .267 for the first time to end the year with a .283/.389/.604/.963 line, 160 wRC+ and 5.5 fWAR.

After beginning the season batting a paltry line of .073/.190/.200 and .390 OPS with an 8 wRC+ in April, Marcell Ozuna bounced back to crush 40 homers and bat .297/.366/.603 with a .969 OPS and 156 wRC+ from May through the end of the year good for 3.1 fWAR from the DH slot.

However, what goes up must come down; even superstars regress to a degree while continuing to play a notch higher than everyone else.

Acuña finished April hitting .246 with one home run and 35 strikeouts in 131 plate appearances. Including March, the reigning National League MVP slogged through arguably the second poorest month of his career.

Riley popped but two home runs, tying for his career-low output for a full month of play, with a .365 slugging percentage. His career average is .503. March/April was in contention for his poorest month ever.

After launching a team record and MLB-best 54 home runs last year – one every 13.3 plate appearances – Olson finished April with three home runs, one every 41 plate appearances. It possibly was the least productive month of his career.

And yet, with the players who finished third, fourth, and 14th in MLB in slugging percentage last season scuffling, the Braves finished April leading baseball in runs scored per game, held up by the likes of Marcell Ozuna, Travis d’Arnaud, and Ozzie Albies.

I expect everyone to end the season with numbers close to the back of their baseball card. However, the Braves must get more from the top of the lineup soon, or the season could slip away from them rapidly.

Here’s the stock report on the whole team and some key Braves entering May.

ATL Braves | 2024

Hot starts haven’t carried

Let’s start with the basics. To win a game of baseball you have to score runs. To score runs you have to hit the ball and get on base.

The Braves still rank fourth in MLB with a .742 OPS, but their .579 OPS in the past 15 days is third-lowest.

The Braves had one-third as many homers as the Dodgers (21) in the same number of games over the past 15 days, startling even considering the Braves faced strong pitching against Cleveland, Seattle, and the Dodgers in that span.

On-base plus slugging (OPS) is calculated as the sum of a player's on-base and slugging percentages. The ability of a player both to get on base and to hit for power, two important offensive skills, are represented. An OPS of .800 or higher in MLB puts the player in the upper echelon of hitters. Typically, the league leader in OPS will score near, and sometimes above, the 1.000 mark.

ATL Braves | 2024

Power but no results

Despite ranking at the top of the league in hard-hit percent and average exit velocity, three homers on the west-coast trip continued a trend for the Braves, who tied an MLB single-season record with 307 homers in 2023 but are tied for 18th with 32 in 32 games this season.

In the past 15 days, the Braves are dead last — 30th of 30 teams — with seven homers in 13 games, and tied for 27th in runs with 42. Matt Olson hasn’t homered since April 7, and homers Friday by Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. were the first for Riley since April 7 and just the second overall for Acuña.

ATL Braves | 2024

Contact Quality

The Braves rank right alongside the “dominant” offenses of Philly, Milwaukee, and Boston, but they specifically find themselves in elite company with Baltimore and LA whose results have underachieved compared to their quality of contact in the hitter’s box. Despite the offensive dry spell and overall offense being down league-wide, Braves fans can find some solace in their team being unlucky to this point. That luck tends to even out over a 162-game season, so hold on just a little longer for these bats to wake up.

Expected Weighted On-Base Average on Contact measures a hitter's expected performance based solely on the quality of contact they make, specifically focusing on balls that are put in play (i.e., excluding walks and strikeouts). Essentially, it provides insight into a hitter's ability to generate productive outcomes when they make contact with the ball.

ATL Braves | 2024

Walks and Strikeouts

Despite losing flame thrower and NL Cy Young favorite, Spencer Strider, the Braves have shown an ability to overpower opposing batters while maintaining precise command of the strike zone. Their high K percent (thank you Chris Sale and A.J. Minter) showcases their collective ability to generate swings and misses.

While the bullpen carried this club for the first 10 days of the season, it’s been the starters of late who have shut opposing offenses down (save Elder against the Dodgers... who could’ve seen that one coming). As long as this staff continues to limit free passes, they should be all right.

xFIP adjusts a pitcher's ERA to focus on their performance in strikeouts, walks, and home runs, providing a more accurate measure of their skill level. SIERA goes further by considering additional factors like ground ball rate and batted ball quality to offer a comprehensive evaluation of a pitcher's performance beyond traditional stats.

ATL Braves | 2024

xFIP and SIERA

Chris Sale and Reynaldo Lopéz have been sensational as free-agent pickups and have made up for some of the loss of Spencer Strider. A.J. has been up to his usual tricks despite a rough outing against the Mariners, and Joe Jiménez and Pierce Johnson have also been dominant out of the bullpen.

This Braves’ staff is deeper than it has been since perhaps the 90s, although recent injuries to Pierce Johnson (15-day IL) and 2021 hero, Tyler Matzek (15-day IL), will test this rotation and bullpen even further.

The Braves recalled Jackson Stephens (RHP) and Ray Kerr (LHP) from Triple-A Gwinett to fill out the roster.

Max fried

Welcome Back, Maximus

SP | LHP

4.02 ERA

3.52 FIP

0.5 fWAR

31.1 IP

19.4 K%

8.5 BB%

67.0 GB%

Reynaldo López has been the Braves’ surprising best starter through April, but the veteran lefty Max Fried finished the month with a flourish. After posting a shocking 18.00 ERA in his first two starts and a .329 opponents average through four starts, the perennial Cy Young Award contender has looked like himself in his past two starts. Fried pitched a three-hit, nine-inning shutout in 92 pitches with no walks against the Marlins on April 23 for his third career Maddux, then went six hitless and scoreless innings Monday at Seattle, when he exited only because his pitch count already was at 100. Fried has given up just three hits and two walks with 13 strikeouts in 15 scoreless innings over those past two starts while lowering his ERA from 7.71 to 4.02. His next test comes against a flaming Dodgers offense.

ERA and xERA

With co-ace Spencer Strider out for the year after receiving a UCL internal brace procedure, all eyes turned to Max Fried to once again lead the Braves' pitching rotation. While his first two starts were wildly out of character, Fried recovered nicely, and his xERA after four starts puts him in the sub-3 category - where the elite lefty has lived for years.

xFIP and SIERA

Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA) takes into account factors such as ground ball rate, fly ball distance, and batted ball type, providing a more comprehensive evaluation of a pitcher's performance by incorporating the quality of contact they allow. Max Fried pitches to weak contact rather than for strikeouts and his high groundball rate and low quality contact against is highlighted here.

Max Fried | SP

contact efficiency

Fried possesses a diverse arsenal of pitches, including a sinking fastball, curveball, slider, changeup, and occasional cutter. This legitimate five-pitch mix enables him to keep hitters guessing and effectively attack batters in a variety of ways.

His hard-hit percentage ranks in the top 3% of the league and his average exit velocity against places him in the top 3%, demonstrating his mastery in suppressing the quality of contact made by batters Despite a brutal start to the season, he’s settling back down into the Ace role he’s owned in Atlanta since 2018.

Max Fried | SP

Ground Ball

MAestro

Max Fried has established himself as a standout groundball pitcher, consistently inducing weak contact and keeping opposing hitters off balance with his sinking fastball and sharp breaking pitches. His ability to generate ground balls at a high rate not only limits the damage from extra-base hits but also keeps runners off base, contributing to his success on the mound.

While pitching to contact has its drawbacks, especially without defensive shifts allowed, Fried can still be as dominant as ever.

Ground balls are typically listed with launch angles of <10˚, line drives of 10-25˚, and fly balls of >25˚. While those who keep the ball on the ground may not be WHIP stars, they throw attractive-looking pitches that batters are likely to make poor contact with by targeting their weak spots in the zone. Max Fried is remarkable at inducing weak contact and relying on the infield (or his own gold glove) to make plays.

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Max Fried | SP

Max fried the fish

Fried needed only 92 pitches to throw the third nine-inning complete game of his career, all of which have been of the Maddux variety — nine-inning shutouts in less than 100 pitches, so named for the legendary former Braves pitcher, who threw 10 such games in his Hall of Fame career.

Fried threw 69 strikes in 92 pitches — four fewer than he threw in five innings of his previous start last Wednesday at Houston, where he gave up seven hits, four walks and three runs.

Marcell Ozuna

The Big Bear Goes Big Fly

DH

186 wRC+

.403 OBP

.624 SLG

9 HR

32 RBI

15 BB

23 SO

It says plenty for how searing-hot Ozuna’s bat was for the first three weeks of the season that he could hit a modest .268 with two homers and a .488 slugging percentage in the final 12 games of the month and still enter May with an NL-leading .636 slugging percentage, to go with a .327 average and 1.036 OPS. Ozuna began May with his third hitless game in the past four and his ninth consecutive homerless game but remained the MLB leader with 32 RBIs and ranked third in homers (9). Pretty spectacular redemption story for a guy who many thought would’ve been cut by this time last year.

Marcell Ozuna | DH

A position

to stay

Several teams believe the DH position is best served by rotating position players to give them a rest while keeping their bats in the lineup. However, there are a couple of DHs who show having a full-time slugger in that role may be the best option. Case in point: Marcell Ozuna of the Braves. Ozuna is batting .330 with ten home runs and a majors-leading .650 slugging percentage.

The Big Bear has shown the most impressive batting resurgence in recent history after a dismal 2022 campaign that bled into the start of 2023.

Data from Baseball Savant. Numbers in red signify rankings in the top percentiles of the leagues whereas the blue represents the lowest. What Ozuna lacks in speed, he makes up for in obliterating baseballs.

Hard Hit Rate is the percentage of balls hit 95+ mph. Barrel rate is the percentage of batted balls with similar hit types in exit velocity and a launch angle that has led to a minimum . 500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage. The batted ball requires an exit velocity of 98 miles per hour to be barreled.

Marcell Ozuna | DH

swamp donkeys

Marcell Ozuna ranks in the top 7% of the league for xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, barrel %, hard hit %, and sweet spot %. No baseball is safe right now from the big-swinging righty despite a slowing in production over the last two weeks. When he’s making contact, which is very often, mind you, the ball’s going a long way. He’s on pace to reach 51 home runs, easily breaking his record of 40 from last season.

He’s carried this lethargic Braves offense all year. Let’s see how long this ride can last.

Marcell Ozuna | DH

heightened pitch recognition

Marcell Ozuna is one of the best players in baseball at getting his hands inside and turning on an inside pitch (bottom-left zones). His league-leading 10 home runs aren’t a huge surprise due to that massive level of power.

However, this season, Ozuna has made contact at a significantly higher clip, driving the ball the opposite way for singles and taking his walks. The result: a league-leading 33 RBIs. A new level of production has been unlocked for the Braves’ DH.

Batter Run Value gives different weights to ABs depending on the ball count, outs, and runners on base. If a player hits better in less valuable situations but struggles in more valuable ones his BRV will suffer. Marcell Ozuna has been incredible this season hitting .357 with RISP and .315 with runners on base.

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Marcell Ozuna | DH

Big Bear big fly

The big key to Ozuna’s bounce-back seasons has been going back to crushing fastballs. He posted a .454 xwOBA against them in 2023, after two seasons of average-y, .375ish xwOBA production. Beyond that, there’s not much to point to in terms of a dramatic turnaround — there were no huge changes in his swing or contact rates relative to his struggle seasons. He actually made more contact in the zone, not too much overall, but something somewhat contrary to what you’d expect given how the Braves have found success. Instead, he just went back to hitting the ball even harder than before, and that seems to have made much of the difference.

Joe Jiménez

The Night Shift’s New Righty

RP | RHP

2.08 ERA

1.60 FIP

0.5 fWAR

13 IP

26.0 K%

4.0 BB%

52.9 GB%

The setup man’s 2.25 ERA is the lowest among six Braves relievers who’ve made 10 or more appearances. Jiménez’s expected ERA, per Statcast, is 1.25, which ranked in the 99th percentile of MLB relievers entering May. He was in the 90th percentile or higher in 10 of 12 Statcast stats at Baseball Savant, including a .166 expected batting average, significantly lower than his actual .200 average allowed. Two of three earned runs against Jiménez came in the eighth inning Saturday against the Cleveland Guardians, whose three hits against him in the inning were on two mis-hit balls and a bunt — three balls that each had an exit velocity of 31 mph or below. He had an 0.90 ERA in 10 appearances before that. It’s scary for the league that his peripherals are even better than he’s performing now.

ERA and xERA

An ERA of 1.98, and his even more impressive xERA of 1.19, underscores Jiménez’s ability to consistently outperform statistical expectations. His remarkable performance in bridging the gap between the starting pitcher and closer Raisel Iglesias has proven invaluable to the Braves' success, providing stability and reliability in crucial late-game situations.

xFIP and SIERA

With his ability to consistently shut down opposing offenses, Jimenez has emerged as a pivotal figure in solidifying the Braves' bullpen and bolstering their chances of holding the other team. He ranks among the best in terms of xFIP and SIERA, metrics that help determine the most skilled pitchers regardless of fielding and hitting.

Joe Jiménez | RHP

Dominant despite

some bad luck

Negative Run Values signify the offense consistently having a worse chance to score due to a player’s play. If a pitcher is the result of a sluggish offense, that is great. If a hitter is responsible, that’s bad. Joe Jiménez is one of the best this year, garnering low-to-negative across nearly every zone.

Jimenez signed a three-year, $26 million contract extension with Atlanta following an excellent 2023 campaign which saw him collect a 3.04 ERA and 73:14 K:BB over 56.1 innings.

In 2024, he’s been the best setup man for the Braves, dominating all 14 zones with his heavy slider and forcing batters to reach off the plate with a 34% chase rate. His only blunders have come on exceptionally weak contact against him (bottom/top right zones, off the plate), a case of bad luck for the righty.

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Chris Sale

The Vintage Lanky-Lefty is Back

SP | LHP

3.44 ERA

3.00 FIP

0.8 fWAR

36.2 IP

29.0 K%

4.8 BB%

49.5 GB%

He’s not just meeting or surpassing expectations on the mound, the lanky left-hander is also a strong presence in the clubhouse and a fiery competitor whom teammates say they love playing behind. Sale’s streak of three games with seven innings pitched in each ended Wednesday at Seattle, but he impressed again, limiting the Mariners to one run and six hits in five innings, with no walks and a season-high nine strikeouts. He trimmed his ERA to 3.44, and Sale has had just one bad game — five runs allowed in seven innings at Miami. In his other five outings, the 35-year-old is 4-0 with a 2.92 ERA and has 15 strikeouts with one walk and two runs allowed in 12 innings over his past two starts against a pair of first-place teams, Cleveland and Seattle.

Sale dominant

Once one of the game’s most dominant pitchers, the guy with the funky motion and nasty stuff, Sale managed just 31 starts over the past four seasons, spending far more time in the training room than he did on the mound.

Desperate for starting pitching, the Braves decided to take a chance on the 35-year-old left-hander, acquiring him from the Red Sox in late December for prospect Vaughn Grissom.

So far, so good.

Sale (3-1) allowed just two hits over seven innings in a 6-2 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night — marking the third start in a row that he’s gone that far.

Chris Sale | SP

Ozzie Albies

The Switch Hitting Wizard

2B

-2 OAA

.392 OBP

.500 SLG

2 HR

18 RBI

6 BB

14 SO

The second baseman was hitting .317 with a .878 OPS before breaking his right big toe when hit by a pitch on April 15 in Houston. Albies went on the injured list and returned in the minimum 10 days — without a rehab assignment — and has proceeded to go 9-for-25 with four doubles and four RBIs in six games, including three multi-hit games. Albies had a single, walk, and run scored in Wednesday’s 5-2 win at Seattle and extended his hitting streak to a career-best 14 games. Among NL second basemen, he leads with 18 RBIs in just 21 games and ranks second with 11 extra-base hits in nearly 50 percent fewer plate appearances than the leader, Ketel Marte (15).

Ronald Acuña JR.

The King’s Crown is Falling

RF

-1 OAA

.368 OBP

.322 SLG

1 HR

13 SB

18 BB

38 SO

The reigning NL MVP is hitting .252 with one homer and a .690 OPS in 29 games, after .337 with 41 homers and a 1.012 OPS in 2023. Acuña went 4-for-33 with one extra-base hit (double) and 13 strikeouts in the last eight games of April, and he had two singles Wednesday at Seattle for his first multihit game since April 21. He also had three strikeouts to continue an alarming trend: Multiple strikeouts in five consecutive games, and 12 multi-strikeout games this season, after he had 10 multi-strikeout games in all of 2023. Acuña has more three-strikeout games in the past four days (three) than he had last season (two) and entered May with a 30.7 whiff rate that would be the highest of his career. His strikeout percentage increase of 15.3 percent is the highest year-over-year jump among MLB qualifiers, after Acuńa had the highest year-over-year decrease last season when he went from 23.6 percent to 11.4. This season, he was at 26.7 percent before Wednesday.

ATL Braves | 2024

What’s happened to the mvp?

It feels like the top of the Atlanta Braves lineup is experiencing a crash instead of regression. No one is more important to the lineup right now than the igniter known as Ronald Acuña Jr, the electric Venezuelan outfielder who had baseball’s first-ever 40-homerun 70-steal season last year.

Last season, Acuña swung at pitches at virtually the same rate while he dropped his K-rate from an average of 25.3% to 11.4%, cut popups from 8.2% to 4.7%, saw his hard-hit rate jump from 42% to 46%, and his HR/FB rate jump from 21.9% to 24%.

Today, Acuña has the highest GB rate (54.2%) and popup rate (18.8%) of his career. Simply put, his timing’s off; he’s either ahead or behind the pitch which means he isn’t barreling the ball as often, something confirmed by a 45% drop in barrel rate. He’s striking out at almost his career average and walking slightly more, perhaps because he’s trying to be more selective.

Ronald Acuña Jr. | RF

Dissapated Power

Acuña led the NL with a 169 OPS+ in 2023, and had 156 and 158 OPS+, respectively, in the pandemic-shortened 2020 and injury-shortened 2021, when he had season-ending knee surgery in July that slowed him throughout the next season as well. He came back with a vengeance in 2023, better than ever.

In 2024, RAJ looks like a completely different player. All of his expected batting stats are significantly lower than last year with his strikeout rate up 16% and whiff rate up 12%, the largest changes in MLB year-over-year.

Strikeouts Way Up

batting stats way down

Ronald Acuña Jr. | RF

Acuña is batting .258 with a .719 OPS and 39 strikeouts with 18 walks in 30 games. He entered Friday with a 98 OPS+, making him a below-league-average player, which would’ve seemed unfathomable entering the season, even for 30 games. He had 13 strikeouts in 23 at-bats over his past five games before Friday, when he struck out once to end a streak of five multi-strikeout games. Again, that would’ve been hard to believe last year when his dramatically reduced strikeout rate had much to do with his career-best stats across the board.

He’s almost halfway to his strikeout total from 2023 when he had 84 with 80 walks in 159 games. Not only has Acuña been late on high-velocity fastballs this season, but he also fouled off or missed sliders over the plate, another pitch he punished a year ago. His chase rate outside the zone isn’t up, but his whiff rate has soared — from a career-low 18.7 last season to 31.3 before Friday, which would be the highest of his career.

Data from Baseball Savant. Numbers in red signify rankings in the top percentiles of the leagues whereas the blue represents the lowest.

Ronald Acuña Jr. | RF

Redemption

on the Way?

He was hitless with a walk Sunday, but Acuña had five hits in the first two games of the Dodgers series and is 7-for-17 with a double, homer, and two RBIs in his past four games after going 7-for-42 with one extra-base hit and no RBIs in the previous 11.

This season, he’s barely resembled the electrifying leadoff menace he was to opposing pitchers a year ago. But it’s early, and no one has any doubt he’ll break out soon and start doing Acuña things — as he did in the eighth inning when he unloaded on a Daniel Hudson full-count fastball at the top of the zone, the kind of pitch he’s missed so frequently this season. Acuña is still playing like a prototypical leadoff man with the league lead in runs scored (31) and tied for second in stolen bases (14), but the power tool has seemingly disappeared for now hindering his value.

Acuña is facing a different approach from pitchers this year. He's seeing a lot more fastballs, with opponents trying to elevate the ball and avoid giving him pitches to drive. The challenge for him is to demonstrate adaptability – to show he can adjust, lay off tough pitches, and foul off challenging ones. Ronald is in that phase right now, but considering their track record and talent, players like him are bound to succeed eventually.

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Matt Olson

Frustration at the Warning Track

1B

-1 OAA

.206 BA

.383 SLG

3 HR

16 RBI

16 BB

33 SO

The Braves cleanup hitter hasn’t homered in 21 games, and he’s 5-for-49 (.102) with one extra-base hit and five RBIs in his past 15 games. After leading the majors with 54 homers and 139 RBIs in 2023 while batting a career-best .283 with a .993 OPS, Olson has three homers and 16 RBIs this season and is hitting .206 with a .706 OPS. He still ranks among MLB leaders in hard-hit rate and has had several balls caught at the warning track in recent weeks (seriously, someone check these baseballs). But Olson has not put together a productive stretch since the second week of the season and hasn’t had a multi-RBI game since April 5. He has two multi-RBI games in 29 games, after 36 such games in 2023.

ATL Braves | 2024

The Cracks in Matt’s bat

Matt Olson’s peripherals aren’t that different from last year. He’s seeing slightly more fastballs and cutters and a few more off-speed pitches, but not enough to call a trend yet. He’s swinging at a touch more pitches out of the zone, but not as many (- 4%) in the zone; combined, they add up to the same swing rate as last year.

At first glance, his BABIP looks low, and it is, but it’s also the same as his career average. His K-rate is up a bit but matches his .267/.351/.545.896 line of 2019. Mat’s walking more than his career average but not as much as last year, which, I suspect, is because pitchers wanted nothing to do with him last year.

If you look only at the bars on Statcast, you wouldn’t think Matt was slumping.

Olson’s a couple of line drives away from being his old self; I hope those come soon.

Data from Baseball Savant. Numbers in red signify rankings in the top percentiles of the leagues whereas the blue represents the lowest.

MATT OLSON | 1B

bad luck in the

heart of the plate

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Olson has shown a substantial disparity between his wOBA and xwOBA over the plate. This indicates that he is consistently making quality contact with little outcome to show for it and his offensive potential exceeds his actual production.

Some of the balls hit over the middle of the plate should start falling for Olson soon or leaving the park. A BRV of almost all negatives over the plate isn’t what the first baseman had in mind this year, and he’s far too talented to keep it that way.

MATT OLSON | 1B

Power Present

Matt Olson continues to blister baseballs with nothing to show for it. He ranks at the top of the league in average exit velocity (94.5 mph) and hard-hit rate (57.4%) with an optimal line-drive launch angle of 15.2˚. Long-term, the hits should follow, especially as the weather warms up and the balls start to fly further in the summer months.

It looks like he’s a swing or two away from breaking this slump away, but the .197 batting average speaks plenty for itself. There’s still lots of work to be done.

Austin Riley

Extreme of the Gambler’s Fallacy

3B

1 OAA

.235 BA

.387 SLG

2 HR

16 RBI

11 BB

33 SO

Another Braves slugger who, like Olson, hadn’t homered since April 7 until the Dodgers series. Riley has been the victim of plenty of bad luck on a slew of hard-hit balls lately, and after getting two hits including a two-run triple in Wednesday’s win at Seattle, the Braves and their slugging third baseman hope his fortunes are changing. It was his first multi-RBI game since April 9, and Riley hit .182 with one extra-base hit, four RBIs, and 20 strikeouts in the final 18 games of April. After batting .286 with a .585 slugging percentage during 2021-2023 while averaging 36 homers annually, Riley is hitting .235 with two homers and a .387 slugging percentage through 29 games.

ATL Braves | 2024

Is aUstin Riley Slumping?

Yes, he is, but once again, Statcast gives good reason to think that could end at any time. However, he is struggling with pitch recognition.

He’s not connecting with fastballs, but it’s the same rate as last year; it’s off-speed pitches including changeups, curveballs, and sliders (pitches down and away) that are giving him fits, so pitchers are using them more often.

When he first came up, his swings at sliders reminded me of Jeff Francoeur. Braves hitting coach, Kevin Seitzer, helped him work through that, so I suspect they’re looking at the video to see what’s changed. His late-inning line drive and opposite-field hitting looked like a sign he was – is - close to being back.

Strike zones made on Baseball Savant with its data.

Austin Riley | 3B

Due for a

big one

Austin Riley just won’t stop smacking the daylights out of baseballs. The problem is, they keep finding gloves instead of seats over the outfield wall.

Riley's raw metrics were disappointing in April, but his xwOBA of .343, along with good average exit velocity, barrel percentage, and hard-hit rate indicated that luck will go his way soon. Riley's .235 average, .311 on-base percentage, 99 wRC+, and the mark of two home runs so far this season is not up to his standard, but there is still a ton of time for him to perform to expectations. The advanced metrics indicate that happening.

ATL Braves | 2024

Consider this: In the past two seasons, there have been 13 players who finished the season with a hard-hit rate of 50% or better and a launch angle of 12 degrees or higher (including Olson both years). All 13 had a slugging percentage of .424 or higher, eight were .500 or better and five slugged .604 or better. Olson, who is at .383, seems due for a correction.

A similar bump would seem impending for Riley and his slugging percentage of .387, whose career slugging percentage is .503.

The case is more peculiar for Acuña, who through Wednesday was hitting .252 and slugging .322. His career rates are .290 and .528, respectively.

Through Wednesday’s game, he was recording barrels at an 7.8% rate, well below his career average of 14.3%.

His strikeout rate was 27.9%, more than double his 11.4% from last year and above his career average of 22.2%.

verdict on

the big three

Olson and Riley’s numbers indicate that they’re largely suffering from bad luck. According to Fangraphs, Riley’s barrel percentage (a barrel is a ball hit with exit velocity and launch angle comparable to hit types that have resulted in a batting average of at least .500 and a slugging percentage of 1.500) actually is a tick higher than last season (14% to 13.9%), and his hard-hit percentage (balls hit with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph) also is higher than 2023 (50% to 48.8%), when he ranked top 10 in the National League in home runs, total bases, slugging percentage, run and hits.

Olson’s barrel percentage is slightly lower than his rate from last season (16.4% down to 13.3%), but his hard-hit percentage (58.7%) ranked third in baseball after Wednesday’s games.

In short, he has been putting the ball in play less frequently than normal and not hitting it as solidly when he has. He also has hit fly balls far less than he has in his career to this point.

The prevailing thought has been that he is trying to regain his timing after he missed time during spring training to care for soreness in his surgically repaired right knee.

Whatever the reason, he certainly would seem a player worth waiting to come around. The power decline and the strikeout rate are confounding, but this might be encouraging to Braves fans: His BABIP (batting average on balls in play, if you must ask) was .368 through Wednesday. That’s well above his career average (.335) and his average from his MVP season a year ago (.338).

If that sounded like I’m more concerned about Acuña than Olson and Riley, you read it correctly. Timing is hard to fix. If your internal clock is a couple of ticks behind, there’s no way to easily sync it up.

ATL Braves | 2024

Further, there is some data, along with anecdotal evidence, to suggest that the ball isn’t as lively as it was last year.

For example, on fly balls hit with a launch angle between 25 and 35 degrees with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph, 10.4% were projected to have traveled 425 feet or more, according to Statcast.

It was 12.7% in March/April last year and 16.4% in March/April in 2019, the year when four teams surpassed the previous MLB record for home runs in a season.

The Braves have also scored more runs to this point in the season through 29 games than they did a year ago, and they’ve done so by hitting 16 fewer home runs, despite slower starts from the big three in their lineup. The Braves are still scoring runs at a high clip, and they’ll start scoring even more runs when they get hot, and it will happen sooner rather than later.

CONTd on

the big three

The Atlanta Braves lineup is almost unstoppable when Ronnie is hot and if he gets on base, he either steals a base or scores a run. Others step in and bridge the gap the best they can when he isn't hitting but the 2021 miracle aside, the World Series is only really likely with Acuña being Acuña, especially without Spencer Strider to steer this pitching staff alongside Max Fried.

Either way, Acuña, Riley and Olson aren’t the only players struggling.

Overall, the MLB slugging percentage through April 30 was .385, which was 20 points lower than the average for March/April in 2023 and also the second lowest since 1992.

Despite their early-season struggles, the Atlanta Braves remain one of the strongest teams in the league. Their pitching staff is dominant, and despite underlying concerns for the 2023 NL MVP, Oslon and Riley should get going any day now. Perhaps, against a Red Sox team this week.

That’s a lot of numbers to digest.

TLDR: Despite their early-season struggles, the Atlanta Braves remain one of the strongest teams in the league. Their pitching staff is dominant and Acuña, Riley, and Olson probably all just need a little more time. I’m not quite ready to frantically mash the panic button.