So...what are y'all's best overall theories as to what's happened (and why) in both the micro and the macro, to our braves since our world series run?

I do think player leadership has played a role here and there, but it probably has more to do with losing key personnel. Wash and EY were brutal losses for a lot of these guys. And Snit - he’s still revered, but he’s just an old dude now. He’s not going to win you games with sharp decisions, which only compounds an already massive problem.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Nothing. They got better and better until last year when injuries hit. Now, the window is closing thanks to fast declines and a tightening payroll.
Click to expand...
I think the front office thought for some odd reason that no one was going to regress and everyone was going to stay healthy. Some of the regression has been steeper than anticipated, but that's the biggest reason. I think some thought 2023 was going to be the norm instead of what looks to be a bit of an aberration.

Injuries to key guys hasn't helped and organizational depth on the offensive side of the ledger is miserable. I'm starting to question the international approach because the high-bonus guys are being out-played by the low-bonus guys. Maybe that changes with Tornes.

Anthopoulos rolled extremely hot dice at the deadline in 2021 and everyone he acquired contributed big-time to the playoff run. I don't think the playoffs are a complete crap shoot, but Soler and Rosario got hot at the right time and there was enough pitching to piece together the win.
 
I think I have the solution.

We shouldn't play on Sundays (3-10), or Wednesdays. (3-9)
or day games (11-17)

We shouldnt play against the NL West (8-20)
or on national television (9-20)

We shouldnt play in 1-run games (11-20),
or 2-run games (3-8)

If we can avoid all of that moving forward, we'll be just fine.
 
Braves won 100+ games first two years after world series

They made playoffs last year despite injuries to two best players

They are having across the board down year this year which happens when guys get off to slow starts and start pressing.

I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.
 
I do think Harris and Albies have a better 2nd half and Profar gives us a good boost going forward. If Harris and Albies can turn things around then the whole season turns around.
 
chop2chip said:
Braves won 100+ games first two years after world series

They made playoffs last year despite injuries to two best players

They are having across the board down year this year which happens when guys get off to slow starts and start pressing.

I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.
Click to expand...
It usually isn’t, but people need to rationalize by attributing blame to this or that.
 
My thoughts are it has something to do with this: https://www.batterypower.com/2025/7/1/24459491/atlanta-braves-analysis-offense-lineup-aggressiveness

The new hitting coach is teaching a more patient approach, and some of the players following that approach are not better for it. If that's the case, it should be up to him to realize that and adjust the approach to fit the player...especially someone as completely lost as Harris.

This also got me thinking about why the offense tended to be so feast or famine in the past. If the approach of the entire offense is "guess what pitch is coming and hammer mistakes", then when they come across a pitcher who isn't executing or isn't prepared to exploit the hitters' aggression, the Braves offense opens a 2023-style can of whoop-ass on them. However, when a pitcher is executing, and is exploiting that aggressiveness, the offense vanishes because there are fewer mistakes to guess right on and punish. Since those types of games tend to be pitched more often in October, the Braves "guess and destroy mistakes" offense is easier to silence. As the league has understood more about their approach, they have learned to use that aggressiveness against them since 2023.

Someone has been saying it for a while..."the league adjusted to these hitters and they haven't been able to adjust back".

So the plan was to teach the Braves hitters to hit less like cavemen with clubs, and more like Chipper Jones..."professional hitters". Problem is, most of these guys aren't taking to that approach well at all, and the result is a lineup that can't even punish mistakes like they used to. The Hyers experiment was likely doomed based on the skillsets of the hitters on the roster.
 
Enscheff said:
My thoughts are it has something to do with this: https://www.batterypower.com/2025/7/1/24459491/atlanta-braves-analysis-offense-lineup-aggressiveness

The new hitting coach is teaching a more patient approach, and some of the players following that approach are not better for it. If that's the case, it should be up to him to realize that and adjust the approach to fit the player...especially someone as completely lost as Harris.

This also got me thinking about why the offense tended to be so feast or famine in the past. If the approach of the entire offense is "guess what pitch is coming and hammer mistakes", then when they come across a pitcher who isn't executing or isn't prepared to exploit the hitters' aggression, the Braves offense opens a 2023-style can of whoop-ass on them. However, when a pitcher is executing, and is exploiting that aggressiveness, the offense vanishes because there are fewer mistakes to guess right on and punish. Since those types of games tend to be pitched more often in October, the Braves "guess and destroy mistakes" offense is easier to silence. As the league has understood more about their approach, they have learned to use that aggressiveness against them since 2023.

Someone has been saying it for a while..."the league adjusted to these hitters and they haven't been able to adjust back".

So the plan was to teach the Braves hitters to hit less like cavemen with clubs, and more like Chipper Jones..."professional hitters". Problem is, most of these guys aren't taking to that approach well at all, and the result is a lineup that can't even punish mistakes like they used to. The Hyers experiment was likely doomed based on the skillsets of the hitters on the roster.
Click to expand...
This, in a nutshell, is my theory.

Having said that, and I could be wrong, but I don’t remember the pre-2024 Braves being as chase happy as you’re implying. Aggressive on pitches in the zone, yes. But I recall them getting their share of walks too.
 
The article I linked goes into just how aggressive they were.

They are swinging less now, and not doing damage when they do swing. At least previously they were doing damage when they guessed right. Now they aren't doing any damage ever...they're just terrible at all times.
 
Enscheff said:
The article I linked goes into just how aggressive they were.

They are swinging less now, and not doing damage when they do swing. At least previously they were doing damage when they guessed right. Now they aren't doing any damage ever...they're just terrible at all times.
Click to expand...
Before the fact and after the fact, what do you think about us having let Kevin Seitzer go?

Feels like the sorta overriding logic at the time was a cross between scapegoating and Kevin having dug his own grave by admitting that the dudes weren't listening to him.

But I'm just like... at the risk of being obvious, it's really difficult / next to impossible for me to put that on him, at all.
 
Mrs. Meta said:
Before the fact and after the fact, what do you think about us having let Kevin Seitzer go?

Feels like the sorta overriding logic at the time was a cross between scapegoating and Kevin having dug his own grave by admitting that the dudes weren't listening to him.

But I'm just like... at the risk of being obvious, it's really difficult / next to impossible for me to put that on him, at all.
Click to expand...
I recall Enscheff echoed mine and others here that firing Seitzer didn’t really make any sense, and felt like a knee-jerk reaction.

I also said that I didn’t think hitting coaches at the MLB level mattered as much as people made it out. Hyers and the results of a clear philosophy change has me questioning myself. Of course, Hyers is also not preaching anything that the front office isn’t signing off on either.
 
I juat think the decision to pay for what you will do and not what you have done has bit this team hard in the ass. They have let too much talent exit in four years. We have about 4-6 guys on the big club that shouldn't be. AA's hands may be tied, maybe not, but this is inexcusable in a year where you host the ASG.
 
Mrs. Meta said:
Before the fact and after the fact, what do you think about us having let Kevin Seitzer go?

Feels like the sorta overriding logic at the time was a cross between scapegoating and Kevin having dug his own grave by admitting that the dudes weren't listening to him.

But I'm just like... at the risk of being obvious, it's really difficult / next to impossible for me to put that on him, at all.
Click to expand...
Failure on sports teams is always blamed on leadership in the following order: coaches, manager, GM. First the underlings are scapegoated. Then the manager gets scapegoated if the team doesn't improve. Then, finally, the GM takes the fall if the team still doesn't win.

So while it's possibly true that Seitzer "lost the players", his teachings obviously weren't the problem as evidenced by the horrible Braves offense this year and Seattle's #6 offense in terms of wRC+.

Player accountability comes from the manager. Guys obviously enjoy playing for grandpa because grandpa doesn't make them clean their rooms or finish their dinner. After firing the hitting coach and the 3rd base coach the next scapegoat in line is Snit, and he is very clearly a problem....maybe not THE problem, but certainly a problem.
 
The problem has to be with the coaching staff based on how systemic the problems are. We're not talking about the wheels coming off for one guy, something that happens. We're talking about multiple former all stars sharply declining at ages they shouldn't be declining. You have to pay that at the feet of the coaching staff. Something isn't working.
 
I think a lot of players have gotten injured, some have regressed to the means, others are not playing as well - either because it is a down year, or perhaps because they are in decline.

The Braves financial picture obviously does not allow for expensing the seemingly infinite resources of a club like the Dodgers. Somewhere in there is a payroll restraint in the long or short term that makes the front office unable to simply spend to cover areas of weakness.

There may be a solid case that they didn't do as well on margins as they could have, but the scale of the Dodgers spending may have really upset their plans.

But I'm guessing it was combination of that and long range budgeting concerns.
 
The problems that caused this.


1. The goal is to make money not win games. I dont mean this in terms of payroll. Ww should all be happy with where payroll is. I mean this in that they didnt sell last year when Acuna/Strider went down. Selling would have tanked ticket sales and so much of their financial strategy is contingent on people going to the games. We could have got under the luxury cap. Traded Fried instead of getting the 300th pick in the draft. Minter, Iglesias, and Ozuna we could have gotten good value for.


2. The manager is an idiot. Being a likeable coach to the players only works if they respect you. Which they clearly dont. We should be at the forefront of innovation not whatever Snit does. I am a manager defender because every fanbase thinks they have the worst manager but Snit needs to go.


3. Cockiness of the front office. Every fan could see we needed another SP. Atleast a back end guy like Quintana for depth. And I defended them on that. I thought surely they know something we dont. It likely doesnt save our season but I think having Grant Holmes in the pen early in the year would have made a big difference. I will also add AA got burned by letting players go who we still have team control over. Yates last year was phenomenal after we declined his option. Would have been a huge bargain. Then this last year we never even made an offer to Morton who wanted to stay. He started ruff but has been great recently. 2.30 ERA last 30 days. Also we could have had Laureano for 1 year 7.5 million. Great low risk deal knowing we were starting without Acuna and he can fill in at CF. Canning also had a good year with the Mets until injury but I dont know if that was something the Mets changed that worked for him.


4. Trying to build a perennial contender rather than trying to maximize championship potential years. Lesser market teams have to build up to being contenders. We dont sit at the big boy table in MLB but we are on the high end of that next tier. And what I mean by this is we are afraid of making long term contracts unless they are extremely team friendly. Some people look at what Fried is doing in NY and wonder why we didnt want him. We never had any doubt he would be good in the first few years of the contract. Its years 6 through 8 we didnt want to risk. And frankly I dont give a shit about 6 years from now. I look at the players we let go and I wonder where the team would be if we just kept/resigned what we had with the exception of the Soler trade because we couldnt keep him and Ozuna. Soler has sucked so keeping him wasnt the right move but I pointed out in the offseason we should trade Ozuna because he might get old fast. Others pointed out his dramatic drop in power late last year. Anyways, if we had the right combination of guys we just didnt keep the right ones. So imagine we sign Fried 8 years 225 million, Morton 1 year 15 million, and kept Laureano and Canning. I assume no Profar since we spent a lot of money there. So we go into Spring training with an abundance of starters. Sale/Fried/SS/Lopez/Morton with Holmes/Canning in the pen and AJSS at AAA. Lopez obviously still goes down. Maybe they handle the situation differently if we had other rotation options and try to lessen the load on his shoulder by going back to the pen, but lets assume he is still out. AJSS likely gets the call seeing as he started the year in Atlanta. Morton probably still shits the bed. They might give him until Strider was ready. I assume Iglesias still shits the bed but I think he just got swept up by the vortex of suck that was the early season team. I think Holmes takes over the closer role here. Canning may be gone from a roster crunch when Morton has to go to the pen. Laureano fills in for Acuna in RF until he comes back. Then he plays LF and CF. Would have been a massive upgrade. Even then with all the injuries the rotation would still be good and we would be looking at getting Sale/SS/Lopez all back just before the playoffs and be in a much better situation going into next year still having Fried.
 
The loss of Freeman
The loss of Ron Washington
All mid season moves not being jackpot winners like in 2021
Some bad luck in injuries
And the ball not being juiced like it was in 2023 (Until we played the Phillies in the playoffs)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top