Braves
Not much has gone right for the Braves. Lacking
Ronald Acuña Jr. and
Spencer Strider at the outset of the season, now without
Jurickson Profar and
Chris Sale, and with a slew of other injuries (
Reynaldo López and
AJ Smith-Shawver) and some underperformances (
Ozzie Albies and
Michael Harris II in particular) along the way, they’ve never found a groove for very long. Yet their defense has been excellent.
Their catchers didn’t crack the top three in any of the metrics, but veteran
Sean Murphy and rookie
Drake Baldwin are both above average across the board, and on pretty even footing relative to one another.
Matt Olson leads all first basemen in both DRS (12, one run shy of last year’s majors-leading total) and FRV (6). He’s played every single inning for the team at first base since the start of the 2024 season — and right now it’s paid off, as his offense has rebounded and he’s already matched last year’s 2.6 WAR.
Nick Allen, who supplanted
Orlando Arcia at shortstop, is the position’s co-leader in FRV (10) and is second only to
Taylor Walls in DRS (9); even with a 69 wRC+ to date, he’s totaled 1.1 WAR. Harris is tied for fourth in DRS among center fielders (9) and tied for fifth in FRV (7), but for as strong as those numbers are, his 50 wRC+ (!) has dragged his WAR below zero (-0.3).
Spencer Schwellenbach is tied with former teammate
Max Fried for the major league lead in DRS among pitchers (6).