Braves Run Out of Time

Before the start of the season, the Atlanta Braves were the consensus choice to win the NL East. Although it’s not unanimous — try getting a few writers to fully agree on something — 22 of 25 FanGraphs writers predicted the Braves will win the division for the seventh straight season. Sportsbooks gave Atlanta odds that had a stated 75-80% chance of winning the division. ZiPS projected the Braves to win more games in the majors and gave them a 63% chance of taking the NL East title. But as we approach the end of the first third of the season, it’s the Philadelphia Phillies at the top of the division with the best record in baseball. The team’s six-game lead over Atlanta isn’t an insurmountable obstacle, but it’s still a comfortable cushion at this point in the season. So, how worried should the Braves be? And how long must they defeat their rivals and keep their streak alive?

Usually, when I discuss the amazing first-place teams at this point in the season, I compare the situation to an imaginary foot race between me and Usain Bolt. It goes without saying that Bolt is a much faster runner than me, to the extent that he could probably beat me in a one-foot jump. But what if he gives me a head start to earn enough income? How far do I have to go to have a chance to catch the fastest man in the world? Uhhh, 10 steps from the finish line when he started running strength do it. Obviously, this isn’t a perfect analogy, because even if Bolt is a Braves running back, I’m not a Phillies. But you get the idea: At some point in the season, the division race becomes a question of time, not talent.

First things first, let’s take a look at the current ZiPS simulated standings, for Thursday night games.

Well, at least if you go by ZiPS’s projections, Atlanta fans aren’t getting the most exciting version of this story. ZiPS still thinks the Braves are the better team, but the margin has dropped significantly. What was a 10-win gap in March has shrunk to just a hair’s breadth with three wins in 162 games (20 points of winning percentage, if that). In fact, the Phillies are now expected to have nearly the same odds of winning the division as the Braves did at the start of the season, despite Atlanta’s aforementioned 10-game limit; as I remind people, the future is almost always more uncertain than you think.

This is actually a long-term change, which also complicates matters for the Braves. Team projections rarely move quickly because, baseball history says they shouldn’t. ZiPS has been doing group projections since 2005. If all you had to go on for the last two-thirds of the season was the team’s preseason projections on ZiPS and the team’s actual record for the first third of the season, it’s a pretty good combination. based on two decades of roughly two-thirds ZiPS projections and one-third actual record.

Cases tell many stories, so let’s start with Philadelphia’s case. Here is the difference between the ZIPS preseason WAR and the final projected WAR right now. The latter contains WAR already in the books and predictions for the entire season. Remember, this already includes all those boring old backsliders looking to say.

That’s eight players expected to finish with at least half as many wins as at the beginning of the season. Castellanos is the only Phillies player whose projected WAR is now half a win, but projection programs aren’t expecting much going into the season. None of the current batsmen are expected to turn the tide at midnight. Even Bohm, ZiPS’s most suspect infielder, is now in the top 10 in projected WAR added in 2025. And it’s no surprise that Harper, Realmuto, Turner (who is currently in IL), and Stott are expected to take care. their strong start.

In terms of pitching, we mentioned that the Phillies will have the best second round in baseball, so their excellence is not surprising. The Philadelphia Stars are rated above some outside question marks and their depth hasn’t really been tested, despite Turner’s injury — and as Jon Becker said in his Tuesday morning column, Turner’s replacements on the roster, Sosa and Kody. Clemens, has been very successful in his absence.

As for the Braves, theirs A false offense is out of force. They rank seventh in the NL in runs scored, which isn’t exactly a disaster, but Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, and Austin Riley have all been just above average for major league hitters this year. Sean Murphy was out with a hamstring injury he suffered on Opening Day, but that didn’t matter much because Travis d’Arnaud was solid as an everyday backstop. Things could be worse right now if not for the performances of d’Arnaud and Marcell Ozuna.

Atlanta’s current place in the standings is the fault of its underperforming stars, not its complementary talent. And that’s what makes it difficult for the Braves to turn things around with a few sales, as they did in 2021 before winning the World Series. It would be one thing if the problem was someone like Orlando Arcia, because the Braves wouldn’t think twice about benching him or trading him for a better shortstop. But when it comes to Acuña, Olson, and Riley, all Atlanta can do is wait for them to build a fire. Adding to this general feeling of helplessness is that the team’s biggest problem on the playing side is Spencer Strider’s season-ending UCL injury. Even if the Braves were to try to make a trade, their farm system is one of the weakest in baseball right now and only a few teams are out of contention. Major reinforcements are not on the way anytime soon.

The good news for Atlanta is that its stars can snap out of their funks at any time, but the longer it takes to turn things around, the more likely the Phillies should be. To get an idea of ​​how much time the Braves have left, I took the current proposed position and found that ZiPS simulated the entire season with both teams posting the same record going forward (for example, I’m going with it. 94 win rate) to see what the odds are how quickly they will change. Not picking up the slack but also losing nothing, Atlanta would slide to two-to-one underdogs on June 10, and to three-to-one on the last day of the month. If this continues until the morning of the trade deadline, the Braves will find themselves with just an 18% projected chance of winning the NL East, while the Phillies’ odds will rise to 81%. (The Mets would still retain a tenth of a percentage point.)

Let’s be clear: Despite the negative outlook for Atlanta, the six-game deficit heading into Merry Day Weekend is not fixable. In fact, the Phillies have the same division now as the Braves did two months ago. That said, for the first time since 2011, the NL East is Philadelphia’s division to lose.