2020 Atlanta Braves: Four lessons learned

3.  Star Power Matters

This may sound a bit “Captain Obvious,” but hang with it for a bit.  There’s a reason great players have gotten to the level considered ‘great’.  It’s because they are the ones who step up and bring their superior performance every day.

They are also the players that other teams circle on the lineup card and say ‘we can’t let this guy beat us.’  Despite that, the best ones — the true stars — will beat you anyway.

I don’t think I have to go through the heroics of Mookie Betts and Corey Seager from last week.  If either one weren’t playing for the Dodgers, then Atlanta would be in the World Series.

Heck, even in a battle of “our star” vs. “their star”, Freddie Freeman hit a homer that might have decided a game… except that it was Betts who turned it into an out.

If you go through the chronicles and rosters of World Series-winning teams, you don’t find lists of role players.  You will almost always find multiple future Hall of Fame-level talents among them.

Note that word ‘multiple’:  one guy isn’t going to be enough… just ask Mike Trout if you think I’m overstating that case.

This 2020 Atlanta Braves team, as constituted, is nearly there.  To return to that plateau — particularly in this new era of player movement and financial uncertainty — will be difficult, but it’s still a club that can see the summit from where they stand, and it will take another star to get there — whether we’re talking about a position player or a pitcher.

Is that star named “Marcell Ozuna” or “Trevor Bauer” or the equivalent?  Maybe, but what we are really talking about someone not just “filling a hole” but a player who does so with the kind of skill level that makes opponents sit up and take notice.

The Dodgers had that kind of roster.  The Braves also had that kind of roster and took the Dodgers to the brink.  To get back there will require that same kind of financial commitment from the team that was made in 2020.

P.S. – this is also why I believe the Dodgers will win the World Series in no more than 5 games — despite a lot of pundit prognostications out there that are either picking the Rays or forecasting a 7 game series.