There are a number of Atlanta Braves players that have been disappointing this season. Ozzie Albies and Raisel Iglesias were terrible in the first half, Austin Riley struggled before he got hurt, and any number of injured Braves pitchers could be on the list as well. However, one name that does stick out is Michael Harris II whose inconsistency has been infuriating.
Aside from around six weeks after the All-Star break where he was the best hitter in baseball, Harris has been supremely disappointing after such a promising start to his career. Across 627 plate appearances as of September 24, Harris has only managed a .246/.266/.404 line. While Harris is very close to posting a 20/20 season, that is little consolation when the rest of his production has been so lackluster.
However, when Bleacher Report named Harris the "worst" player on the Braves recently, that doesn't feel completely fair even though Harris' season has left a lot to be desired.
Michael Harris II has not been good, but he is not the worst Braves player
In fairness to B/R's Kerry Miller here, they did go on to explain that this wasn't an examination of each team's roster and sorting by WAR or anything like that. Instead, their subjective criteria was more based on expectations of players coming into the season and identifying those that were the most disappointing in matching those expectations. When you look at it that way, Harris has an extremely strong case.
However, it just feels like the title of "worst" player is a little misleading. Braves fans almost certainly prefer having Harris around versus say Alex Verdugo who gave Atlanta 213 bad plate appearances and then we have Nick Allen and his strong defense, but truly terrible 52 wRC+ in 411 plate appearances before the Braves went out and go Ha-Seong Kim. That isn't even accounting for some of the truly awful arms that Atlanta has trotted out this season.
Is calling Harris the Braves' worst player fair? No, it isn't. That said, Miller is completely correct that expectations on Harris were very high given how he had been trending only to crater for most of the 2025 season. One hopes that he can turn things around next season, otherwise the Braves are going to have bigger problems than baseball writers saying mean things about him.