Despite a roster stripped of stars through injury, including the 2023 NL MVP and last year’s only 20-game winner and Cy Young favorite, Brian Snitker has the Atlanta Braves on the doorstep of their seventh consecutive postseason and should win NL Manager of the Year. Of course, the loudest Twitter-critters disagree.
The Braves under Brian Snitker are nothing but missed opportunities. 4 NLDS losses, missing the playoffs after being projected the most wins in baseball, a million games lost because he can’t manage a bullpen. He has not once taken responsibility for any of this shit
— Chase From Braves Country (@cm_wde) September 21, 2024
That evaluation ignores so much it’s impossible to address, but there’s no doubt that Snitker kept a team that could easily have been a .500 club in striking distance of the playoffs.
Slump and injuries created roster chaos, but the Braves are knocking on the door again anyways
It didn’t take long for things to begin to go wrong. Seven innings into the first game, Sean Murphy left the game and didn’t return for two months. A week later, Spencer Strider’s UCL gave up, and a battery the team planned to lean on was gone; then things got worse. By the middle of May, Snitker may have made his first stop every morning the trainer's office for a damage report.
- On April 16, Ozzie Albies went on the IL with a broken toe and missed ten days.
- On May 13, Austin Riley went on the IL with a strained oblique and missed 14 days. Zack Short and Luke Williams took over at third.
- On May 25, Ronald Acuña Jr. suffered a torn ACL in his left knee, ending his season.
- On June 6, Michael Harris II strained his left hamstring and didn’t return until August 14.
- On July 21, Max Fried went on the 15-day IL with a left forearm strain.
- On July 22, A fastball hit Albies and fractured his left wrist, forcing him onto the IL for 58 days.
- On August 5, Reynaldo Lopez went on the 15-day IL with a right forearm strain.
- On August 20, a fastball hit Riley’s wrist, breaking it and ending his season.
- On September 11, Lopez went on the IL with a right should strain. If all goes well, he’ll return on September 29.
Even the best farm system in the league can’t adequately replace that level of talent. To make things worse, the rest of the team was in a slump. Without the heroics of Marcell Ozuna, the Braves would find themselves fighting with the Nationals for third place…or worse.
Offense, what offense?
After having the NL’s third-ranked offense in April, the team’s .772 OPS dropped 100 points in May, sank to 14th in May, and remained 30 points below the league until August.
Jarred Kelenic’s bat vanished; he is what he was in Seattle, a glove-first fourth outfielder. Adam Duvall proved once again he was past his peak two years ago. Sean Murphy hasn’t hit at all, and like Kelenic, Orlando Arcia is what he’s always been, a glove-first bench bat on a good team.
Matt Olson had an awful start but recovered after the All-Star break, but it took the addition of three players designated for assignment at least once this season - Ramon Laureano, Gio Urshela, and Whit Merrifield, and the return of Harris that the offense became a thing again.
The offense ranks
- Eight in the NL with 101 wRC+ - every challenging team and the Cubs are higher – and 16th in MLB, tied with Oakland.
- Seventh in the NL with a .315 wOBA – every challenging team is higher – and 12th in MLB, behind the Twins.
Twitter-critters screamed that Brian Snitker shouldn’t have played the slumping players, never mind that he had no one else to play, and managed to win a higher percentage (.706 W’/L%, 12-5) of extra innings games than every NL team except the Padres.