The bad news for the Atlanta Braves is that they lost a tough game to the Mets on Monday evening. It never feels nice to see the Braves lose a game, but it feels extra bad when it is the Mets who can't seem to do anything right. However, the better news is that the Braves currently sit at the top of the National League East at 6-3 in the early going with a 1.5 game lead over the Phillies.
Ultimately, wins and losses are all that really matter in the grand scheme of things and we don't have anywhere near enough games under our belts in 2024 yet to draw too many conclusions about who is good and who is not. However, we can start to identify some trends based on what we have seen thus far to at least keep an eye on going forward.
The early results are in and to the surprise of no one, the Braves' offense is still insane.
MLB Standings by WAR: The Braves offense stands tall early
If we told you before the start of the season that Ronald Acuna Jr. had the ninth best wRC+ on the Braves and didn't have a home run yet, fans would probably be in full panic mode. However, Acuna Jr.'s start hasn't actually been too terrible per se and and his teammates have shown out thus far as they have SEVEN hitters with a wRC+ north of 100 (that is good).
Looking at how the Braves' hitters rank against the rest of the league, Atlanta is still in a tremendous spot through the first couple of weeks on the offensive side of the ball when looking at Fangraphs WAR.
Braves | 3.5 fWAR |
|---|---|
Rangers | 2.9 |
Dodgers | 2.8 |
Brewers | 2.8 |
Yankees | 2.5 |
Padres | 2.4 |
Again, the Braves being the top offense by Fangraphs WAR shouldn't be all that surprising. However, what is more surprising is that Orlando Arcia has the highest WAR amongst them right not at 0.8 fWAR while Ronald Acuna Jr. only has 0.1 fWAR so far. Arcia's start probably isn't sustainable, but opposing teams aren't going to be able to hold Ronald down forever, either. For those that prefer to not look at WAR, the Braves are also #1 in team OPS, wRC+, and wOBA. Basically if it has to do with 2024 offense, the Braves are at or near the top once again.
The Rangers, Dodgers, and Yankees all make sense here. They all have top end offensive talent that has performed well to start the season with the Rangers and Dodgers carrying over strong offenses from last season and the Yankees added Juan Soto who, as it turns out, is pretty good at baseball. The Brewers and Padres are more surprising and their offenses have been fueled by hot starts from Brice Turang and Jake Cronenworth respectively.
Turning our attention to the National League East shows an even bigger gap than the one in the actual standings through Tuesday, April 9th.
NL East Standings by WAR: The Braves' offense is best and it isn't close
Braves | 3.5 fWAR |
|---|---|
Nationals | 1.1 |
Phillies | 0.5 |
Mets | -0.3 |
Marlins | -1.4 |
Obviously from this table, Atlanta's offense is the class of the division by a WIDE margin. What is strange is to see the Nationals in the second spot. The Phillies, as painful as it is to say out loud, are clearly the second best team in the NL East. However, they have had a terrible start to the 2024 season on the offensive end and Washington has been weirdly passable with Ildemaro Vargas, CJ Abrams, and Luis Garcia Jr. off to good starts. The Mets' offense will be better than what they have shown, but clearly lag behind Atlanta and the Marlins are on track to be one of the worst teams in recent baseball memory.
Again, there is more to winning baseball games than offense alone. The Padres had the sixth ranked offense by fWAR in 2023 and didn't even make the playoffs. However, it does appear as though that the Braves' offense is picking up right where it left off last year and we haven't even seen the best out of guys like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Sean Murphy yet.