Despite a return to the playoffs this season, vibes around the Atlanta Braves are very low right now. Multiple players that the Braves were relying on to be stars (Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Spencer Strider, to name a few) are trending in the wrong direction and dealing with various injury issues, and the team's roster feels like it needs an overhaul and not just a fresh coat of paint. That has unfortunately led to a lot of hostility from fans towards Alex Anthopoulos and the Braves' front office.
While much of that hostility is ridiculous and misplaced, Anthopoulos has earned a bit of vitriol the last few years. If you win a World Series, expectations for both on-field results and the team's aggressiveness in free agency and the trade market go way up. Unfortunately, the Braves have won only one postseason series since that World Series win, and it has felt like Atlanta consistently does the bare minimum when it comes to roster reinforcements.
In short, the Braves' front office has seen much of their former shine wear off after three difficult seasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Atlanta is in a worse position than the rest of the NL East.
Ranking the NL East front offices from worst to best
One thing that is abundantly clear is that the NL East has gotten significantly weaker overall. Aside from the Braves' struggles, the two other "main" division contenders, the Mets and Phillies, have their own problems. While some of those problems have been outside of anyone's control, there is also a pretty strong argument that the collective decline of most (but not all) of the NL East front offices has played a big role in the division's weakening.
5. Mets
At this point, it doesn't matter how smart David Stearns looked while running the Brewers. If a team has a top-2 payroll for all three years of a front office's tenure and has somehow gotten WORSE each year, that is on the team's leadership. Stearns inherited some terrible contracts, to be sure, but there is no reasonable argument that this front office has made anything better. Stearns also made an obvious misstep in letting Pete Alonso walk without a fight. Right now, the Mets are just a very expensive mess.
4. Marlins
Evaluating the Marlins front office is tricky, because so much of what causes Miami's struggles is a symptom of cheap ownership and a lack of a viable fanbase. The Marlins’ president of baseball operations, Peter Bendix, appears to be very smart and capable, but most of the improvements he has made have been on the fringes of the roster. Their current minor league depth is questionable, and while the big league team is better, it is hard to give Bendix much credit yet. That said, it wouldn't be crazy if Miami's front office shoots up these rankings in a couple of years if Bendix can stitch together an actual contender.
3. Phillies
Dave Dombrowski is a Hall of Fame executive based on his résumé, but his presence always comes with a catch. If you have a team that has prospect depth in its farm system and just needs to make a few key moves to get over the hump, Dombrowski is the guy you want. However, his method of emptying the talent pipeline to acquire stars via trade has a pretty short shelf life. One needs only to look at the rest of his career to see a trail of teams Dombrowski hollowed out after having initial success. The Phillies appear to be on a very similar path, although they do at least have some interesting prospects in the minors right now. That said, that could just mean that Dombrowski will try to trade them away, too.
2. Nationals
The Nationals' youth movement in their front office and on the field is making real noise right now. Their offense was one of the best in baseball this year, and the Nationals have several intriguing arms in the minor leagues preparing to reinforce the big league roster once Washington emerges from their rebuild. President of baseball operations Paul Toboni and general manager Ani Kilambi are pressing most of the right buttons so far, and the Nationals look like a team that could break out at any moment. If Washington were considered the top front office in the NL East by the start of the 2027 season, it wouldn't be much of an upset.
1. Braves
Yes, we still put the Braves in the top spot, but much of that is due to the rest of the division struggling and not because of recent improvements or successes in Atlanta. The Braves don't make the level of splashy offseason moves that the Dodgers and Mets do, but they also have continued to make steady payroll increases each year and make moves that make sense in the moment (for the most part). Even when the farm system wasn't particularly highly ranked, Atlanta has continued to promote valuable contributors to the big leagues (Drake Baldwin, Michael Harris II, Didier Fuentes). They are far from perfect, and they could easily lose the top spot without a good offseason, but the Braves remain on top for now.
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