For the Atlanta Braves, 2025 was an avalanche of disappointment.
Entering the season on a seven-year playoff streak, the Braves were considered championship contenders, the National League’s best chance to topple the heavyweight Dodgers. With a strong core of experienced position players, the reigning NL Cy Young in Chris Sale and two superstars returning from injury in Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider, Atlanta began the season with a 93.4% playoff odds, according to FanGraphs.
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Instead, a depleted and injury-plagued Braves club cruised to a shocking 76-86 record and fourth-place finish in an NL East loss.
Fortunately, the autopsy is quite simple. Key sales and rotation piece Spencer Schwellenbach both spent extended periods on the IL. The same was true for third baseman Austin Riley, who underperformed when available. Strider looked rusty and out of sync in his return from Tommy John. Mainstays such as Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, Marcel Ozuna and Sean Murphy have all struggled offensively. The emergence of Drake Baldwin as NL Rookie of the Year was an invigorating development, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the simple fact that too many important players were spending too much time watching baseball instead of playing it.
But the future at Truist Park is not lost.
Because as disappointing as last season was for Atlanta, the club’s front office went about its business this winter like a team fully expecting to compete in 2026. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos is clearly treating 2025 as an incident, an aberration, a fluke. With the new year still a week away, Atlanta’s big boss has arguably done more to strengthen his roster than any other executive.
The Braves have signed six MLB free agents, a total that ranks them second so far this offseason behind the Cubs. To this sextet, Atlanta guaranteed over $106 millionthe fifth largest expenditure on Tuesday. The spending itself isn’t particularly shocking — the Braves have consistently been a top-10 under Anthopoulos — but the team’s unabashed aggressiveness is a reminder that the Braves are still a formidable presence in the National League.
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To be fair, none of Atlanta’s additions were big enough to warrant an in-person press conference to unveil the jersey. But the Braves are undoubtedly a better, more complete and deeper team than they were two months ago.
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Former Padres closer Robert Suárez was probably the most recent acquisition, with the flamethrower soon to be 35 years old. join for three-year, $45 million contract. It’s a long commitment for a reliever approaching his golden years in baseball, but Suárez still throws absolute gas and has been one of the league’s most reliable farmhands over the past few years. His 76 saves since the start of 2024 are the most in baseball.
But don’t expect that number to rise much further, as Suárez won’t start the year as Atlanta closes in. That’s because the Braves also re-signed longtime closer Raisel Iglesias, on a one-year, $16 million contract. He will continue to take care of the ninth and new skipper Walt Weiss will deploy Suárez in the role of Swiss army knife, fireman. Veterans Joel Payamps and Danny Young also signed one-year deals to bolster a bullpen that finished 19th in baseball with a 4.19 ERA in 2025.
Anthopoulos and Co. also took care of renovating the offensive side. Last November, Atlanta made a one-on-one deal with Houston, acquiring utility man Mauricio Dubón in exchange for defensive wizard Nick Allen. Dubón is not a particularly good hitter, but he offers great defensive versatility and is a perfectly competent bat. The Braves followed that deal with two more notable signings, shortstop Ha-Seong Kim and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski.
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Kim spent the final month of 2025 with the Braves after the club claimed him off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays. The move was driven by the hope that Kim would not activate his opt-out and that Atlanta would have itself an everyday shortstop for 2026. Instead, the Korean glover decided to test free agencya smart decision in the end. Kim, who was due to receive $16 million, ended up in Atlanta with a one-year, $20 million contract.
It’s a significant investment for a player who has been both injured and ill in 2025, but Kim has been an average hitter in the big leagues for most of his career while providing ample value at the toughest spot in the game. For the Braves, whose shortstops finished dead last in baseball a year ago, with a putrid 56 wRC+, it’s a price worth paying.
Yastrzemski, who signed a two-year, $23 million contract, is an unspectacular but remarkably consistent corner outfielder. The 35-year-old was worth at least 2.0 bWAR in each of his seven big league seasons and has a career .809 OPS against right-handed pitchers. Although he will likely face most left-handed starters, Yaz will provide depth in the corners behind Acuña and Jurickson Profar while mixing in at designated hitter.
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The fact that Atlanta has DH bats to distribute is a development in itself. Since Opening Day 2023, Marcell Ozuna has started 445 of Atlanta’s 502 games, including the playoffs. Now a free agent for the first time in his career, Ozuna usually hit enough to warrant clogging up the Braves’ DH spot. But at this point, a reunion seems unlikely, as the Braves can use this space to cycle through Yastrzemski, Profar and whoever won’t be present that day (Murphy or Baldwin).
While Opening Day is still three months away, the Braves appear to be just about done with offseason business. Anthopoulos added a pair of everyday bats, a valuable utility guy, two high-leverage relievers and potentially useful pitching depth. Atlanta could enter the season with its current assortment of baseball players, and prognosticators and projection systems would view this as a playoff team.
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But if the Braves want to push the issue, there’s still one area ripe for making a splash: the starting rotation. Sale, now fully healthy, will lead the line as he prepares to enter free agency at the end of the season. Behind him are Strider (looking to return to pre-surgery form), Schwellenbach (missed the final months of ’25 with a broken elbow), Reynaldo Lopez (made just one start in ’25 before undergoing shoulder surgery) and youngster Hurston Waldrep (impressed in a nine-start sample but still unproven). Grant Holmes, Bryce Elder and Didier Fuentes follow as depth options.
If things go well, this is a really interesting group with a lot of upside. This is also a group that has proven particularly susceptible to the injury bug. This is what derailed Atlanta’s plans last season, and the same thing could easily happen again.
To reduce that possibility, the Braves could add an additional impact starter to the group. Such a decision, taking into account the organization’s intermediate agricultural system, would probably have to come via free agency. Atlanta has already exceeded the luxury tax by about $6 million, according to Spotrac. Cashing in for a big arm like Zac Gallen, Tatsuya Imai or Framber Valdez would push the Braves way over the tax, something the organization is wary of doing.
But money is just money, and the Braves can’t afford another disappointing season. They’ve done a good job, so far this winter, of avoiding a repeat of 2025, but another big change could make them a pretty formidable character in 2026.
