When your favorite team’s season concludes, there are always mixed feelings. This is especially true if they come up short of expectations, whether it’s from the players themselves or the fan base. To quote Bartlett Giamatti from “ The Green Fields Of The Mind”: “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”
The Atlanta Braves have such a passionate fan base. They invest their time, money, and emotions for months at a time in their team, filling the 41,084 seats at Truist Park and enjoying the Battery’s concourse night after night. But when the season ends without the Commissioner’s Trophy, gloom can overshadow positivity. It would be easy to sit here and write another article about what went wrong for the Atlanta Braves in the 2024 season, but what can’t be pushed aside is what can be built on for 2025.
Positive Takeaways from the Braves 2024 Season
Pitching
Chris Sale’s Incredible Season
It’s not every offseason that a team can acquire the National League’s Triple Crown winner. For a single prospect, no less. That’s exactly what Alex Anthopoulos pulled off last winter.
Your National League Pitching Triple Crown winner: Chris Sale ? pic.twitter.com/QHWz7CahpD
— MLB (@MLB) October 1, 2024
Also becoming the first left-hander in Braves history to record 200 strikeouts, Chris Sale will enter the 2025 season as the number one or number two starter in the rotation, depending on the status of Spencer Strider, who was the Opening Day starter for Atlanta this season. There was discourse about Sale when his lingering back spasm injury kept him off the mound in some pivotal games at the end of the season. However, you can’t ignore the fact that without Sale, the Braves wouldn’t have even been in the playoff picture. Atlanta went 21-8 when Sale took the mound this season.
In Anthopoulos’s exit interview with the media on Friday, he put some clarification on Sale’s status heading into the offseason.
“We just got beat”
Anthopoulos provides insight on Chris Sale? pic.twitter.com/sj9nQ35Wd4
— Bally Sports South (@BallySportsSO) October 4, 2024
So having a healthy Chris Sale going into the 2025 season is definitely going to be a net positive for Atlanta.
Spencer Schwellenbach’s Promising Rookie Season
Braves fans have seen homegrown starting pitching not really work out recently. From Kyle Wright to Mike Soroka in the past couple of years, and even this season with Hurston Waldrep, things have not gone smoothly. But down in Double-A, the Braves had a hidden gem. Only pitching 110 professional innings between Low-A and Double-A, the Braves front office believed they saw something special in the 24-year-old Spencer Schwellenbach. He made his debut on May 29 against the Washington Nationals and eventually made an important start against the New York Mets for a chance at a Wild Card berth. Quite a story for Schwellenbach this season. Finishing the year 8-7 with a 3.35 ERA in 21 appearances, he has shown that he will have a spot in next year’s rotation. He will become rather important next season with the presumed departure of Max Fried this offseason.
Reynaldo López’s Return To The Starting Role
Reynaldo López put together a great 2024 season, making his return to the Braves starting rotation. This signing from last year’s offseason seems to be another Anthopoulos masterpiece. Signing López to a three-year, $33 million contract seems like a steal for a starting pitcher who finished the season with a 1.99 ERA in 135 2/3 innings. He was even willing to pitch out of the bullpen in the final game of the season to help Atlanta clinch a playoff berth. With another looming question about Charlie Morton‘s future in retirement, López will be the presumed number three starter in the rotation. He will look to build off his impressive season in 2025.
A Locked-Up Bullpen
The Braves finished third in team bullpen ERA in the 2024 regular season. Raisel Iglesias put together one of the most dominant seasons we’ve seen from a Braves closer in a long time, finishing the season with a 1.95 ERA and 34 saves. Iglesias even threw in a historic stretch of 35 consecutive batters retired, the longest streak in the Expansion Era (since 1961) for Atlanta. Along with his impressive season, you also had big-time contributions from Joe Jiménez, Dylan Lee, Pierce Johnson, Aaron Bummer, and even journeyman Grant Holmes. All these players are locked into the 2025 season and will be looking forward to building another impressive campaign. The question for the bullpen next year will be, can the Braves re-sign veteran A.J. Minter?
2025
The Braves will be going into 2025 with a lot to be happy about when it comes to the pitching side of things. Hopefully, Ronald Acuña Jr. will be ready for the start of the season, along with other players who were missed this season: Spencer Strider and Austin Riley. Braves fans should be excited about 2025 even with another disappointing postseason in 2024. They will be back to being the Atlanta Braves that baseball fans know as a powerhouse.
Photo Credit: © Jordan Godfree-Imagn Images
