For the Atlanta Braves, the 2025 season is a disasterpiece. Last season had its share of disappointments, but the long stretches of middling play still left the Braves in a playoff spot by the tiniest of margins. After 2024, it was reasonable to stay the course; no need to smash the red panic button like an unsupervised child in an elevator. This time around, however, the Braves are likely to finish the season with somewhere around 90 losses, making simply battening down the hatches and waiting for sunnier weather a lot riskier of a strategy. I cranked up ZiPS to see how much tinkering the computer thinks Atlanta needs to do in order to compete in 2026.

The Good

On the plus side, the Braves aren’t trying to build a winning team out of nothing. Much of the offensive core remains intact and is actually functioning quite well. Ronald Acuña Jr. has made a successful return from a second torn ACL and has been playing at a 7-WAR pace. Of course, he’s out at the moment with another Achilles injury, but this appears to be a minor issue, relatively speaking, and given his history and Atlanta’s position in the standings, there’s no real reason not to be conservative with his recovery. ZiPS is understandably down on his injury risk, but he still gets his usual dynamite projection for 2026, even if it’s a little diminished from a playing time perspective:

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We’re in the phase of the minor league calendar where the domestic complex league seasons have ended, in order to accommodate the incoming draft classes, while the rest of the minor leagues continue with their regular seasons for a few more weeks. There are some recent draftees who have already been sent out to affiliates, but the majority have gotten going at their respective facilities during unofficial “Bridge League” or “Continuation Camp” activity with loose, flexible schedules and start times. There’s a big group chat in which scouts and development personnel (plus a handful of media folks, and probably a clandestine autograph hound or two) exchange lineups and pitching probables to keep everyone abreast of the goings on. Ceasing official play in Arizona and Florida allows teams to onboard their draft classes in an unofficial setting and avoids the traffic jam of minor roster spots, which would exceed the allowed amount if the draft classes were just assigned to affiliates right away.

This is also a fruitful place for rehabbers to see their first real game action since injury because teams can just “roll” innings whenever they feel like it. If you’re on a 25-pitch limit and you’ve hit your count without getting three outs, the inning will just turn over regardless of how many guys are on base. This setting is about development and is not an actual game, so it’s a safe place to shake off rust and work up a sweat. On Tuesday, when the Padres officially caught the Dodgers in the NL West race, I saw their Bridge League teams square off with two rehabbing members of their 40-man rosters getting an inning of work at the start of the game. In this piece, I’ll pass along how Kyle Hurt (Dodgers) and Bradgley Rodriguez (Padres) looked and examine whether either team has a postseason pitching weapon lurking in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers may have peaked too early. On July 3, they completed a three-game sweep of the White Sox, lifting their record to a season-high 24 games over .500 (56-32) and their NL West lead to nine games over both the Padres and Giants. It’s been mostly downhill since then for Los Angeles, starting with a seven-game losing streak from July 4–11, which included three-game sweeps by the Astros and Brewers. This week, they dropped three straight to the Angels while the Padres swept the Giants, knocking the Dodgers out of first place for the first time since April 27. The two Southern California rivals face off six times in the next 10 days, bookended by three-game series in Los Angeles this weekend and San Diego next weekend.

I’ll zoom out to the bigger picture below and in a subsequent Padres installment, but Tuesday night’s Dodgers-Angels game had a couple moments that had to be seen to be believed. The Dodgers scratched out a run in the top of the first against Angels starter Victor Mederos, but opposite number Emmet Sheehan, who has generally pitched quite well since returning from Tommy John surgery in mid-June, fell behind each of the first five Angels he faced, leading to three first-inning runs. A two-run Dalton Rushing homer tied it in the second; the Angels retook the lead with runs in the third and fourth, but the Dodgers’ two-out rally for two runs tied it in the fifth, 5-5.

The Dodgers had a golden opportunity to break the game open when Miguel Rojas and Rushing both singled off reliever Brock Burke to open the sixth. Up came Shohei Ohtani, who amid the team’s recent malaise entered the game on a 17-for-38 run that included homers in three straight games. Ohtani lined a Burke fastball up the middle, but shortstop Zach Neto, shifted about six feet to the left of second base, speared it and was perfectly positioned to double off Rojas, then fire to first. Rushing, who had ranged too far towards second, punctuated becoming the third out in the triple play by face-planting while trying to avoid a tag (luckily, he at least escaped injury). Oof.

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12:01

Dan Szymborski: It is noon!

12:01

Dan Szymborski: CHEATING!

12:01

Dan Szymborski: trying to get some early projections! tsk tsk

12:01

Dan Szymborski: sorry

12:01

Dan Szymborski: Wetherhold ought to have a big number

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Over the past 30 days, the major league leader in position player WAR and wRC+ is also tied for the league lead in home runs and runs scored. You might not have noticed because the team he plays for, the Athletics, is taking some time off to go find itself before settling down. The player in question is not Nick Kurtz! Haha, I pulled the ol’ switcheroo there, didn’t I?

No, it’s Shea Langeliers.

That’s right, the most dangerous hitter in baseball over the past month is a catcher. Not only that, a catcher who entered this season with a career wRC+ of just 98, who was hitting an uninspiring .226/.285/.424 at the All-Star break. Since then, Langeliers is hitting .398/.419/.857, with as many home runs (12) in 105 second-half plate appearances as he hit in 267 PA in the first half. Read the rest of this entry »

“Who is the most feared hitter in baseball?” is not a question I set out to answer. That would be too easy! Step one: Write “Aaron Judge.” Step two: Let out a bemused chuckle. Obviously it’s Aaron Judge. Who would have commissioned such a silly article? Step three: Get lunch. That does sound pretty tempting, I must admit, but that’s not this article. This one is a little bit weirder.

I started by asking the opposite question: “Who is the least feared hitter in baseball?” I had a simple idea for how to test it. Take a look at the rate of pitches over the heart of the plate that each batter sees when behind in the count – more strikes than balls. A hitter who sees tons of pitches down the middle in a bad hitting situation isn’t a guy who scare opponents. Pitchers are so not afraid that they’re chucking pitches down Broadway even in the situations where that’s least necessary and least advantageous. Read the rest of this entry »

We haven’t written much about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. since he signed his half-billion-dollar contract extension back in April. That’s understandable, in that we tend to write about new and exciting developments. Of course, the downside of that is sometimes it can lead us to neglect exciting players who aren’t necessarily doing anything new. On the surface, Guerrero very much falls into that category. He’s having a typical Vladimir Guerrero Jr. season.

Those numbers are nearly identical! Guerrero is doing his thing, which consists of hitting the ball hard, hitting it on the ground, and putting up an overall batting line that should nab him a smattering of MVP votes. The Blue Jays promised Guerrero all the money in Canada in the hope that he would just keep on being himself for the next decade and a half, and he’s off to a great start. Just 14 more seasons like this to go. He’s on pace for 5.0 WAR, the third-best mark of his career. That’s certainly worth writing about, especially when Guerrero is doing it for the team with the best record in the American League. But also, I mostly want to write about this new thing he’s doing.

Here’s the new thing: Guerrero has stopped swinging. Not entirely – that would be silly – but he’s dropped his overall swing rate from 48.5% in 2024 all the way to 40.9% in 2025. That’s the third-largest decrease among all qualified players. It represents a huge departure for Guerrero (and an even bigger departure from the ways of his swing-happy father). Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday night in Cincinnati, Taijuan Walker scattered six hits and a walk over six innings. He allowed only a single earned run. He didn’t pick up a win; in fact, he was in line for the loss when manager Rob Thomson yanked him. But Walker pitched well enough to keep the Phillies within striking distance. Reds starter Andrew Abbott remained in the game into the eighth inning, where the Phillies finally touched him up. The NL East leaders went on to win the game 4-1.

I last wrote about Walker five months ago, at the very end of spring training. At the time, Walker was coming off a season in which he was the worst regular starting pitcher in baseball, and as frustrations around the team bubbled over following a disappointing playoff loss, the team’s overpaid and underperforming no. 6 starter was an easy target for public ire. Even in Philadelphia, it’s hard for an athlete to reach pariah status on quality of play alone, but Walker had managed it. Read the rest of this entry »

When Hunter Brown takes the mound tonight, he’ll do so with some of the best numbers in the junior circuit. Among qualified pitchers, the Houston Astros right-hander ranks third behind Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet in WAR, ERA, FIP, and strikeout rate. An All-Star for the first time this season, the 26-year-old Wayne State University product has established himself as a top-shelf starter.

When he was first featured here at FanGraphs in April 2021, Brown was still a prospect; our initial conversation centered around his background and repertoire. When I next caught up with him in August 2023 (Brown had made his major league debut in September 2022), we covered a recent change to his delivery.

What did we discuss when I sat down with Brown in Fenway Park’s visiting dugout during the Astros’ trip to Boston earlier this month? The answer lies below.

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David Laurila: We last talked two summers ago. What has changed since then?

Hunter Brown: “Two years ago would have been before I started throwing a two-seam sinker and before I started throwing both cutters and sliders. That’s probably the biggest change.” Read the rest of this entry »