NEW YORK – Last year, the Atlanta Braves were the answer to a trivia question nobody wanted to be: Which of Major League Baseball’s most consistent franchises finally fell apart?
After winning the National League East in six consecutive seasons from 2018-23 and capturing the 2021 World Series, the Braves finished 2025 with a mediocre 76-86 record. They missed the postseason for the first time since 2017 — unacceptable for an incredibly talented team in an expanded playoff format. Longtime manager Brian Snitker, the dugout leader of their triumphant era, stepped down into an advisory role. Walt Weiss, Snitker’s bench coach for eight seasons, was named their new manager.
For some teams, it can take years to recapture that steady success, let alone become the team everyone wants to beat again. For the Braves, it took merely an offseason before they began to see signs of what is shaping up to be a compelling return to dominance.
“I felt some of that as early as spring training, really,” Weiss told me recently during Atlanta’s trip to Citi Field. “It’s a group that likes to compete. They get along really well. It’s a very close-knit group. They enjoy coming to the yard every day. And they approach it for all the right reasons. They perform for the team, and that’s the culture that’s been developed. But you gotta have the right people to develop that culture, and we have the right type of guys.”
With nearly half of the season behind them, the Braves own a 46-25 record, the best in baseball, narrowly ahead of the Dodgers (47-27), Brewers (44-26) and Yankees (44-27). Much to the dismay of the Phillies, Mets, Nationals, and Marlins, the Braves again sit comfortably atop the NL East with a seven-game lead. The team that imploded due to its own underperformance – and a ton of injuries – a year ago has become the league’s most complete club thanks to its core simply being healthy and good again.
Michael Harris II’s resurgence has been massive for the Braves – after two years of struggles at the plate, he’s on pace for a career-best season at the plate. (Photo by Michael Mooney/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
For the most part, the Braves didn’t buy their way back to the top of the standings. Their biggest offseason splash was in the relief market, signing two-time All-Star right-hander Robert Suarez to a three-year, $45 million contract. They turned over most of the coaching staff, which seemed to help. Former Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, now in his first season with Atlanta, has received praise for helping the Braves pitching staff record the lowest ERA (3.29) in MLB.
But these are minor changes. Give more credit to the Braves for restoring the reclamation projects on their roster.
First baseman Matt Olson, who was solid but unspectacular the past two years after a top-5 MVP finish in 2023, has been one of the best players in the National League this season. He leads all NL first basemen in FanGraphs’ wins above replacement (2.5) while posting an .894 OPS. Second baseman Ozzie Albies, the longest-tenured Brave, slogged through a .671 OPS last year, more than a hundred points below his career average. This season, Albies has looked like the all-star-caliber hitter Atlanta has relied on for nearly a decade. Center fielder Michael Harris II, who looked like a future star after winning Rookie of the Year in 2022 before fading for a few years, has rediscovered that form.
Olson points to something harder to measure than statistics to explain the turnaround: continuity, and the looseness that comes with it.
“We’ve got a lot of the same dudes,” he told me in the visitor’s clubhouse at Citi Field. “We have a lot of fun in here — maybe too much.”
That comfortability, he explained, shows up as constant needling rather than the usual locker-room hierarchy.
“Everybody is always talking smack to each other,” Olson said, laughing. “There’s no ego in here. I’ve been on teams where it’s like, alright, you don’t do it with this guy. But everybody’s fair game in here. Nobody’s safe. I’m all over Ozzie all the time. He brings it on himself, though. He really does. He loves it more than anybody. We’re probably a couple of the top trash talkers. It just creates a good atmosphere.”
None of that would matter much without the results to match it, and that’s where the Braves have excelled.
Southpaw Chris Sale is reminding us why, whenever he decides to call it quits, Cooperstown has a spot reserved for the perennial Cy Young candidate. Sale’s 2.30 ERA in 13 starts is ranked fifth among all qualified major-league starters. Even as his strikeout rate has dipped slightly, he’s still finding ways to hold opposing lineups to a .215 batting average, Sale’s lowest mark since 2018.
Atlanta’s bullpen carries the best ERA (2.82) and WHIP (1.11) of any relief corps in the majors. It’s a gauntlet anchored by Raisel Iglesias, Suarez, Dylan Lee, Didier Fuentes, and Dylan Dodd, who have a combined ERA of 1.26 deep into June. That kind of back-end reliability lets the Braves win close games, and it builds confidence for a lineup that knows if it can just put up a couple more runs, their pitching staff will stifle any rallies before they even have a chance to begin.
Chris Sale’s 2.30 ERA through 13 starts is his lowest as a Brave to this point – and he’s already led the majors in ERA and won a Cy Young for Atlanta. (Photo by Michael Hirschuber/Getty Images)
The results back that up. The Braves have a run differential of +107 – only the Dodgers (+142) and Brewers are better (+112). Atlanta has had one of the best offenses in baseball since Opening Day. The Braves rank third in the majors in slugging (.424), fifth in batting average (.254), home runs (95), and wRC+ (106). Three regulars are sporting an OPS above .800, including Olson, Harris, and breakout catcher Drake Baldwin, who came off the injured list on Tuesday. It’s not a lineup propped up by one or two stars. It’s a deep, balanced group that punishes mistakes up and down the order.
What makes their season more impressive is that the Braves have built this record despite superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. requiring two separate stints on the injured list due to a nagging hamstring strain. They’ve excelled despite third baseman Austin Riley batting just .203 with an OPS+ of 80 in 71 games this season. Even so, what’s most remarkable is that the team has overcome real instability in the rotation.
Several projected starters, including Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Hurston Waldrep, have battled injuries for much of the year. And the news got worse just this week: ace Spencer Strider, who opened 2025 on the injured list and was never fully himself, was shut down again on Monday with inflammation in his right elbow. For most teams, losing a front-line starter for months would be a crisis. For Atlanta, it’s a continuation of a season-long theme.
Next man up.
“Our team has been great about meeting all the challenges of the season,” Weiss said. “Whether it’s injury-related, travel-related, there’s always challenges along the way in this league. I feel like our guys have met all the challenges head on. It’s a good group. They show up the right way every day.”
Olson described that approach as deliberately unserious, by design.
“You can’t just be full-go all the time,” the first baseman said. “Obviously, when the game’s going on, you’re locked in, you’re doing what you can. But it’s a long season, and if you’re Mr. Serious all the time, you’ll go crazy.”
He thinks that’s exactly what makes it easy for the steady stream of call-ups to step in without disruption.
“I like that for the young guys coming in, they’ll look at it as a good cohesive team,” Olson said. “Something they can seamlessly slide into.”
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That resilience over real adversity is worth underlying, because it cuts against the all-too-simple explanation that the Braves are just riding a hot streak. Teams propped up by good fortune tend to crack the moment something goes wrong. Atlanta has absorbed rotation and lineup injuries, a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of attrition, and has continued winning regardless. The Braves bullpen and lineup are deep enough to cover for it. That’s the mark of a team built for October, not just for the first half of the season.
None of this means the case is closed. The race for the best record in baseball is genuinely tight. The Dodgers matched and then exceeded Atlanta’s win total this week – the Braves’ Tuesday game was suspended due to the weather – and the Yankees and Brewers are both within striking distance. A string of bad weeks could shuffle the order by August. Strider’s elbow is a real concern, and how Atlanta’s rotation holds up without him will say a lot about whether this pace is sustainable into the postseason. A team can lead baseball in mid-June and still be playing from behind in October.
But context is exactly what makes this season remarkable rather than simply good. A year removed from their first losing season since 2017, with their longtime manager out of the picture and several starters never taking the mound, the Braves have built the best record in baseball almost entirely through internal improvement. Stars are returning to form. The bullpen doesn’t blink. The lineup has no easy outs. The organizational culture has noticeably shifted.
Entering spring training, the Braves faced industry-wide doubts and concern over whether they did enough, if they made the necessary changes to look more like the dominant team they were as recently as 2023. Except now, more than ever for these Braves, this looks like the simple, stubborn return of the team Atlanta was supposed to be all along.