Braves Bank On Healthy Infield To Move Up
ALSO: SPRING TRAINING CAMPS OPEN IN A FEW DAYS !!
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Pregame Pepper: Babe, Bear, and Brothers
Today is February 6, Babe Ruth’s birthday — and one day after Hank Aaron’s . . .
With just days 'til spring camps open, these are among the veteran free agents still unsigned: Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt, Zack Littell, Marcell Ozuna, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Ty France, Rhys Hoskins, and Michael Kopech . . .
The Pirates, desperately searching for offense all off-season, make sense for Ozuna after finishing last in runs scored and hitting 31 less home runs than any other team. In his last two injury-free seasons, Ozuna had 79 homers with an OPS above .900 . . .
Seattle secured a solid successor to second baseman Jorge Polanco, who signed with the Mets as a first-time first baseman, in Brendan Donovan, obtained from St. Louis in a three-way swap that also included Tampa Bay . . .
Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, brother of new Angels pitching coach Mike Maddux, says he expects to attend some games this summer now that he lives 20 minutes from the Big A . . .
The Las Vegas SABR chapter is named for the Maddux Brothers, who were raised there . . .
How can the Boston Red Sox expect to contend with an infield of Willson Contreras at first base, Isiah Kiner-Falefa at second, Trevor Story at short, and Marcelo Mayer at third?
Leading Off
Braves Need Healthy Infield To Compete Again
By Dan Schlossberg
With the notable exception of the shortstop position, the Atlanta Braves are attempting to reclaim their role as perennial title contenders by banking on an infield that once contained three All-Stars.
Matt Olson, author of the best current playing streak of 782 games, still anchors first base while Austin Riley — a fellow slugger when healthy — returns at third.
The other former All-Star, second baseman Ozzie Albies, has produced a pair of 30-homer, 100-RBI campaigns that belie his diminutive size as the shortest man in the National League.
After suffering through a season of light-hitting Nick Allen at short, the Braves made a late-season waiver claim on Ha-Seong Kim and re-signed him to a one-year, $20 million contract.
But disaster ensued, with the player suffering a serious hand injury that needed off-season surgery after slipping on the ice in his native Korea.
With Kim unlikely to return before Memorial Day, new manager Walt Weiss — a former shortstop himself — will try jack-of-all-trades Mauricio Dubon, acquired in an off-season trade, or Nacho Alvarez, Jr., a bat-first infielder whose best positions are second, third, or designated hitter.
Even with Kim sidelined, Atlanta could have a championship infield.
Riley and Albies, returning after the worst seasons of their careers, still have youth on their side. They are 28 and 29, respectively. Olson, who turns 32 just after the 2026 season opens, led last year’s team with 29 home runs and 95 runs batted in but is just three years removed from a club-record output of 54 home runs, his personal high.
Keeping their infielders on the field is critical. Riley got into 102 games last year and Albies, playing through wrist problems that weakened his first-half performance, squeezed into 157.
Olson compensated by playing all 162 games for the fourth year in a row.
With the return to health of former NL MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr., it’s not out of the question that Albies, Olson, and Riley could join the slugging outfielder in a 30-homer quartet. Olson and Acuna have both topped 40 before and should do so again if last year’s unprecedented injury wave subsides (Riley’s personal peak is 38).
In an injury-free year, Acuna will return to the top of the lineup, followed by Albies, Riley, and Olson in that order. With the possible exceptions of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Ohtani-Betts-Freeman) and New York Mets (Lindor-Soto-Bichette), no team has a better top of the order.
Defense is paramount too — and will improve a lot when Kim brings his Gold Glove defense to the shortstop spot by Memorial Day. He has some pop too, or at least a lot more than Nick Allen.
In addition to their infield concerns, the Braves also need a clean bill of health for their pitching staff, who never had its projected five-man rotation all available at the same time (journeyman Bryce Elder led the staff with eight wins). If healthy, the left-right tandem of Chris Sale and Spencer Strider could be one of the best anywhere.
After two years of question-marks, however, all eyes will focus on the infield — and hope it’s sound enough to duplicate what it’s done before.
The Braves won just 72 games last year, when they finished fourth in the five-team NL East — and did not resemble the team that won 104 games and hit 307 home runs in 2023.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, and many other outlets. He’s at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
Training Camps Poised to Open — FINALLY !!
By Dan Schlossberg
While most of the sports world seems preoccupied with the Winter Olympics or football’s last hurrah, baseball purists around the world are focused on next week.
Tuesday is the first day of spring.
Forget the sighting of the robin. Forget the grumpy groundhog. Forget the Cherry Blossom Festival.
February 10 is the date pitchers and catchers report — at least for the Atlanta Braves in the sleepy village of North Port, FL.
Fans won’t get to see actual exhibition games for another few weeks but the frozen few who venture south will get to watch calisthenics and catch an early glimpse of new faces in new places.
Brian Snitker, newly retired as manager but still an Atlanta advisor, will wander the field in civvies, trading jokes and stories with a handful of reporters.
Nine new managers — some of them recycled from previous jobs — will try to weave their magic around a bunch of ballplayers who almost invariably make more money than their bosses. Most of them make a lot more.
Spring Training 2026 will be interrupted by the poorly-scheduled World Baseball Classic, which begins long before pitchers should be throwing in competition, and will also have something called the Breakout Games, allegedly showcasing rookie talent (which is the main purpose of spring training anyway).
But at least this spring training will take place. It might be the last one for awhile, since it’s almost certain that the owners will lock out the players when the current Basic Agreement expires on Dec. 1.
What follows will be a nuclear winter that will dwarf even the 2021-22 freeze, when free agency, trades, and the winter meetings are again sacrificed on the altar of greed.
If Rob Manfred and Tony Clark had any smarts between them, they would decree that all salaries are private matters not to be divulged to the general public. Then the Cody Bellingers and Kyle Tuckers of the world wouldn’t wait to see what the other guy got before ironing out their own contracts.
One of the reasons free agency is so slow is club unwillingness to sign players to pacts that include the 2027 campaign. If the lockout eats all or part of the season, why pay players not to play?
At least we’ll have the 2026 baseball season and all it entails, from the Philadelphia All-Star Game surrounded by America’s 250th birthday hoopla to the one-and-done Field of Dreams and Little League Classic contests.
Maybe one or more players will scale the 60-homer plateau again, pitch a perfect game, or join Shohei Ohtani in the exclusive 50/50 club (that many home runs and stolen bases in the same season).
I can’t wait to see whether White Sox signee Munetaka Murakami hits major-league pitching or how well Pete Alonso hits American League pitching or whether Eugenio Suarez tops his single-season total of 49 home runs, a total he’s reached twice.
And I can’t wait to see the long-awaited July 26 induction of Andruw Jones into the Hall of Fame. He’ll be the eighth Braves icon from the record 14-year winning streak to have a plaque in the Cooperstown gallery.
It would also be nice to watch MLB Network’s shows and games but my cable operator, Optimum, announced Feb. 1 that its contract ended and was not renewed. No warning. Nothing. The same baseball channel I watched in the morning was a figment of my imagination by afternoon.
Never mind that the main reason I opted for Optimum in the first place was that MLB Network was included. The key word is “was.”
Despite that loss — and the difficulty of retrieving it as a streaming app that costs $6 a month — it will be great to have baseball back.
Let’s just hope it lasts.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is a baseball purist who has never attended a Super Bowl party or watched the game — a record he plans to keep intact tomorrow. He’ll spend today at the SABR Day celebration at Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Getting to Know the Acuñas
The Francisco Acuña invited to spring training by the San Diego Padres is a Columbia native not related to the famous family from Venezuela . . .
Ronald Acuña, Jr. is the oldest (28) and most famous of a fraternal quartet that also includes Luisangel Acuña (White Sox), Bryan Acuña (Twins), and Kenny Acuña (committed to Phillies) . . .
The only 40/70 player in baseball history, Ronald hopes to show this year that neither of his surgically-repaired ACL injuries still hamper his game . . .
The Atlanta right-fielder has already agreed to play for Team Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic . . .
He was the last unanimous National League MVP before Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers started monopolizing the award two years ago . . .
Bryan and Luisangel Acuña are infielders, though the latter could wind up replacing Luis Robert Jr. as center-fielder for the Chicago White Sox . . .
All four are the sons of former minor-leaguer Ronald Acuna, Sr., although Junior has a different mother than his younger brothers.
Know Your Editors
Here’s the Pitch is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.