As the famous American movie producer Samuel Goldwyn once said, “only a fool would make predictions, especially about the future”. Well folks, today I am that fool. Here are fifteen predictions I am making about the Atlanta Braves 2023 baseball season.
1. The shift ban will be the reason for every hitter that improves his BABiP* and every pitcher who sees more hits fall in
You can hear the play-by-play now: “Groundball through the middle and through… Bob, last year that would have been an easy out.” For hitters that see more hits, it won’t be because they are making more contact, or hitting the ball harder, or worked hard on a swing to generate more topspin. Sorry guys… it’ll be the shift ban. But there’s good news! All you pitchers that get dinked and dunked to death? No longer will you have to sheepishly explain to the media that sometimes luck goes the other way… your fielders were just out of position because of the rule change!
That said, someone should count the times a left-handed hitter dinks a ball into shallow right, where Austin Riley would move to in the recent glory years of radical infield shifting.
(*batting average on balls in play)
2. Ozzie Albies makes his third All-Star team
After a disappointing and injury-plagued season, Ozzie Albies has become a bit of a forgotten man when talking about the top second basemen in the game. Well guess what… all the second basemen actually better than him are in the American League. Albies will return to form, not only to lead the lower half of the Braves line-up but help keep the clubhouse light in a way that he couldn’t do as well last year while on the IL.
3. Braves fans will forget about closer Will Smith
Wait, that’s already happened? OK, moving on…
4. Mike Michael Soroka takes a rotation spot by Memorial Day and doesn’t let go
I know, optimism when it comes to Soroka’s bid to come back from injuries so far has not be rewarded. At all. But Michael Soroka is too talented and too driven to not get back. And when he does, I would not bet against him in a million years. Having a normal offseason throwing program is going to pay off big for him once he gets stretched out and knocks more of the rust off.
5. Atlanta’s 30th-ranked farm system once again produces a couple of key rookie contributors and attractive trade acquisitions
I’m not going to predict another one-two Rookie of the Year for any Braves, but even with a supposedly diminished farm system, the Braves have brought up Michael Harris II, Spencer Strider, Vaughn Grissom, Bryce Elder, Dylan Lee, William Contreras, Ian Anderson, and Huascar Ynoa to play critical roles in playoff runs… in just the last three seasons. This year rookies Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd will get first crack at adding their names to this list, but it doesn’t take much to see a few other potential breakout rookies down on the farm.
And of course you can’t make the big trades like the ones that brought Atlanta the likes of Matt Olson, Joe Jimenez, or Sean Murphy without having players worth trading for.
6. The Braves go wire-to-wire
We’ll know about this one soon enough. The Braves haven’t had a strong April since Ryan Flaherty improbably lead the 2018 offense to a start that catapulted Atlanta back into contention for the first time in four years. Already malign forces are trying to sabotage the Braves early on, with key arms Kyle Wright and Rasiel Iglesias starting the year on the injured list.
But I like the Max Fried vs Patrick Corbin match-up on Thursday. Win that one, and I think the Braves could snowball all the way to October. Yes, the Mets and Phillies will both likely be very, very good. Neither of them get to play Washington in the opening series.
7. Max Fried signs a contract extension in August
Speaking of Fried, based on interviews Alex Anthopoulos clearly sees him a little differently than most other pitchers and I think he’ll finally break the pattern of only signing position players to contract extensions this close to free agency. While Fried no doubt wants a fair contract he doesn’t seem slightly interested in playing elsewhere. Yeah, I know… neither did Freddie Freeman or Dansby Swanson, so we’ll see. But the Fried situation feels different, and there’s no other obvious contract extension candidate on the squad unless Soroka rediscovers something close to his 2019 form.
8. The Bally RSN issue causes the Braves to tighten payroll
Ugh, I hope I’m wrong about this, but with Bally Sports’ parent Diamond Sports Group filing for Chapter 14 bankruptcy it is far from certain that the cable network will be able to continue to pay the contracted fees to organizations to show the games. This is particularly bad timing for the Atlanta Braves, who after notoriously having one of the most disadvantageous regional broadcasting deals since before owner Liberty Media purchased the club from Time Warner in 2007 was looking forward to five years of escalating payouts before the contract finally expires after the 2027 season. If Bally goes belly-up and MLB takes over broadcasting the games on some combination of MLB.com, MLB.tv, and the MLB Network, the Braves will likely take a bath at the bottom line. Talk of the Braves eventually having a payroll in the top 5 in baseball again will probably come to a grinding halt.
9. Nick Anderson will make Braves fans forget about Tyler Thornburg
Wait, everybody’s already forgotten Tyler Thornburg? Anyway, look for Nick Anderson to pitch important innings for Atlanta in 2023.
10. Braves hitters set a new regular season franchise record in home runs
Utterly failing to capitalize on the shift ban, the Braves offense instead will continue to send baseballs over the fence. They will surpass the franchise record set waayyyyy back in good ‘ole 2019 (249). And they’ll do it without any one particular hitter having some kind of monster career home run year.
11. Shortstop will be a bit of a revolving door
Nothing against Orlando Arcia, who won the starting shortstop job out of spring training fair and square, but Arcia’s history suggests that after a hot start, he will get exposed at the plate the more he plays. Maybe it won’t happen this time — Arcia is after all only 28 years old and theoretically right in his prime baseball years — but I think both Grissom and rookie Braden Shewmake get their turn on the shortstop carousel at some point. In fact, I will predict that Anthopoulos trades for shortstop help at some point during the season.
12. Team stolen bases will be higher in 2023, but not by as much as you’d think
Atlanta stole 87 bases in 2022, which put them in the exact middle of teams in that category. Healthy returns from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies, plus a full season from Michael Harris II, should allow the team to outpace last season even without the new pitcher throw-over limitations and larger bases. That said, the team lost Dansby Swanson, and Arcia, while not slow by any means, has just never been a prolific basestealer. Also, remember back when I wrote that the Braves would set a new franchise record in home runs? One thing teams that hit a lot of home runs don’t tend to do is steal a lot of bases and potentially lose out an a run to be knocked in via tater.
13. Austin Riley continues his quiet ascension up the ranks of MLB’s best sluggers
There has always been doubt in some quarters during Riley’s matriculation up the Braves organizational ladder about his potential major league impact — his defense wouldn’t be good enough to stay at third, his bat was too slow to catch up to quality pitching, he was too susceptible to breaking balls away from him, etc. Well, turns out his defense at third is passable, his bat has quickened, and he’s able to identify the low-and-away breaking pitch and either spit on it or damage it.
This year he takes it to a new level. It may be quiet, given the amount of talent around him in the line-up, but it would not surprise me to see Riley lead the team again in most offensive categories. He finished 6th in MVP voting in 2022, and I think he’ll better that in 2023.
14. Braves shift-ban winner: Marcell Ozuna
Many believe Matt Olson will be the Brave most positively impacted by the shift ban, and he may be, but don’t discount the impact it may have on Marcell Ozuna from the Braves. When teams didn’t shift against him, Ozuna was a .282 hitter in 2022, and fans may recall that Ozuna very much did not hit that well overall. Ozuna still needs to make more contact and get back to hitting line drives to reverse the offensive trends of the last two seasons, but the lack of the shift will give him a helping hand.
15. Minor league team to watch: Augusta Greenjackets
The AAA Gwinnett Stripers will have enough pitching available just in their bullpen to make the Oakland A’s jealous, but the minor league team to watch will be the low-A Augusta Greenjackets, who will likely boast the best collection of high-ceiling teenage starting pitchers since the fabled Rome Braves rotations of 2016 and 2017 that featured Mike Soroka, Kolby Allard, Ricardo Sanchez, Touki Toussaint, Ian Anderson, Bryse Wilson, and Joey Wentz in their fake ID years.
The two 2022 draft first-rounders Owen Murphy and J.R. Ritchie will get most of the attention, and rightfully so, but don’t sleep on 6th-rounder Seth Keller, Dominican Summer League standout Didier Fuentes, or second-rounder Cole Phillips as he makes his way back from April Tommy John surgery.
I was going to make this twenty predictions as all good lists end in a zero, but I don’t claim this is a good list. Let us know your predictions for the season in the comments!
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