Atlanta Braves Offense Could Join Rarified Air in 2024

Atlanta Braves Offense Could Join Rarified Air in 2024 - Sports Illustrated Atlanta Braves News, Analysis and More

The Atlanta Braves offense could do something only seen once before in baseball history.

The Atlanta Braves offense was historic in 2023 from a power perspective, launching a record-tying 307 homers and setting a new MLB high-water mark with a team .501 slugging percentage.

But in 2024, they have a chance to do something even better.

Per Baseball Reference’s Stathead database, only one MLB team in history has gotten over 200 home runs and 200 steals in the same season, the 1996 Colorado Rockies. With contributions from current and former Braves coaches Walt Weiss and Eric Young Sr., the 1996 Rockies had four different hitters with 30 or more bombs and six double-digit base stealers. Young led the team with 53 steals, while Andrés Gallaraga had 47 homers for a club that – somehow – finished only 83-79 and in third place in the NL West

Let’s look at what needs to happen for Atlanta to reach that milestone in 2024.

Atlanta should easily clear the bar from a power perspective

Atlanta feels like they’re going to be set from a power perspective – after hitting 307 bombs last season (and somehow missing out on even more from Ronald Acuña Jr and Matt Olson), Jarred Kelenic is the only new piece in the lineup, replacing the left field platoon of Eddie Rosario and Kevin Pillar.

Even accounting for some basic regression, it feels like a lock for this roster to his more than two hundred homers. 21 players across all of baseball had 250 batted balls with an EV50 of 103.3 mph or more. Of those 21, Atlanta by far leads the pack with six, with Ronald Acuña Jr (106.4) being 2nd in all of baseball and joined in the top ten by Matt Olson (104.8, 6th). Michael Harris II, Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, and Sean Murphy are all in the top 25, as is.

No other MLB team currently has more than two such players – Philadelphia is the only team with more than one, with Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber as their duo, although the pairing of DH JD Martinez & 3B Matt Chapman are currently free agents and could bump that number.

(EV50 is the average of the hardest 50% of a hitter’s batted ball events, a newer measure from Statcast designed to illustrate overall power in a hitter’s profile better than just using average exit velocity.)

For context on the lineup’s addition and subtractions, Jarred Kelenic’s 101.5 EV50 from Seattle replaces Eddie Rosario’s 98.6 and Kevin Pillar’s 98.4. (Pillar was short of the minimum 2.1 PAs per team game to qualify for the leaderboards.)

Will Atlanta run enough to get 200 stolen bags?

This is the area where it’s harder to see Atlanta tying the Rockies without major changes.

Yes the Braves stole 132 bases in the first year of the new rules, a top ten figure in the league. But it was absolutely not an even distribution of labor, with Acuña accounting for 73 bags all by himself. The rest of the roster only had two players even reach double digits, with Michael Harris II (20) and Ozzie Albies (13) the only ones above nine stolen bases.

So what has to happen for Atlanta to significantly increase their stolen bases, besides the obvious “run a lot more”?

Yes it’s going to come down to pulling the trigger on a steal more frequently, but also personnel changes and health can help.

New leftfielder Jarred Kelenic, while putting up essentially the same sprint speed last season as the now-departed Eddie Rosario (28.0 ft/sec for Kelenic vs 27.9 for Rosario), grades out much better as a baserunner compared to Rosario, who was below-average per MLB Statcast in Baserunning Run Value.

Forrest Wall, the default 4th outfielder at this point in spring training, could legitimately be the fastest player on the team and is a significant baserunning upgrade from a speed perspective over Kevin Pillar and the rest of the Braves bench last season.

Those roster changes plus better health from Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies means Atlanta should be more active on the basepaths – Harris tried 19 of his 24 stolen base attempts after June 7th, the date when he both was finally feeling back to normal health after early season back and leg injuries and after Marcell Ozuna delivered a key pep talk to the young outfielder.

If everything goes right, Atlanta could have four regulars who could hit double-digit steals and one key backup in Wall that’s quite the prolific minor league basestealer. Wall stole 52 bags in 60 attempts for Gwinnett last season in only 90 games, a Gwinnett record.

What do the projections say?

The various projections systems over at FanGraphs don’t like Atlanta’s chances of breaking 200 steals.

With the caveat that projection systems are inherently conservative, most of them have Atlanta coming in well under 200 steals.

Using the Depth Charts projections, which is the combination of the ZiPS and Steamer projection engines results adjusted for expected playing time, Atlanta’s set to finish with only 121 steals in 2024, a reduction of eleven bags from last season.

They’ve got Acuña once again leading the team, this time with only 53, while Harris II has 24, Kelenic and Albies at 14 & 12 respectively, and no one else receiving enough playing time or running enough to finish with double digit stolen base attempts, nevermind actual stolen bases.

Now, there’s reason to think that the system isn’t entirely dialed in to the specifics of Atlanta’s roster. Bucking recent reports, FanGraphs has Kelenic playing only 121 games, when we’ve heard directly from Alex Anthopoulos that the plan is to play the newly acquired left fielder every day. Additionally, Wall attempted six steals last season despite not getting called up until mid-July – with Anthopoulos confirming speed was a deciding factor in the team’s usage of their bench spots, it stands to reason they’re planning on strategically using that player to run more in 2024.

So, does Atlanta have a 200/200 season in the tank?

It seems unlikely, from where we sit in late February. But never say never – Ronald’s said he intends to continue stealing bags from the leadoff spot, eliciting comparisons to Oakland A’s great Rickey Henderson, and there’s an easy path to increased contributions from Harris, Albies, Kelenic, and Wall getting Atlanta closer to 200.

But it feels like a tall task.

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