For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Atlanta Braves.

Batters

Gosh, what do you even say about this lineup? The top six starters — Ronald Acuña Jr., Sean Murphy, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Michael Harris II, and Ozzie Albies — basically get you two-thirds of the way to a playoff spot all by themselves. ZiPS puts a 50/50 season in reach for Acuña, and his projected WAR is more than a win better than anyone else in baseball. Eight of his top 10 comps ought to be Hall of Famers (Betts is still playing), and ZiPS now has him finishing with a mean career projection in excess of 650 homers, with nearly 600 stolen bases and more than 3,000 hits. And he’s locked up for the next five years, so there’s no chance of him taking a mystery plane ride to a sushi restaurant in Toronto.

You could lop Acuña off the top and this would still look like one of the top teams in baseball. The other five guys mentioned so far are all in their primes, and only Olson has hit age 30. ZiPS isn’t completely sold on Orlando Arcia, though it does have greater confidence in him being a league-average player than it did before last season; the computer is still casting a side eye at Marcell Ozuna, whose production has been rather up-and-down over the years. The only real weak spot in the starting lineup is Jarred Kelenic’s tepid projection; even with his performance slumping after April, I expected a rosier outlook, though this isn’t out of whack with what Steamer sees for the former Mariner.

Vaughn Grissom is on the depth chart in a sub role, but I can’t help but think that he ought to be a prime trade candidate this winter. David Fletcher is a suitable backup who can fake being a starter for a while if need be, and ZiPS sees the team’s other minor league shortstop options as more than adequate candidates for being dragooned into utility duties. I can’t say exactly why Atlanta pulled the trigger, but ZiPS certainly sees the lure of Ignacio Alvarez and Luke Waddell over hanging on to Braden Shewmake and Nicky Lopez.

The farm system is pretty empty when it comes to hitters, but the Braves are only looking for emergency reinforcements.

Pitchers

Spencer Strider and Max Fried are a scary one-two out of the rotation, and ZiPS sees Charlie Morton and Bryce Elder as perfectly adequate complementary talent, even after the latter’s late-season swoon. Allan Winans looks like a reasonable no. 5 starter and Ian Anderson ought to be back sometime in 2024. ZiPS is less bullish about AJ Smith-Shawver, but that projection would still be just fine for a fifth or sixth starter. With the offense looking nearly otherworldly, it would definitely make sense to focus any trade talks or cash splashings on bringing in another pitcher or two. And not just for 2024; Fried and Morton are both free agents after this season and Morton is in his 40s now. It would be a lot of fun to see the Braves go after someone like Yoshinobu Yamamoto with all the savings they’ve gotten from the very team-friendly contracts Acuña and Albies signed.

Reynaldo López is the wild card here, and it’s still uncertain how the Braves will use him when push comes to shove. ZiPS projects him to have a 4.20 ERA if he’s used as a full-time starter compared to a 3.10 mark as a full-time reliever.

The bullpen isn’t flashy, but it’s deep and perhaps still underrated. ZiPS forecasts all of the Braves’ relievers with ERA+ numbers over 100 until you get pretty far down the depth chart (Daysbel Hernández). Even Aaron Bummer (who White Sox fans seem to hate more than any person or thing that has ever existed, at least if my social media after the trade is any indication) projects for a nice little bounce-back season and a sub .600 OPS against lefties. The relief corps will also get a reinforcement or two depending on who ends up getting starts this year.

The depth chart suggests a >100 win projection, which is exceedingly rare in ZiPS (or any projection system). That number will probably come down a bit, as I’m not quite as bullish on the Iron Man playing time as the depth charts are, and I suspect a few more closer-to-replacement names will get some plate appearances/innings in 2024. Still, this is a very dangerous team. Unfortunately for the Braves, being a very dangerous team only gives you about a 20% chance of winning the World Series, baseball being baseball.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

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