Braves Offense Generating Amid Power Outages

The Atlanta Braves offense is leading the league in various categories, despite poor starts from some of the stars.

For the second year in a row, the Atlanta Braves’ offense is among the best in baseball.

A season after tying the single-season homer record with 307 longballs (2019 Minnesota Twins) and topping all of baseball with 947 runs (5.85/game) and a team slugging of.501, the Braves are once again the class of MLB. Atlanta has improved on last year’s runs per game mark thus far in the 2024 season, averaging 6.37 R/G and sitting atop the leaderboards with 121 total runs despite only participating in nineteen games, two fewer than the MLB average.

However, there is one area where the Braves are falling behind last season’s historic pace: home runs. The Braves have 25 home runs in 19 games, good for “only” a tie for sixth place. And, while there have been some notable homer performances on this team, such as designated hitter Marcell Ozuna tying Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels for the MLB lead with eight and catcher Travis d’Arnaud hitting four, including a grand slam, over the weekend’s two games against the Texas Rangers, not everyone is performing up to expectations in the homer department so far.

Ronald Acuña Jr., last season’s National League MVP, hit his first home run of the season on Wednesday against the Houston Astros. His 65-at-bat span prior to his first home run was unusual; it was the fifth-longest homerless streak to begin a season for a player coming off a 40-homer season the previous year. Some believe he was still feeling the impacts of missing at-bats due to a knee ailment in spring training, as well as a shift in how opposing pitchers are challenging him, with opponents elevating fastballs at the highest rate Ronald has seen in his career to date.

The top four in the order, including Acuña, Ozzie Albies (formerly on the injured list due to a fractured toe), Austin Riley, and Matt Olson, have not produced much power thus far.

That quartet, which combined for 175 homers in 2023, including a league-leading 54 for Matt Olson, has a collective eight; Marcell Ozuna, the #5 hitter, has the same number of homers on his own.

And it’s not for lack of effort. Several of Atlanta’s inputs – hard hit rate, barrels, exit velocity, etc. – are among the best in the league.

The Braves lead baseball with a 46.3% hard-hit rate, which is defined as a batted ball event (BBE) at 95 mph or higher. Atlanta’s barrel rate, which is a BBE at a predetermined combination of exit velocity and launch angle conducive to hitting a home run, is also the highest in baseball at 9.9%. The Braves also have the highest average exit velocity (90.6 mph).

So they’re hitting the balls hard. Why don’t they have more home runs?

There are several aspects involved. One is just having played less games than the rest of the league. Atlanta is tied with the Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers with only nineteen games played; the league average is 21 games per team, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, who began the season in Korea, leading the league with 23 games each. Atlanta’s 3.3% homer rate is among the top five in baseball, despite a drop from last season’s 4.9%, which was the highest by a full percentage point.

The second element is the schedule and the weather Atlanta has had to deal with – the Braves began the season in some cold weather, including three games in the 50s in Philadelphia and two games in the lower 40s in Chicago against the White Sox.

The lineup, particularly Riley and Acuña, has underperformed in terms of power, while Ozzie Albies and Sean Murphy have been absent due to injuries.

We argued on the show last week that the power outage was revealing some positive aspects of this offense, as the Braves were forced to rely more on stringing together base hits rather than just hitting a home run. Atlanta has only won three games this season with three or more home runs, but they have also won eleven of the sixteen games with no or only one home run.

What happens when the top hitters in the lineup get hot? Keep an eye out.