One of my personal favorite parts of the offseason is perusing the annual roll out of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections at FanGraphs. We are still in the early stages but the projections for the Atlanta Braves was released on Monday. I recommend following the link for the in-depth details but here is a quick snapshot.
Overall, that is a pretty great projection for the Braves as they are right now, clocking them at right around 90 wins despite still leaning on Adam Duvall full time in left field and a Cristian Pache/Ender Inciarte timeshare in center. ZiPS projects another monster season for Ronald Acuña Jr. and what would be spectacular campaigns for Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies. Considering that those are central estimates, that’s heady stuff.
Max Fried is projected to be the Braves’ best pitcher but Mike Soroka is a close second coming off of his Achilles injury. Soroka is projected better on a rate basis, but for fewer innings ZiPS is lukewarm on new acquisition Drew Smyly due to his long injury history. Still, his central estimate is that for an average starter, which seems like a reasonable middle ground given his divergent 2019 and 2020 seasons. Perhaps more importantly for Atlanta in 2021, ZiPS projects guys like Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint and Sean Newcomb to be much improved over what we saw in 2020, and ZiPS has them preventing runs at roughly an average rate, along with Bryse Wilson. Projecting relievers always feels weird, but ZiPS has Will Smith, A.J. Minter, and Chris Martin leading the pack there.
If you take these projections to heart, and the Braves shore up some weaknesses on the position player side, they could be really tough to handle in 2021, provided everyone stays healthy.