Even in a down year, the Atlanta Braves had their share of stand outs. They have their All-Stars, their award finalists and bounce back players. These performances are reflected in who was statistically the top players of the season as well.
Here are the top five players in bWAR (Baseball Reference) for the 2025 season. Some players managed to make it toward the top of the list despite missing time or not always serving in a starting role.
Olson led the Braves in WAR this season, and it wasn’t close. When you play every game and have a high performance both at the plate and in the field, this stat is going to show you in a nice light.
His WAR wasn’t that far off from being in the top-10 either. Red Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet finished 10th with a 6.3 WAR. So, he was the top Braves player and also one of the top players in MLB last season.
This performance is reflected in an All-Star nod, being a finalist for the All-MLB team and a Gold Glove finalist at first base, the latter of which he is likely to win.
Chris Sale, 3.9 WAR
He missed about two months of the season, and he managed to have his second-best WAR in a season since 2018. Sale finished with the fifth-best ERA of his career, 2.58, and earned his ninth-career All-Star appearance.
If he had been healthy, there is a chance he’s up for the Cy Young Award. He certainly had the opportunity to have outdone this 3.9 WAR. He’s only had one season in which he had at least 30 starts and didn’t have a WAR of at least 5.0.
The rookie phenom proved to be one of the top players on the team out of the gate. He showed poise being first thrust into the starting role after Sean Murphy got hurt and once again after a season-ending injury (more on Murphy shortly).
Baldwin is going to, at least, be a finalist for Rookie of the Year. There is a high possibility that he takes home the award.
Ronald Acuña Jr., 3.1 WAR
The Braves superstar managed to compile this high a WAR despite missing a good chunk of the season. Similar to Sale, it goes to show what he could have achieved if he had played a full season; this stat is somewhat of a cumulative one.
He wasn’t going to top his 8.4 WAR from his MVP season, but if he had played a full season, there is a chance he could have surpassed his second-best 5.2 WAR from his 2019 season.
Despite his injuries to start and finish the season, along with the month leading up to him being shut down, Murphy was one of the top players on the team. It can be seen in two ways: One is that Murphy had a solid year when healthy, and the other is that the team in general underperformed.
Last season, nine players finished with a better WAR than Murphy. That being said, a ballplayer with a WAR better than 2.0 is typically considered to have had a good season.
