ATLANTA — Before continuing to stress how much the Braves need to add at least one more outfielder, let’s take a look at how their lineup could look with and without Ronald Acuña Jr., who will likely miss at least six weeks while recovering from knee surgery.
Potential Opening Day lineup:
CF: Michael Harris II
3B: Austin Riley
DH: Marcell Ozuna
1B: Matt Olson
2B: Ozzie Albies
C: Sean Murphy
LF: Jarred Kelenic
RF: Bryan De La Cruz
SS: Orlando Arcia
Albies could bat leadoff against left-handed starters. And you might suggest altering the order of the first six members of this lineup. But the lack of lineup depth becomes obvious when you look at the final three members of this lineup and realize you’d like to bat each of them ninth, or 10th, if you could.
Once Acuña returns, the lineup would obviously lengthen. Here’s a possible lineup against right-handed starting pitchers:
RF: Acuña Jr.
CF: Harris II
3B: Riley
DH: Ozuna
1B: Olson
2B: Albies
C: Murphy
LF: Kelenic
SS: Arcia
You want to keep Riley in the two hole and move Harris down? That would be a solid debate. As would any thoughts that Ozuna needs to stay within the first three spots. You don’t like Olson all the way down in the fifth spot? You want Albies higher?
As you ask all of these questions, you are just affirming how significant the Acuña addition will be. If Murphy rebounds in 2025, this has the potential to be a long lineup. Arcia has hit 17 homers both of the past two seasons. Having that power potential in the ninth spot would provide value.
There’s no doubt the Braves could benefit from the addition of an outfielder. But knowing that Acuña will be back by June, could they get away with using Kelenic, De La Cruz and possibly one other backup outfielder type for a couple months?
What kind of production should be expected from Acuña, who will now be playing with a surgically-repaired anterior cruciate ligament in both knees? He regained his footing in 2022 and then flourished again in his 2023 MVP season. Will he need another year to get right? Does this uncertainty strengthen the argument to add another outfielder?
Even if you’re comfortable with the production Acuña could provide next year, are you comfortable with using a Kelenic/De La Cruz platoon in left field for the season’s final four months? If not, you are strengthening the need to add another outfielder.
With that being said, a healthy Braves lineup will include plenty of star power even without the addition of another outfielder. So, if it makes more sense to use available resources to add a starting pitcher, then adding an outfielder just to add an outfielder likely wouldn’t make sense.
There’s concern about how the lineup might perform, especially while Acuña remains sidelined. But there are also plenty of concerns about the rotation. How will Spencer Strider perform after he misses the season’s first month while recovering from elbow surgery? How durable will Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach be after each exceeded durability expectations this year?
So, while there might not be just one solution, Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos still has some big questions to tackle this winter.
While talking about the possibility of losing Draft position if the Braves were to exceed the luxury tax threshold for a third straight year, Anthopoulos said, “It all comes back to the Major League team. If you can make your big league team better, especially in the position we’re in, where we have a chance to win at this moment in time with this core, that’s always going to be the priority.”
Though he wasn’t specifically talking about the trade market, this is a mindset that should please the Braves fans who have been looking forward to having many of the team’s stars together throughout a majority of this decade.
It’s never easy to trade top prospects. But as the Braves progress through the prime of their win-now years, now might be the time to make one of those big trades that could be initially painful and eternally profitable.
