It took until their season was pretty much over for the Atlanta Braves to finally get back to their winning ways. The first four months of the 2025 MLB season were varying degrees of eye-gougingly painful. Everything that could go wrong went so horribly wrong — including their high-profile free-agent acquisition, Jurickson Profar, getting popped for PEDs immediately after Opening Day.
The former All-Star outfielder of the San Diego Padres spent about a week with the big-league roster before violating MLB’s performance enhancing drug policy. He had to sit out the next 80 games, watching the Braves completely fall apart at the seams in his absence. While he did eventually return in July, it was not until August that his game really took flight. The Braves offense is on fire, partly because of him.
In Atlanta’s thrilling 11-10 come-from-behind victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, Profar connected on his fourth home run in three games. That gave him 10 on the season, to go along with 28 runs batted in and a .255 batting average over 46 games. This is the type of player Alex Anthopoulos and the Braves’ front office thought they would have manning left field all season long.
In conjunction with centerfielder Michael Harris II being hotter than Hansel right now, look out, MLB!
The Braves have won eight of their last 10 games, creeping ever closer back to the .500 mark.
The Atlanta Braves finally getting positive returns from Jurickson Profar
When Anthopoulos signed Profar, it came excruciatingly late into a largely uneventful offseason for the Braves. They seemingly did nothing prior to giving Profar a three-year deal worth $42 million. While they got essentially goose egg out of Profar this season up until very recently, he is still under contract with Atlanta for the next two years. I would venture to guess his bat will be hot again in 2026.
What we have seen out of the Braves in recent weeks is a combination of the bats starting to come alive, most notably Harris and Profar, as well as first baseman Matt Olson having been an All-Star-level player all season. We cannot also overlook this starting rotation adopting a never-say-die mentality, despite everyone and their brother being out due to injury. (Spencer Strider is still so lost, but hey, baby steps.)
Ultimately, this all should come back to the notion that Anthopoulos seems to know what he is doing from a front office perspective. While they same cannot be said for longtime skipper Brian Snitker, who has fallen off Leo Mazzone’s rocker and cost this middling team games left and right, I see a glimmer of hope for a brighter tomorrow next season. It all comes down to ownership actually caring.
Braves Country might be an expansive empire, but it is one that does not tolerate dismal baseball.
