The Atlanta Braves will play their 50th game of the season Tuesday night and the first 49 have been nothing but disappointing. The Braves are under .500 and sit 9.5 games behind the New York Mets.
The past two seasons Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos has re-made the roster ahead of the trade deadline, addressing a weak bullpen in 2019 and a struggling outfield in 2020. But John and Hugh aren't putting it all on Anthopoulos this season and wonder which players can lead a Braves charge if things are to turn around.
They have broken Braves trios into four groups, the power hitters (Acuña, Olson, and Ozuna), the core (Riley, Ozzie, and Dansby), the frontline starters (Fried, Morton, and Anderson), and the backend bullpen (Smith, Minter, and Jansen).
"More on a leadership aspect there's a void fo leadership here and I think those guys (Riley, Ozzie, and Dansby) need to step up and become the leaders we need them to be," says Hugh Douglas.
If I trust that those hitters are going to hit and I trust that the starting pitchers will pitch, when we get down to it, what won you the World Series, the Night Shift, the closers," says Fricke. "With Minter, Smith on [their] game, and Jansen on his game, that's when the Braves will rip off multiple games in a row."
There is no doubt that Anthopoulos will once again look to make significant upgrades before the trade deadline. But with the Mets playing at a .660 winning percentage, it's going to be tough t close the nearly 10-game gap.
