Major League Baseball

What's driving the Atlanta Braves' second-half surge? A totally new outfield

Updated Oct. 15, 2021 11:00 p.m. ET

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Editor's note: This story was originally published Sept. 1.

Some nights, the Atlanta Braves start Adam Duvall in left field, Joc Pederson in center and Jorge Soler in right, and they use Eddie Rosario as a fourth outfielder.

Two months ago, all four played for different teams. Two seasons ago, the four averaged more than 31 homers.

The Braves remade their outfield to a rare extent in July, and the machinations are working. Entering play Wednesday, they lead the National League East by 2.5 games.

All this after they lost their best player, Ronald Acuña Jr., to an ACL tear in July, a month after another Atlanta outfielder, Marcell Ozuna, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault. Amid their array of transactions, the Braves recently designated outfielders Ender Inciarte and Abraham Almonte for assignment.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos undertook a decisive, full rebuild of a problematic position group. To do so, Anthopoulos acted earlier than his counterparts, acquiring Pederson from the Chicago Cubs during the All-Star break. Then he continued to add all the way through deadline day.

It’s not clear that any contender has ever remade a position group in this fashion at midseason. Two veteran hitters, say one outfielder and one infielder, constitute a normal deadline haul. Three, at one position, would qualify as abnormal. And four?

"I’ve never seen four," said Braves outfield coach Eric Young Sr., a veteran of 15 major-league seasons as a player and 10 as a coach. "But it was definitely needed after two of our stars went down. We realized we were lacking offensively and defensively. It just so happened that instead of getting two, our general manager decided to get four, and it’s given us a big boost."

Since the second half began, the Braves are 26-15. Pederson and Duvall are hitting competently, Soler is starring, and Rosario just returned from an abdominal injury. None of them is a true center fielder, which could prove to be a problem. But all of them are good enough to threaten opponents.

Each player has a 30-homer season on his résumé and a corresponding track record of competence. Duvall’s résumé, in fact, includes three seasons in Atlanta from 2018 to '20 before starting this year with the Miami Marlins.

After they let Duvall and a few others go before this season, the Braves lacked the depth of their top National League peers. Perhaps that is one reason this tack has been so successful; Duvall et al. haven’t replaced Acuña, but they have improved Atlanta’s talent baseline.

"It’s hard to really replace someone like Ronald," Braves ace Max Fried said. "But being able to have a bunch of guys come in and not try to be Ronald but be themselves and go out there and win games, it’s really helped us out. We’re definitely a more balanced team."

Anthopoulos also added backup catcher Stephen Vogt and right-hander Richard Rodriguez before the deadline. All these arrivals have vaulted the Braves into an interesting position. They still have Freddie Freeman at first base. Across the diamond, third baseman Austin Riley has emerged as a dominant power hitter and MVP candidate.

Might those two and a bunch of decent hitters be enough to threaten the San Francisco Giants or Los Angeles Dodgers in the postseason?

The past week has started to answer that question. Atlanta won two of three against the Giants, who to date remain the class of the league. The Braves fell Monday and Tuesday to the Dodgers but played them tight. Fried will face Max Scherzer on Wednesday in the series finale.

Members of the 2020 Dodgers have referred to the 2020 Braves as the second-best team they encountered in the playoffs during any of their recent runs. Even without Acuña and Ozuna, it’s clear that the Braves have retained enough talent and sufficiently supplemented it to again compete with the National League’s best.

"The thing about this last run," Young said, "is we realized when we got that injection of new talent, it just gave us a confidence boost, knowing we can go up against a lot of teams."

And they don’t need to face the best for another month. After they leave Los Angeles, the Braves will play their next 13 games against teams that have already punted on 2021: the Colorado Rockies, the Washington Nationals, the Marlins and the Rockies once more. Only three of Atlanta's final 30 games are against a team currently slated to make the playoffs.

The Braves are positioned just fine to continue this run, prevail in their division and, probably, play the Milwaukee Brewers in a National League Division Series matchup for the right to play the winner of the West vs, wild card tussle.

That’s thanks in significant part to Anthopoulos’ decision to buy, not sell — and buy more than anyone else would’ve. He said he wanted to assure the incumbent Braves that he believed in their chances to make the postseason. Players have reported that his message was received.

About the only problem that has materialized out of all this, aside from the collection of corner outfielders, is a shortage of available playing time. Rosario, fresh off the injured list, is an every-day player without an every-day role.

"It's kind of interesting, now all of a sudden, the outfield thing we've been talking about is real," Braves manager Brian Snitker said of his sudden surplus. "And I'm still not 100 percent sure how we're going to navigate this."

Nobody could have predicted that Snitker would confront such issues this season. They’re more the territory of Dave Roberts’ depth-laden Dodgers; he calls them high-class problems.

Snitker’s sudden high-class problems are a key reason the Braves are back on top of their division with one month to play.

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.