The Braves have spent the bulk of the season in first place in the National League East, but a once-comfortable lead has dwindled to three games over the resurgent Phillies (six and eight over the upstart Marlins and Nationals, respectively). As their division rivals have improved their play in recent weeks, Atlanta has struggled both with starting pitching depth and with run-scoring. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported last week that most of the Braves’ early trade focus has been on bats over arms, but president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos made clear in a recent appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (audio clip) that he’s casting a wide net and not solely focused on any one specific need.
“We’re definitely not a complete team,” said Anthopoulos. “I think we’ve got the upside to be a complete team, but we can add rotation, bullpen, bats. As much as we all like to say ‘I need to get this’ or ‘I need to get that,’ … sometimes you just need to take what ends up being available to you.”
Anthopoulos went on to opine that a formidable offense is of extra importance during the regular season, whereas the scale shifts more toward needing a strong rotation and bullpen during postseason play, when the baked-in slate of off-days affords more rest to a team’s best pitchers and allows clubs to use their top arms more aggressively.
“It’s been pretty obvious that if there’s a playoff caliber out there, we would jump at that,” said Anthopoulos. “But if there’s a reliever, we would jump at that. We see it all the time in the playoffs with all the off-days, not that many guys are going deep in terms of starts. Having a deep bullpen is pretty important.”
Atlanta’s need are fairly plain to see. They lost Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep to elbow surgeries before the season even started. The former has yet to return. The latter has looked shaky in limited work since his activation. Meanwhile, Spencer Strider has missed most of the season. Minor league signee Martín Pérez, who’s been a savior for the injury-plagued staff, went down with an injury himself earlier this month. Righty Bryce Elder stepped up big for the first couple months but has wilted over his past seven starts, allowing nearly a run per inning. Reynaldo López, after an early move to the ‘pen, is being stretched back out as a starter.
The Braves have leaned heavily on Chris Sale, Grant Holmes, Pérez and Elder this season. Sale has been dominant. Holmes has posted a mid-3.00s ERA despite poor strikeout and walk numbers. He’s begun to fade a bit, too, only averaging 4 1/3 innings per appearance over his past nine outings. Atlanta starters improbably rank ninth in the majors with a 3.97 ERA this season, but over the past month that number is a far more discouraging 4.97 — 24th in MLB during that timeframe.
It shouldn’t be a major surprise that Anthopoulos specifically mentioned a playoff-caliber starter. His club hopes to get Schwellenbach back before too much longer. Assuming full health, a Sale/Schwellenbach pairing atop the rotation could be excellent. The rest of the group is far less certain. Strider was a Cy Young-caliber arm early in his career but hasn’t been as sharp since returning from 2024’s internal brace procedure. He missed time earlier this season with an oblique injury and has now been out since mid-June due to elbow inflammation. He’s on the 60-day IL and thus sidelined into mid-August at least.
The rest of Atlanta’s staff consists largely of journeymen or unproven arms. López has been a playoff-caliber starter in the past but missed nearly all of 2025 following shoulder surgery. Workload is a concern with him, as is the case with Waldrep and Smith-Shawver, both of whom are former top prospects who’ve shown flashes of excellence in the majors but without a full season of results. Holmes and Elder profile more as back-of-the-rotation arms. Prospects like Didier Fuentes, JR Ritchie and Owen Murphy have debuted this season but haven’t established themselves yet.
On the position side of things, Atlanta could clearly use some help in left field and/or at shortstop. The offseason signings of Mike Yastrzemski and Ha-Seong Kim haven’t paid dividends. Yastrzemski has been just below league-average against righties (.235/.322/.385, 96 wRC+) and hasn’t hit lefties at all. Kim, who required offseason surgery to repair a tendon in his hand after a fall on some ice, is just 5-for-73 (all singles) in 82 plate appearances, leading to a brutal .068/.171/.068 batting line. Both are currently on the injured list, as is star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., who’s been shelved since early June due to a hamstring strain. All three are expected back soon.
While a front office leader broadcasting such an open-minded approach doesn’t tell us much about the specific targets the team will pursue, it’s still somewhat telling that Anthopoulos doesn’t have one specific area of focus. We’ve seen some other baseball operations executives pretty clearly indicate a narrower approach to the deadline. We know the Astros will be pursuing left-handed outfield bats, for instance. The Cubs are turning over every possible stone to help address an injury-depleted rotation. A broader approach from Anthopoulos means we’ll likely see the Braves connected to a larger swath of targets in the next couple weeks, but that only opens the door for more creativity and more volume in their deadline activity.
“I just don’t think at the deadline we can say ‘We have to get this reliever’ or ‘We have to get this bat,” Anthopoulos concluded. “We [need] literally anything that will make the team better — and my thought right now is I just don’t know what’s going to materialize.”
