This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ATLANTA -- Before Spring Training started, I took a stab at some predictions. I hate looking back and seeing the one that reads, “It’s easy to predict Ronald Acuña Jr. will be first player to ever have a 40/40 season after tearing his ACL in both knees.”
Nothing comes easy in this game, as Acuña knows all too well. Despite missing two months with separate left hamstring strains, he still could go 20-20. He currently has 13 homers and 20 steals.
So, 40-40 was a bad call. Was it worse than my choice to extend my annual tradition of predicting Michael Harris II would go 30-30? Harris needs 10 home runs to produce his first 30-homer season. He might need 10 months to get to 30 steals. After tallying 20-plus in three of the past four seasons, he has just six this season.
The early predictions weren’t all bad. I did write Matt Olson will be in the thick of the NL MVP race just like he was three years ago.
As for Ozzie Albies, I wrote these words:
“Albies responded in 2023 by hitting 30-plus homers for the second time in three seasons. Does he have another such season in him? Before definitively shutting the door, consider that he homered approximately once every 26 at-bats after last year’s All-Star break. That would equate to 25 homers over 650 at-bats.”
Was I right about Albies? Reading that, it feels like I was saying he could hit 30 again. But you could also interpret it that 25 isn’t out of the question. He’s currently on pace to hit 26.
I’ll concede I was wrong about Austin Riley recording his fourth 30-homer season and first since 2023. But I do believe he’ll hit 10 more before the regular season ends. Given how frustrating much of this season has been, he would certainly have reason to be satisfied by a 25-homer season.
Another elbow injury prevented Spencer Strider from living up to my expectations that he would be a more complete pitcher this year.
And looking back at my Jurickson Profar prediction, I didn’t really predict anything. But I did write this: “Will we see the Profar who hit 12 homers and had an .878 OPS over the first 53 games he played after returning on July 2 from his 80-game PED suspension? Or should we be concerned by the fact he had a .625 OPS over 23 games in September?”
It turns out what he did last September wasn’t nearly as concerning as he what he did again: testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug, resulting in a season-long suspension.
Now that I’ve reminded you that my preseason predictions weren’t all that good, I’m going to subject you to a few more predictions about the remainder of the season.
1. I didn’t forget that at some point during Spring Training I also predicted Riley would steal 15 bases this year.
He’s not getting there, but I think he still ends up with 10 steals. He has seven already. That matches his career total entering this season.
I’m going to say Riley ends the year with 25 homers, 10 steals and a .750 OPS. The offseason addition to the back of his baseball cards won’t look all that great. But considering where he’s been most of this year, if he reaches those numbers, he’ll enter the postseason feeling great.
2. If I’m going to predict Olson to hit 15 more homers to reach 50 for the second time in his career, I might as well predict that he’ll get to 88 extra-base hits.
He currently leads the Majors with 65, putting him on pace for 85. As you might remember from Friday’s newsletter, he’d join Hank Aaron as the only players to tally 80-plus extra-base hits in multiple seasons for the Braves.
So, why 88? Chipper Jones tallied the second-highest single-season total by a Brave with 87 during his 1999 NL MVP season. Aaron ranks first with 92. That record isn’t falling this year.
3. Chris Sale finishes with a sub-2.10 ERA and 200-plus strikeouts.
I’m not necessarily going out on a limb here. He ranks second in the Majors with a 2.16 ERA and already has 160 strikeouts this season.
Sale would join Dazzy Vance (1928 Brooklyn Dodgers) as the only Live Ball Era (since 1920) pitchers aged 37 or older to ever record a sub-2.10 ERA and 200-plus strikeouts in a season.
One last one that I feel good about. I predict that you won’t read about Dazzy Vance in any other story today.