With tonight’s game against the Marlins standing as the season’s halfway point, let’s look at the three bold predictions I made in the newsletter produced on Opening Day.
My first prediction was that Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson and Austin Riley would all hit 40 home runs this year.
I’m certainly not as confident as I was when I made this prediction in March. Olson is on pace to hit 52 homers, which would eclipse Andruw Jones’ franchise record (51). Acuña is on pace for 38 and Riley for 28.
Why it might still happen: Acuña homered eight times during the first 15 days of August in 2018 and tallied 10 homers during the same span the following year. It's possible he could enjoy another one of those early-August tears and set himself up for the second 40-homer season of his young career.
As for Riley, he homered once every 10.6 at-bats in July 2021 and once every 9.45 at bats in July 2022. Slightly altering a borrowed line from the great Toby Keith, history shows us Riley might be getting ready to light up opposing pitchers’ worlds like it’s the month of July.
My second prediction was Acuña will have a 40-40 season.
Acuña is on pace for 38 homers and 72 stolen bases. You read above why I’m still confident he’ll reach 40 homers. The most interesting development will be where he ends up in the stolen base category. Otis Nixon set the modern era franchise record with 72 steals in 1991.
I’m going to predict Nixon will remain the only Braves player since 1900 to tally at least 70 steals. But I think Acuña could become the first player in AL/NL history to have a 40-60 season. Even if he falls short in the homer category, he could end up with the first 30-60 season in AL/NL history. The only two 30 homers-50 steals seasons were produced by Barry Bonds (1990) and Eric Davis (1987).
My third prediction was the Braves will have another 100-win season.
Had I known Max Fried and Kyle Wright were going to combine to make 10 starts (eight of the healthy variety) in the season’s first half, I wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous prediction. But without two of their top starters, the Braves are on pace for 107 wins, which would eclipse the franchise record (106) set in 1998.
With Fried aiming to return around the start of August and Wright a few weeks later, the Braves could be in good shape heading down the stretch. But even without these two top starters, this team has proven it can be a 100-win club.