Part one of our breakdown of Alex Anthopoulos’ end-of-season media session.
The Atlanta Braves are heading into the offseason much earlier than expected for the second year in a row. After a regular season in which they set numerous offensive records, their offense went silent at the absolute worst time, resulting in a 3-1 series loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in the Division Series. After the Game 4 loss, Spencer Strider suggested the Braves may need to find a new approach to the postseason after being eliminated early the past two seasons. Braves President and GM Alex Anthopoulos met with the media on Friday and discussed the series loss and the season as a whole.
“We are starting the process now. I did a lot of things today, went through things,” Anthopoulos said. “I think like anything, if you don’t win the World Series, you review everything. I think you look at everything and examine everything. The bottom line is that we didn’t get to where we wanted or expected.”
There was a lot of discussion Thursday night about whether the Phillies are “ready for the postseason” or well-prepared, but Anthopoulos doesn’t think there’s necessarily a blueprint for success.
“I do think there are certain things that are important in the postseason, but I don’t think there’s a formula for it,” Anthopoulos said. “Because whether it was the Phillies or any other team, they would win the World Series every year. There are a lot of great teams, and you could talk about the Braves teams that either made it to the World Series, or other teams that got there and didn’t win, and so on.”
“I think power is important. It’s difficult to string together hits. We have a lot of power, it has not materialized,” he added. “That doesn’t mean we don’t still have a lot of power in the squad. But I think like anything else, if you get to the postseason, you inherently have a chance to win a World Series.”
As disappointing as that loss was, it was still a tiny sampling of four games in a six-month season. The Braves have a young core that is getting better and is locked in for years to come. Emotions are still running high after another Division Series loss, but Anthopoulos said he doesn’t think a major change to any part of the team’s core is necessary.
I don’t see it that way,” Anthopoulos said when asked if the Braves needed to make a significant change. “I understand it’s two years in a row. It’s one that comes from a World Series in ’21. It was two years in a row, 2018 and 2019. In 2020 we get to the seventh game of the LCS, but obviously we didn’t make it. Then, in ’21, we’ll do it. I just think the two years are very different. I just feel like we had chances in those other games. You get the big shot, come through and feel really comfortable with the players we have.”
“A lot of this group was part of the World Series winning team,” he added. “We haven’t had any problems with runners scoring all year. We didn’t manage it in four games. I don’t think it’s responsible to infer more from this than it actually is.”
When asked if he expects manager Brian Snitker to return, Anthopoulos said they have already started talking about plans for the offseason and spring training.
“I fully expect him, yes. Obviously we talked a lot after the game and we’re already talking about saying goodbye to the players, seeing each other at spring training and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, absolutely.”
For the second straight postseason game, the Braves entered the Division Series with some question marks. What looked like good quality in the middle of the summer deteriorated due to injuries. A late injury to Charlie Morton kept him out of the Division Series roster entirely. It’s still unclear whether Morton will return for his age-40 season and Max Fried enters his final year as team principal. Therefore, a focus on the starting rotation this winter is necessary.
“We had a great season, but there’s no doubt that we were definitely devastated,” Anthopoulos said of the rotation. “In terms of how that would shape or impact our offseason, I will be very conservative with our potential offseason plans. Apparently we’re not even there yet. That’s less than 24 hours. But look, I think that’s fair. These are real things that happened two years in a row and we definitely need to talk about them.”
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