The Atlanta Braves have returned to form after missing the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons during the 2025 campaign.
Atlanta holds Major League Baseball’s best record at 40-20 as they get set to take on the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday.
Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos joined TSN’s OverDrive on Monday to talk about what has been different for this team this year and why last season went awry.
“The bottom line is that every team in every sport will have multiple injuries [in a season],” said Anthopoulos. “[But] There were moments, like I felt last season, where it was just an avalanche where I felt like it’s the most that I’ve ever had. We had our whole rotation on the injured list [at some point in the year].”
Atlanta finished fourth in the National League East last season with a 76-86 record and were seven games back of a wild-card position. They featured a pitching staff led by ace Chris Sale that finished third in the MLB in earned-run average in 2024.
However, Sale and other starting pitchers like Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Strider, and AJ Smith-Shawver all missed significant time due to injuries, forcing the Bravesto find arms from the minors or free agency to fill innings.
On top of the pitching problems, veteran outfielder Jurickson Profar was suspended for 80 games due to a PED suspension and superstar Ronald Acuna Jr. also missed the first two months of the season with a torn ACL sustained the previous season.
“I was looking at the past and saw that I would lose two significant starters a season, which is still big,” said Anthopoulos. We would lose Max Fried for huge chunks of the year, Michael Soroka for the entire season, Strider for the season, and Acuna for the season. You [normally] lose two of those guys and then lose a handful of guys for a month or two, but you get them back at some point. In my opinion, you should be able to survive those things.
“Once you start getting into five, six, seven, or eight guys who are out of the year, I don’t think you can survive that. This is ultimately what we went through last season.”
Anthopoulos also believed that he strayed away from some of the things that have made his teams successful in the past. He says he had been focused on adding talent without considering the fit to his current core.
This was something he felt he did when he was the general manager of the Blue Jays from 2010 to 2015 and was a habit he wanted to break.
“I swore to myself after 2014 in Toronto that I would focus more on the fit than I had been,” said Anthopoulos. “We got away from putting the right pieces together, not just the best talent. I kind of bent a little bit where I took more talent but didn’t focus so much on the fit of the roster. You can kind of slip a little bit where I felt the clubhouse was strong enough to add a few pieces that were rough around the edges but were really talented. I don’t think that helped things, though I don’t think that’s why we didn’t make the playoffs.
“[This year] from my standpoint the group fits together. Is it the most talented that I’ve had in my nine years here [in Atlanta]? That would be up for debate, but I do think it’s good. I can tell you from a quality-of-life standpoint, I like going down into our clubhouse where in years past, I haven’t. Not saying here [in Atlanta] but in other spots.”
Anthopoulos has had a good run in Atlanta, winning the World Series in 2021, recording a pair of 100-win seasons in 2022 and 2023, and making the playoffs in seven of his eight campaigns since 2018.
The Montreal native credits ownership and the management structure for putting him in a position to succeed and giving him the opportunity to properly convey his plan straight to the top of the organization.
“I was telling another GM recently, I don’t care about the city, I don’t care about the geography, I don’t care about, I don’t care about the talent, I don’t care about the pay roll. I care about who I work for and who I work with,” said Anthopoulos. “Give me the smallest market with the worst city, worst stadium, worst facilities, but I have an awesome owner or boss, I’m in. You can give me the best city, greatest place to live, awesome payroll, and everything else, but [if I] have a nightmare of an owner I want no part of it.
“When I came here a huge importance to me was that I reported directly to ownership and [CEO] Terry McGuirk. As a sports executive, if things are going to go right or wrong, you want them to go right or wrong because you made the decisions. It’s not because you were influenced, nudged, or pushed.
“This is as good of setup that I think any executive in sports can have. I report directly to McGuirk, who’s our chairman. I understand this can obviously change but he has full trust and faith in us.”
When it comes to running a successful sports franchise, the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights have been in the news recently for their perceived ruthlessness in their attempts to win championships.
The team fired head coach Bruce Cassidy just eight games before the end of the 2025-26 regular season, replacing him with veteran coach John Tortorella.
Despite not being in NHL circles, the discourse has reached the ears of Anthopoulos, who has to deal with many of the same decisions that the Golden Knights have gone through.
He admires their commitment to winning and their focus on doing what’s best for the organization and not the player or individual.
“Sitting in the GM chair, you’re always struggling with the human element, meaning the human being,” said Anthopoulos. “You like a guy and sometimes you feel like you owe a guy. If you can separate that and realize that there’s going to be a bad cop or a bad guy, especially in the GM chair, you have to realize that [players] are not all going to stay with you all the time and they’re not all going to get their contract extensions.
“Guys are going to be pissed; guys are going to be upset. You have to be honest with them. They may not like what you have to say, but as long as you’re honest and you’re straight, you can put your head on the pillow at night.
“I’ve had many times where a player gets upset at me, but I don’t think I’ve had any player throughout my career tell me that I lied to him. I think that’s the most important thing.”
