As we enter the last week of January, Spring Training is coming into full view and is about three weeks away for most teams. But many teams still have a need or two to address before the prep for the season arrives.
Allen was perhaps an option at shortstop for Atlanta coming into 2025, but not the option. The highly-regarded defender provided the team insurance up the middle for the struggling Arcia and the returning-from-injury second baseman Ozzie Albies. If Atlanta had upgraded the shortstop position prior to Spring Training, it was possible Allen would have been squeezed off the roster. However, he was expected to fill an end-of-the-bench role while providing exceptional defense when on the field.
The Braves didn't do much at the 2025 Trade Deadline, for good reason: their season had already gone off the rails by late July. One they did do, with an eye for 2026: trade for Rockies reliever Tyler Kinley, whose services came with a $5.5 million option for the following season. Well, it turns out that whether Kinley returns to help the Braves in 2026 is more up in the air now than before:
There's a chance that tomorrow's Game 6 in Toronto might be the final game of the season. If the rumors concerning the Braves and Danny Lehmann hold up, this might be the only thing keeping us from figuring out who the next manager in Atlanta will officially be. With that being said, we know how this organization is (usually) tight-lipped so we absolutely won't know for sure until the Braves actually announce it (or one of the national reporters somehow ends up with the scoop).
1945 - Branch Rickey announces the signing of Jackie Robinson and John Wright by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization to a contract with Triple-A Montreal of the International League for 1946. The two will be the first black players to play in Organized Baseball this century (with a couple of brief exceptions) and Robinson will be the first in the National League or American League since 1884, paving the way for integration.
Nippy Jones leads off the bottom of the 10th and takes Tommy Byrne's low pitch for a ball, but he argues that the ball hit him on the foot. He shows home plate umpire Augie Donatelli a smudge of shoe polish on the ball, and Donatelli reverses his call. Two batters later, Johnny Logan ties the game with a double off Bob Grim, then Eddie Mathews blasts a walk-off two-run homer to tie the series, which the Braves will win in seven games.
1914: The Robins stop Grover Cleveland Alexander's win streak at nine games, defeating the Phillies 2-1, behind Jeff Pfeffer. Alexander is done in by three Phillies errors. In front of a handful of fans, the pennant-winning Braves top the Giants, 7-1 in the first of two. Boston then beats Christy Mathewson for six runs in three innings, but the game ends in a 7-7 tie. For the second year in a row Matty (24-13) will finish with more victories than walks (23).
1939 - Boston Bees outfielder Johnny Cooney hits his first home run after 15 years as a major league player. Cooney will homer again the next day which will be his final home run in his 20-year career. 1965 - Tony Cloninger throws a four-hitter to give the Braves an 8-2 win over the Giants. 1968 - Hank and Tommie Aaron pull off a double steal for the Braves. The two combine for seven hits in a 7-3 win over the Mets.
While they have almost certainly lost any chance of getting the second best odds and are 3.0 games back of the third best odds, they maintain some separation between the teams "behind" them and remain with the fourth best odds. There is a fairly significant drop-off from the fourth best odds to the fifth, and certainly to the seventh, so that would be a good position to stay in for the rest of the season.
2024 had a lot of struggle bug-esque moments for the Braves, but one of the big ones was their inability to do... much of anything against Nationals starter Jake Irvin. The Braves and Irvin faced off four times, and while the Braves came away with two victories, the part where they hit against Irvin wasn't very fun. He dominated them in May (Braves won 2-0 late), had an okay start that the Braves lost in June, had a legitimately bad outing in August, and then beat up on the Braves again in September.
"It's been bothering him the last three years," Anthopoulos said. "He said he would just grind through it and play through it and it would come and go. But in talking to Dr. Burke today, he was stunned he'd been playing the last three years with a significant tear."... "He'd been getting some treatment on his hip, swore to us he was fine," Anthopoulos said.
Well, the Braves didn't do much to upend the Cubs' playoff chances, rolling over for a standard series loss earlier this week. This weekend, though, they really have a chance to create some foul-smelling soup as far as the AL West goes. The Braves are set to play the Mariners this weekend. The Mariners are four back of the Astros in the AL West, but just 1.5 games ahead of the Rangers for the final Wild Card spot.
