Nobody could tell you the specific reason why the Braves are among the worst teams in baseball this year after opening the season with the second-best odds to raise the Commissioner’s Trophy, because it’s a combination of things.

Alex Anthopoulos’ roster-building wasn’t up to par. Jurickson Profar’s suspension, stars underperforming, and injuries have all played a role in the Braves’ disappointing 2025 campaign. But if you ask Terry McGuirk, Liberty Media’s chairman, he can boil it down to one of these things.

“This season has been a difficult one,” McGuirk said. “We have endured some of the hardest injury news I have ever witnessed. Since Opening Day, we have lost all five of our opening day starting pitchers to injuries, and Ronald (Acuña Jr.) is once again on the IL.

“We’re disappointed with the year. There’s some underperformance, but the majority of it is injuries and missing players. Everyone is back for spring training ’26. … We were a favorite to potentially be in the World Series this year. I think we will line up in that kind of a mode again next spring, and we will take a very hard look at the team and at everything that contributes to winning and losing during this offseason.”

Listen, injuries and missing players might be the biggest reason why the Braves have fallen from grace, but to act like injuries are the only reason that caused a team projected to sniff 100 wins to end up with nearly 100 losses is laughable. This Braves team is flawed.

Simply put, payroll has gone down while revenue has soared for the Atlanta Braves because of their mixed-use development of the Battery. More than ever, Liberty Media is less reliant on the actual baseball team to make money. This isn’t a good sign for fans.

When I read those words from McGuirk, I interpreted it as meaning this club intends to run it back in 2026 with a majority of the same roster. The Braves are making money hand over fist with the surrounding properties of Truist Park, so why pour money into payroll? They’ve clearly seen that the product on the field doesn’t affect the bottom line that much.

I hope that I’m wrong, but this is even besides the point. McGuirk noted the fact that the Braves had a top 10 payroll, and in his defense, no team with that high of a payroll should be this bad. That’s on Alex Anthopoulos, injuries, and underperforming stars.

That doesn’t mean the Braves don’t have to improve the roster, though. Yes, the Opening Day starting rotation is all on the 60-day injured list, but how many seasons are we going to watch starters go down and just chalk it up to bad luck? At a certain point, hoping for no injuries is naive. The Braves cannot go into 2026 without adding two proven arms to the rotation because we can absolutely guarantee at least one, probably more, will end up on the IL when October rolls around.

But that’s only part of the equation. Players have to start living up to their contracts too. Michael Harris and Ozzie Albies were two of the worst players in the league before the All-Star break. Both are experiencing better second halves, but that has to continue in 2026. Austin Riley hasn’t played at an MVP level since 2023. That’s not what the club thought they were getting when they gave him the largest contract in franchise history. Raisel Iglesias was also dreadful in the first half.

They can’t simply run it back. The roster needs to be improved, and they have the money to do that, but to act like the current payroll wasn’t enough to at least make the playoffs is asinine. Alex Anthopoulos has to be better. The Braves’ stars have to be better. We need better injury luck, and Liberty Media needs to reinvest in the team.

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