The 2024 campaign can only be described as the season from hell for the Atlanta Braves.
From the Opening Day lineup, six of the ten starters, including the starting pitcher, missed significant time because of injury. That Opening Day lineup played a total of six innings together all season.
What better way to kick off the season from hell than losing your catcher in the seventh inning of the first game? Sean Murphy would go on to miss nearly two months with the oblique injury. Then, it was just an avalanche that never seemed to lose steam.
Ozzie Albies suffered a toe and wrist fracture. Michael Harris II strained his hamstring, and both of them missed several months. Spencer Strider was lost for the season after just one start, Ronald Acuna Jr. tore his ACL in late May, and Austin Riley’s season ended in August. That doesn’t even include the losses of A.J. Minter, Reynaldo Lopez, Pierce Johnson, and Max Fried for shorter stints.
Somehow, through it all, the Braves clinched a playoff berth for the seventh consecutive season, and Brian Snitker deserves a lot of credit for that accomplishment. Managers in baseball can sometimes be forgotten, especially when a club like the 2023 Braves can win 100+ games on autopilot.
However, on the flip side of things, they deserve a lion’s share of the credit when clubs exceed expectations. That’s what NL Manager of the Year Pat Murphy did with the Brewers, a team that many believed to be in a rebuilding year.
Murphy deserves his flowers, but it’s nice to see a few voters acknowledge what Brian Snitker did in Atlanta. The Braves skipper garnered four third-place votes for his resilient job managing a MASH unit of a ball club.
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Photographer: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
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