We are officially one-third of the way through the season, and there’s not much to complain about in Atlanta — even after just their second series loss of the year over the weekend against the pesky Washington Nationals. The Braves are 36-18 through 54 games, still the best record in baseball and a full 8.5 games clear of Washington for first place in the NL East.
When a team performs like that, the individual accolades follow. The Braves have a real chance of challenging their 2023 franchise record of eight All-Stars, and several names are currently making noise in the NL MVP and NL Cy Young races according to ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle.
NL MVP
Matt Olson (No. 5), Drake Baldwin (No. 8)
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The NL MVP race is likely a means to an end as far as the Braves are concerned. It’s Shohei Ohtani‘s to lose, and there’s really nobody who can realistically challenge him as long as he’s healthy. Ohtani is the leader in the clubhouse for the Cy Young award as well, and is also sporting an .879 OPS. So unless Drake Baldwin or Matt Olson learn how to throw a 100 MPH heater in their free time between games, the unfortunate reality is they have very little chance of chasing him down — even with four months still to play.
NL Cy Young
Chris Sale (No. 6), Bryce Elder (No. 7)
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For my money, there’s not a better pitcher in the game than Chris Sale. Since joining the Braves, he’s posted a 2.36 ERA over 365.1 innings and is currently in the middle of the best season of his career, sporting a 1.89 ERA through his first 10 starts. If he pitches like that for the next four months, he’ll be firmly in the conversation — but this is shaping up to be one of the best Cy Young races in recent memory.
Shohei Ohtani looks like a man possessed on the mound. Cristopher Sanchez leads all pitchers in WAR. Jacob Misiorowski might actually be an alien, lighting up the radar gun at 103 MPH. And that Paul Skenes guy is still pretty good as well.
As for Bryce Elder — what a story. The likelihood of him winning the NL Cy Young may be zero, but he deserves to be mentioned alongside all of these names based on his performance through eleven starts — a 1.97 ERA and 194 ERA+, 94 percent above league average. He’s likely headed to his second All-Star Game, a turnaround nobody could have predicted coming into the year.
NL Manager of the Year
Bradford Doolittle did not include Braves manager Walt Weiss as a candidate for this award, and that’s just rubbish. Atlanta has a lot of talent and a pedigree of winning, but this is still a team that won 72 games a year ago and wasn’t even favored to win their own division. If the Braves go on to win 100 games and post the best record in the National League, nobody would deserve this award more than Weiss. His role in this turnaround cannot be overlooked.
NL Rookie of the Year
One more name Doolittle didn’t mention, but deserves a shoutout — Didier Fuentes has been nothing short of spectacular since moving to the bullpen. In 11 appearances as a reliever, he owns a 3-0 record and a minuscule 1.08 ERA. There likely won’t be enough innings for him to gain serious traction for the award unless he returns to the rotation, but he deserves the recognition regardless. He’s yet another incredibly talented arm that’s come up through this system.
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(Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)