Who was the most disappointing Braves player in 2024?

There will — hopefully — never be another year like 2024 for the Atlanta Braves. From start to finish, they were decimated by impactful injuries on a near daily basis. Beginning with Spencer Strider, who was lost after just two starts for the season after suffering torn UCL, and ending right before the Wild Card round, when back spasms forced the soon-to-be NL Cy Young Chris Sale to miss the series.

Outside of Marcell Ozuna, Jarred Kelenic, and Matt Olson, every single player in the Braves Opening Day lineup spent time on the IL, with most missing multiple months, if not the entire season. It led to a massive drop-off in production, as Atlanta went from having an all-time great offense to one of the worst offenses in the sport.

However, while injuries were the primary catalyst for the Braves offensive woes, underperformances were also an issue. Matt Olson went from being a legitimate MVP candidate that set the Braves franchise record for home runs to having the worst season of his career other than his first year as a full-time starter and the COVID season. Orlando Arcia severely regressed from his first All-Star appearance. When healthy, Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, and even Ronald Acuña Jr. didn’t perform up to expectations.

However, nobody had a worse 2024 campaign than Sean Murphy, and an Opening Day oblique injury set the tone. Murphy would remain on the IL for two months, but I’m not sure the same player ever returned. The 2023 All-Star ended the season with a batting average below the Mendoza Line, hitting just .193 with 10 homers and a .636 OPS, all career-lows by a healthy margin.

There undoubtedly have to be serious questions about who Sean Murphy is as a player going into next season. He began his Braves career on fire, hitting .306 with a .999 OPS in the first half of 2023, but his second half was dreadful, recording a .159 batting average with a .585 OPS over his last 41 games.

That’s a pretty large sample size of frankly unplayable baseball dating back to the All-Star break last year. The injury this season played a factor, but Sean Murphy needs to be significantly better moving forward, or this could go down as one of the worst moves in franchise history, considering the king’s ransom they gave up to acquire him, which includes two-time All-Star catcher William Contreras.

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Photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire