Weekend Reflections: Braves’ Anthopoulos pushes back on need for lineup overhaul

The Braves just lost to the Dodgers in the National League Division Series while scoring a total of eight runs in the four games. That’s a small sample size, but they’ve scored 47 runs in their past 17 playoff games (2.9 per game) going back to 2022.

The pattern suggests that offense has been the main issue for the Braves in recent Octobers, especially because the same core of hitters were in the lineup each year. It’s evidence that they need to change the lineup mix to stop relying so much on homers to score.

That’s the way I see it. Braves president Alex Anthopoulos had a different perspective during his season-ending media availability on Sunday.

For one thing, Anthopoulos said the Braves just faced what he considers to be two of MLB’s top three teams for starting pitching, the Phillies and the Dodgers (the Yankees are the other).

“We were facing premium, premium ‘stuff,’” he said. “Doesn’t matter. That’s who you are going to face in the playoffs and that’s who you need to (beat) to win. We did it against the Phillies. We couldn’t get it done against L.A. and we are going to continue to talk about it.”

Anthopoulos also listed some regular-season rankings for the Braves among MLB teams: eighth in runs scored, 10th in batting average, seventh in slugging percentage, 11th in strikeout rate. The Braves ranked 28th in on-base percentage.

“Our on-base was not good, but we scored runs,” Anthopoulos said.

Anthopoulos went on to point out that the Braves ranked fifth in OBP after the All-Star break last season. They had the most walks (30) of any playoff team this year through Saturday. Anthopoulos said the Braves ranked second among playoff teams in OBP, but they actually ranked sixth through the Division Series rounds.

Anthopoulos said those numbers are proof that Braves hitters were “selective when we needed to be” and argued that “power is a big part” of winning in the playoffs.

“I think you have to be careful overall to take small samples and overreact one way or the other,” Anthopoulos said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want to get better, we don’t want to tweak and we’re not going to self-evaluate. After the Phillies series, no one was saying anything because you won the series.

“I don’t view it as one specific thing (being the problem). I do think collectively we are going to look at all of it and 100% do what we can to make the team better.”

Anthopoulos is right to be cautious about overreacting to playoff results. The Braves won the NL East this year. I believe doing that over 162 games is a bigger accomplishment than getting hot for a month in the postseason, but then I’m a Numbers Guy who hates the randomness of small samples.

Most people, including lots of players, believe it’s all about the small sample of October games. Winning the World Series is the ultimate goal, so Anthopoulos also can’t downplay postseason results too much.

We’ve seen the Braves fail to produce many runs each of the last four times they were in the postseason. Facing lots of elite pitchers in October is even more reason to believe they would benefit from more patient contact hitters in the lineup to supplement the sluggers.

Anthopoulos said he didn’t want to be specific about team needs because doing so could hurt his negotiating position. The Braves have obvious holes in left field (Jurickson Profar can’t be counted on after two PED suspensions) and shortstop (signing Ha-Seong Kim for $20 million in 2026 was a big mistake).

The Braves should fill those holes with OBP guys.

Give Georgia’s Gunner Stockton his due

It took a while for people to believe that Stetson Bennett was a good quarterback at Georgia. That includes many of the team’s supporters.

Here’s hoping it won’t take so long for everyone to come around on Gunner Stockton. His performance during Georgia’s 20-17 victory at Alabama should have convinced more laggers that he’s got what it takes to win a championship.

Stockton passed for 249 yards on 22 attempts with a touchdown and interception. He made several precise throws into tight windows while under pressure. Stockton also ran for a high-effort, 14-yard touchdown that put the Bulldogs ahead in the fourth quarter.

Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer praised Stockton for his “clutch” performance.

“You gotta give him credit for those plays that he made,” DeBoer said. “He was in control, just extremely efficient. You know, that’s been the story of the season for him.”

Stockton now ranks third nationally in passing efficiency behind Miami’s Darian Mensah and Indiana’s Josh Hoover. Stockton ranks fifth in yards per attempt and is tied for third with 10 completions of 30-plus yards.

And now Stockton has a strong performance in a big game.

“At the end of the day, our quarterback played well enough for us to win,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said.

Maybe now Stockton will get his due.

Yellow Jackets finally show some grit

Georgia Tech didn’t get lucky to beat Duke.

It’s true that an unnecessary roughness penalty against the Blue Devils bailed Tech out from a second-and-long during their final TD drive. Then Duke’s backup kicker missed a field goal on a bad hold that would have tied the game at the end.

But the Blue Devils made several good plays before that, especially quarterback Walker Eget. They came back from a 21-10 deficit to take the lead with 2:40 to go and got into position for the final field goal try with a 42-yard pass from Eget to Nate Sheppard.