The Dodgers are the best team in baseball. Hot take! We know.
But they¡¯re not the only team in baseball, either. Over a six-month season, the gap between the best team and the second-best team is usually something like one extra win every six to eight weeks or so. It¡¯s not a lot, all things considered.
It¡¯s even less when one of those competitors has something to say about it in a head-to-head matchup ¨C which is exactly what we¡¯re going to get for three games starting Monday evening in Los Angeles, when the Braves come to town for an early season matchup between two of the most successful franchises of the past decade.
Now, we know what you're thinking: Because the Dodgers are off to a wonderful 5-0 start, and because the Braves have dropped four in a row in a disappointing start to the season, then this conversation is over before it's even begun. We're not, obviously, going to say those games don't matter. They all matter. But also, the Braves have played a mere 2% of their season, and they got off to an 0-4 start in 2021, too -- when they ended up winning the World Series. You might remember the 114-win 1998 Yankees starting off 1-4. It happens.
Or, more recently: Remember all the panic about Aaron Judge's April last year? We might say he ended up just fine. You notice things more early in the season than in the middle of the year, but it doesn't have to define the campaign to come.
All that said, if it feels like the Braves aren¡¯t in the same league as the Dodgers (they are; we call it the National League), then it¡¯s not that hard to see why, given the very different conversations around these clubs over the course of the last six months. After all, the Dodgers won the World Series, then accumulated a stunning amount of talent over the winter as a follow-up. The Braves had an injury-plagued slog to a last-moment Wild Card berth, got swept by the Padres, and then had a relatively quiet winter until landing Jurickson Profar on a three-year deal in late January.
You might be surprised, then, to see how closely these clubs were projected to be for 2025, prior to Thursday's domestic Opening Day and based on the fine work at FanGraphs.
Projected Wins Above Replacement
- 55 // Dodgers, 1st
- 52 // Braves, 2nd
Projected runs scored per game
- 5.03 // Dodgers, 1st
- 4.86 // Braves, 2nd
Projected runs allowed per game
- 4.09 // Dodgers, 1st (tied with Seattle)
- 4.19 // Braves, 3rd
The Dodgers, clearly, are in first place across the board, expected to be the best team in baseball. But it¡¯s not by a lot, either. (It¡¯s worth noting that other outlets do see a larger gap.) Across the board, the Braves aren¡¯t that far behind.
The real question, then, becomes why. Or, perhaps, why it may not feel that way.
The second part of that question is pretty easy to answer. We¡¯re attuned to recency and loud noises. It¡¯s hard to ignore that Atlanta¡¯s only notable addition this winter was signing Profar, while the Dodgers dominated headlines throughout the offseason by adding so much talent: Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Teoscar Hern¨¢ndez, and on and on.
If regular season wins are predicted by amount of winter press, well, then the Dodgers are light years ahead.
That came on the heels of a 2024 season when the Braves followed up 101- and 104-win seasons by taking a big step back, winning just 89 games while dealing with injuries to Spencer Strider, Ronald Acu?a Jr., and Austin Riley, as well as relatively down seasons from veterans Matt Olson and Sean Murphy. (It¡¯s probably worth noting here that for many teams, losing a top-five pitcher and top-five position player and still winning 89 games and getting to the postseason would be an excellent outcome.)
But projections don¡¯t care about headlines, of course. They look at who is there and what they¡¯re expected to do, and remember that the rosters have changed, not just in terms of who is there, but who is not; nine pitchers who were on the Los Angeles World Series roster last fall are not on the Opening Day roster.
The Braves no longer have Max Fried, who signed with the Yankees, or Charlie Morton, who joined the Orioles. But Strider is coming back ¨C and has generally looked fantastic this spring, though he isn¡¯t likely to make his debut for a few weeks ¨C while Acu?a has been wowing onlookers with batting practice tape-measure shots, aiming to return in May. Meanwhile, young right-hander Spencer Schwellenbach, off a fantastic debut season, is expected to contribute more.
What the projections say, then, is this.
What are we seeing here? There¡¯s obvious strengths here on both sides, including the best (Dodgers) and third-best (Braves) projected starting rotations. Atlanta ranks in the top five at third base, center field, and right field, though obviously much of the latter ranking depends on how much Acu?a they get. The Dodgers are top five at three spots as well ¨C first base, shortstop, and designated hitter ¨C thanks to names that barely need to be recited.
If we¡¯re just talking about positions that are in baseball¡¯s top 10, the Braves have nine, everywhere but left field and shortstop. Atlanta¡¯s edge in the outfield is clear, as that¡¯s not really a strength for the Dodgers, and if the projections seem too high on Acu?a¡¯s recovery, they might also be a little too low on Profar, who had a stunningly good 2024 for San Diego that for all the world does not seem like a fluke.
The Dodgers counter that with big edges at shortstop, where Orlando Arcia has struggled for the last year-and-a-half, and DH, and smaller ones at first base and in the rotation.
It is, again, not just about what happened in 2024. These are the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in wins over the last two seasons ¨C this is true over the last half-decade, also ¨C and in 17 postseason games dating back to the 2018 NLDS, it¡¯s nearly an even split (Dodgers 9, Braves 8).
No one is making the case that the Braves are as good as the Dodgers. They likely are not. But on Monday, it¡¯s a good reminder that there¡¯s more than one really good team out there. There¡¯s a few, and the Braves aren¡¯t alone in their own division in that.
¡°I think that¡¯s what¡¯s going to be fun about this year,¡± Riley said as camp came to an end. ¡°Our division is pretty loaded and it¡¯s going to be fun. The Phillies, the Mets, the Dodgers [are NL front-runners], but baseball is played out there between the lines, and we¡¯ll see what happens.¡±
The Dodgers, despite their hot start to the season, do have some weaknesses.
Their position player core is aging rapidly, the oldest group in baseball. When they played the Cubs in Japan to begin the season, eight of the nine hitters in their lineup were in their age-30 season or older. On many days, that will be all nine, when 32-year-old Mookie Betts plays shortstop and shifts Tommy Edman to center field, pushing 24-year-old Andy Pages to the bench. The defense wasn¡¯t terribly good last year, and that¡¯s unlikely to change much this year ¨C particularly with the open question about whether Betts can handle shortstop defensively over a full season. There's already questions about Sasaki's command issues. They¡¯re coming off one of the shortest off-seasons in history, too.
It¡¯s why no matter how many times it gets asked if the Dodgers will break the all-time regular season wins record, the answer is almost always ¡°no, and it¡¯s never really coming that close, either.¡± Entering the season, FanGraphs had them projected for 97 wins, and if that feels low, remember what Ben Clemens wrote in 2023, reviewing those projections: ¡°Only 7% of teams in our entire sample outperformed by 15 or more wins.¡±
It¡¯s why, as we start what ought to be a truly compelling and entertaining season, the biggest matchups don¡¯t have to wait until October. The games in March and April matter, too.