Can these Braves bats return to form in 2026?

The Braves’ pitching woes grab most of the headlines, but their offense returning to form will be the biggest factor in Atlanta returning to World Series contender status.

In 2023, the Braves’ offense broke a slew of franchise and MLB records. They had an .845 OPS as a team, became the first team ever to slug over .500, and tied the MLB record for home runs in a season with 307 on their way to 104 wins. Even after a disappointing exit in the postseason, it felt like this young core had all of the ability to do something incredibly special over the next 5–10 years.

The group, however, has hardly been recognizable in the two seasons since. The Braves’ team OPS dropped by more than 120 points in 2024 and fell even further in 2025, with the team hitting just 190 total home runs — 117 fewer than they did in 2023. Atlanta, despite all of the talent, has been a middling offensive team for two straight years.

The injuries are undoubtedly a significant factor. Pretty much every player in the Braves lineup, outside of the ironman Matt Olson, has dealt with a substantial injury, if not multiple. And those issues, even when guys have played, have clearly affected them — Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley being two of the most notable examples.

At this point, there might not be a bone in Albies’ wrist/hand area that hasn’t suffered some type of fracture, and it’s resulted in a rather steep offensive decline. In 256 games over the last two seasons, he’s hit just .245 with 26 home runs and a .685 OPS. Compare that to 2023, when he hit 33 home runs in just 148 games with an OPS of .849.

Albies did show some signs of life toward the end of the 2025 campaign as he got further removed from the wrist injury he suffered in 2024. In the second half of last season, he hit .272 with nine homers and a .769 OPS. Unfortunately, his season ended with yet another wrist/hand injury, and while he’s had plenty of time to recover, it’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room. Is it possible we’ve already seen the best of Albies’ career?

Riley has followed a similar path. From 2021–2023, he was arguably the best third baseman in the National League — a mortal lock to hit 30+ homers with 100 RBIs in the middle of the Braves lineup. In each of those years, he was a top-seven finisher in the NL MVP race. But over the past two seasons, he’s been plagued by one injury after another, forcing him to miss time and causing a significant offensive dip. Since the beginning of the 2024 campaign, Riley has just 36 home runs with a .760 OPS in 212 games.

Of course, that’s not necessarily bad production. But for the man the Braves made the highest-paid player in franchise history, the expectations are certainly much higher than they are for just about anyone else on the roster.

With bounce-back campaigns from Albies and Riley, Atlanta immediately becomes a top-10 offense again, and they are far from the only candidates who can improve their production.

Michael Harris II is coming off a career-worst offensive campaign, hitting .249 with 20 home runs and a .678 OPS. Harris’ defense is always going to make him a valuable commodity, and he still has stretches where he looks like he could be one of the best five-tool players in the sport. But at this point, the streakiness from an offensive perspective has been far too prevalent to overlook. He’s never going to be the MVP candidate some believed he could be following his masterful rookie campaign, but he’s definitely capable of being more productive than he was a year ago.

These are three All-Star caliber players who haven’t performed like it over the last two seasons for one reason or another. If they do — combined with full seasons from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Jurickson Profar — the Braves’ offense can be the juggernaut it once was. And that could be enough to carry the club while they scramble to fix things on the starting pitching front following the injuries to Hurston Waldrep and Spencer Schwellenbach.

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Photo: Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire

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