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As the Atlanta Braves face the San Diego Padres in the first game of the 2025 campaign, there will be high expectations for the team coming off a disappointing finish last season. With the Braves labeled as a top threat to the Los Angeles Dodgers' crown this season, manager Brian Snitker first has one wish for the team this season.
A huge setback in 2024 for Atlanta was the abundance of injuries they suffered from as while some may see that as an excuse, looking back to when the team was eliminated in the wild-card series against the San Diego Padres, the list is large. They were missing Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Spencer Strider, and Chris Sale, and while Ozzie Albies was playing, he could only hit right-handed due to a broken wrist.
Snitker would say to USA Today Sports that his one ask is that he leads a healthy team to the postseason “just to see what we could accomplish.”
“Just once,” Snitker said. “I’d like to take a healthy team into the playoffs again just to see what we could accomplish. We haven't had our best players, so I'd like to try and do that again.”
Braves' Brian Snitker on being in a tougher NL East division
While the Braves have high aspirations for a World Series trophy with the players mentioned plus still having Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, and others, there is no doubt confidence in the team. This was even stated by Riley who missed 52 games last season even after playing 160, 159, and 159 games respectively in the last three seasons.
“Obviously, we have the talent,” Riley said. “I’m excited. We’ve got the pitching. The offense is there. This team is so talented. I think we definitely have the team to do it. We just have to stay healthy, that’s the name of the game. If we do that, we’ve got ourselves a chance.”
With Atlanta looking to contend, they are still in a tough NL East with teams such as the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies that have the same idea.
“The division keeps getting tougher and tougher,” Snitker said. “But you know what, I feel good. There’s still there's some question marks like everybody has going into the year with the back end of the rotation and the bullpen thing. But usually, they figure it out themselves.”
“We lost two big pieces in [relievers] Joe Jimenez and A.J. Minter,” Snitker continued. “Those are hard guys to replace because they were just so dependable. They were clean-inning guys and high leveraged guys and loved it. But somebody will step up. Someone always steps up. Everything has a way of working itself out. We’ll figure it out.”
At any rate, the Braves are looking to improve after finishing last season with an 89-73 record which put them second in the division.
