On Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves got some devastating news when it was announced that Jurickson Profar would be suspended for the entirety of the upcoming 2026 season due to violating the league's substance policy. It's the second straight year that Profar has been suspended for this reason, and it immediately hangs a major cloud over what was supposed to be a bounce-back year for Atlanta after a tough campaign in 2025.
Now, Braves manager Walt Weiss is reacting to the Profar news.
“Obviously, disappointed. I found out about ten minutes before it got announced, maybe five minutes, so I'm still processing a lot of this,” said Weiss, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com on X, formerly Twitter. “The fact of the matter is, there's a collectively bargained process here between the MLB and the players' association that has to play out, so I don't know a whole lot right now. But obviously, I'm disappointed.”
The players' association has indeed signaled its intention to appeal the suspension, but for now, the Braves are facing the prospect of playing an entire season without their prized free agent acquisition from two offseasons ago.
Making matters worse for Atlanta is that the team has some major injury concerns in the pitching department, with Spencer Schwellenbach already having been ruled out for the opening chunk of the season after recently undergoing surgery.
Atlanta will be relying heavily on players who are currently healthy but have storied injury histories in their own right, including Chris Sale, who is 37 years old entering this season, and Spencer Strider, who had a down year in 2025 in the aftermath of his own major procedure.
Clearly, things have already started to go south for the Braves before the season even begins.
The regular season is slated to get underway later this month with a home series against the Kansas City Royals.
