On the morning of August 9, 2025 Atlanta woke up as the team with the 4th worst record in the majors at 50-67.

After this date, they had the 5th best record in baseball… finishing on a 26-19 clip for the rest of the season to finish 76-86. 

Offensively, the club was better than they had been, but aside from Matt Olson going on a 2.2 fWAR tear (12^th in the majors), many of his teammates were clustered around the 60-85 rankings.  The pitching side was also meh overall, with Bryce Elder and Hurston Waldrep leading the way until Chris Sale returned from injury to provide a secondary boost.

But that surge left Atlanta with eight teams behind them in the overall standings… and they were close to catching both Tampa Bay (2 GB after losing the tie-breaker) and St. Louis (2 GB).  Along the way, Atlanta passed up Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Baltimore, the Athletics, and the Angels.

All of the was nice to see… but the reward for these victories was a poorer draft lottery position.  I hate to see the Braves lose, and I loved to see them fight to the finish… but at some level there’s such a thing as “too little, too late.”

I know… tanking your season is bad and it leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of your fans, never mind the beleaguered box office.  But it does make you wonder about what might have been… so that’s what we’ll discuss here in Part 2.

The Impact of Winning too Late

Passing up the Angels didn’t matter so much — they were ineligible for the draft lottery anyway — but it did further reduce the Braves’ odds in the process.

Had the Braves “only” been a 23-22 team down that same stretch, they still would have been overtaken by both the Pirates and Orioles and thus earned(?) the 4^th-best draft lottery slot – the position now occupied by Baltimore.

Those Orioles are going to savor a 9.24% chance of picking #1 and a 58.37% chance of being anywhere in the top 5.  Given the 2026 talent level coming… that would have been a great spot to sit.

After Atlanta vaulted themselves out of that ‘4^th worst’ spot, that dubious honor fell to Minnesota:  lottery-wise, they are in excellent shape, with a 22.18% chance of landing the top draft pick and a whopping 61.28% chance to snag any top 3 draft position. 

The Twinkies are actually in a particularly unusual position:  they have the second-best odds of landing the 1^st overall pick thanks to the exclusion of both Colorado and Washington (see Part 1 of this discussion for the rules involved). 

In fact, the chances that the Twins will have some draft pick among the first 6 slots is almost 93-1/2%… 48% higher than Atlanta’s odds.  Despite Atlanta being the beneficiary of seeing 3 teams booted from the lottery, that’s a huge difference.

And yes… that could have been Atlanta’s “reward”.

The good news is that it’s almost a lock that the Braves will draft no lower than the 9th position… 99.6% chance, in fact, which is good, because that remaining 0.41% chance would drop them not to the 10th spot… but 13th (thanks to the Rockies, Nats, and Angels getting auto-inserted to slots 10, 11, and 12).

The bad news may involve the draft pool for next Summer. It’s deep, but perhaps not so much “elite deep”.

The Coming Talent Pool

So who might be available next Summer?

If you thought that 2025 was The Year of The Shortstop (thanks to eighteen of them being taken before the second round began — and the Braves collecting three of their own with their first three selections), then get ready for The Next Year of the Shortstop in 2026.

Right now, there’s a consensus number one pick, and an ‘elite tier’ that consists of the next 3 to 5 players (depending on who you believe).  Here’s a round-up of opinions from numerous sites in rough order:

• SS Roch Cholowsky (UCLA).  Appears to be head-and-shoulders above this class.
• SS Jacob Lombard (HS/Florida).  Son of former Brave George Lombard, this kid is an pure athlete.
• SS Justin Lebron (Alabama).  The SEC is a tough baseball league, and he’s doing more than just holding his own.
• SS Grady Emerson (HS/Texas).  Easy to project his power and skills since both are already showing up.
• LHP Gio Rojas (HS/Florida).  Up to 95 on his fastball; the same school produced Jesus Luzardo 10 years earlier.
• OF Derek Curiel (LSU).   Draft-eligible soph.  More ‘hitter’ than ‘power’, htough with excellent plate discipline.
• OF Drew Burress (GTech).  Small package delivering big results.
• RHP Liam Petersen (Florida).  If you liked former gator Hurston Waldrep, you probably will like this kid, too.
• OF AJ Gracia (Virginia).  Profile reads like another Matt Olson.
• RHP Cameron Flukey (Coastal Carolina).  6’6” and throws 98 with command and a lot of speed differential on his secondaries.
• SS Tyler Spangler (HS/Calif).  Projectible bat, though tall (6’3”) for a shortstop, though scouts suggest that position might stick.
• SS Eric Becker (Virgina).  Solid hitting with some power.  Braves may already have this combination in the organization after 2025’s draft.

What Might the Braves Seek?

Several factors could drive the Braves’ choice next July:

• After the shortstop outburst in 2025, you’d think they’d head in a different direction.
• If the Braves are able to keep Ha-Seong Kim around, I could argue that they would almost certainly avoid this year’s class of shortstops.  Unless…
• If one of the top three shortstops is available when they’re on the clock for the first time (Cholowsky /Lombard/Lebron), then you draft one of those kids.  Period, full stop.  These are the unquestioned elites in this draft and you can always get value for top picks if necessary (that includes the picks from last Summer).
• Failing that — which the odds suggest is likely — I’d would expect Atlanta to determine which pitcher is on the top of their board and make him their draft priority.
• Clearly, injuries and performance concerns are paramount:  when you’re drafting at this kind of level, you do not want to ‘miss’ and blow the pick.  That said, there’s also an argument for trying to be ‘too safe’.

Atlanta has made a habit of under-slotting a top draft pick in recent years for the purpose of trying to secure more/better talent in later rounds. 

That’s probably the wrong play if they end up with a chance to land one of these elite tier players, but watch for a 10^th-15^th ranked player being taken if they end up with a draft pick in the 6-9 range.

But it’s for that precise reason that the team’s inspired performance during August and September might end up costing them one of those elite players in the next draft. 

We’ll have to wait until late on December 8^th when the lottery results are announced to see if that might be the case: the chances of grabbing a Top 3 draft pick are approximately 1 in 6 (16.29%).

A Hilarious Nugget to Finish Up

In July, MLB.com posted a “way-to-early” look at next year’s draft, and ‘randomized’ the lottery teams to tie clubs to each ‘drafted’ player they discussed.

In that randomization, the Braves were placed in the second draft position, taking… that’s right… George Lombard’s son Jacob.

There are a lot of people out there who think that Alex Anthopoulos should hire the elder Lombard as the Braves’ new manager (disclaimer:  I am not in that camp)… so it would at least be intriguing to see that happen and then have the club also get a chance to bring the son into the organization.

But the take from here?  Both outcomes are longshots.