Four more Fridays of Braves baseball, y’all.
Soak it in, postseason pursuits or not — and buckle up for a quick jaunt through rising season ticket prices, potential Brian Snitker replacements and a chance to play spoiler.
UPCOMING ACTION
Credit: Chris Szagola/AP
Credit: Chris Szagola/AP
Nine-game homestand, commence.
The Seattle Mariners and Cal “Big Dumper” Raleigh kick things off tonight, with the Cubs and Astros headed to town next week.
📺 How to watch: Tonight’s series opener with Seattle starts at 7:15 p.m. and is a rare affair on Peachtree TV/your local Gray TV station.
- Saturday: 7:15 p.m. on FanDuel Sports.
- Sunday: 12:05 p.m. on Roku TV (really).
⚾ Weekend pitching matchups: In chronological order …
- Chris Sale (5-4, 2.45) vs. Logan Gilbert (4-6, 3.73)
- Hurston Waldrep (4-0, 1.01) vs. Bryce Miller (4-5, 5.71)
- Spencer Strider (5-12, 4.97) vs. Luis Castillo (8-8, 3.94)
📝 The scouting report: More in a bit on the Braves’ opportunity to play spoiler down the stretch. But if you’re looking for extra incentive to head to a game, the aforementioned Raleigh may be it.
You’ll remember he won the home run derby at Truist Park back in July, and his 51 dingers are the most-ever by a catcher. He and some guy named Mickey Mantle are the only switch-hitters with 50-plus homer seasons, too.
A-LISTER ANGST
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Braves season ticket holders are called A-Listers.
But some are feeling B-ish at best these days.
Ken Sugiura, AJC columnist and official friend of the newsletter, went long on looming price hikes for Atlanta’s most faithful fans.
🎟️ Here are the basics:
- Seventeen people identifying themselves as A-List members responded to an AJC request on a private Facebook group for A-List members. Fourteen of those 17 reported season-ticket price increases of 16% or more. Of those, eight said they had renewal increases of at least 25% and, within those, four of 40% or more.
- On the same Facebook group, when A-List members were asked to share data of their renewal costs, of 43 responses, 34 reported increases between 22% and 48%.
Multiple fans said their ticket prices had roughly doubled since 2022 or 2023.
“It’s just really disappointing,” one fan said. “All the comments people have messaged me saying that they felt that they’re not valued anymore, and they’re done. They’re done with the team, and they’re walking away, and that’s really sad.”
🎟️ For the Braves part: We don’t know exactly how widespread these increases are.
The Braves declined to provide specifics, with a spokesperson telling Ken that “most seats had minimal increases but we did have larger adjustments for a very small number of seats given the data used to determine things like demand, ticket usage, amenities, etc.”
That’s fair, I suppose. But neither that nor the fact that pretty much everyone is raising prices these days seems likely to make many folks feel better.
📭 Give Ken a shout at ken.sugiura@ajc.com if you’ve had a similar (or dissimilar!) experience.
REPLACING SNIT
Speaking of fan feedback: Last week, we talked about Brian Snitker and his possible retirement after this season.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we failed to come to a consensus.
- Walt Weiss: 25%
- David Ross: 25%
- Mark DeRosa: 16%
- Fredi Gonzalez: 13%
- Skip Schumaker: 9%
Gonzalez wasn’t actually on my original list of options, but several folks are all-in on the former Braves skipper and current third base coach. That surprised me a bit — though, to be fair, a quick journey down the Baseball Reference rabbit hole reminded me of the rather uninspiring rosters he had to work with in his last couple years at the helm.
Also receiving votes: Snitker (sure!), Ron Washington (seems unlikely), longtime Braves coach Eddie Perez (I’d do it) and … Deion Sanders.
“Just imagine Coach Prime handling the Buffaloes football coaching in the spring and fall, Manager Prime handling the Braves in the summer, and splitting time between both during spring training/spring game time and football games/MLB postseason in the fall!” reader Scott joked.
NEWS, NOTES AND OTHER STUFF
📌 Hayden Harris and Rolddy Muñoz were both summoned from the minors this week, and both put up scoreless innings of relief.
- Harris, a 26-year-old Augusta native, is considered the Braves’ No. 27 prospect. The lefty put up an impressive 0.56 ERA with 73 strikeouts in 48 innings in the minors this season.
- Muñoz, a 25-year-old from the Dominican Republic, comes in at No. 18 on the prospect list. His slightly more modest stat line before joining the big league club: 2.75 ERA, 51 strikeouts in 55⅔ innings.
It’s been tough to keep track of all the Braves’ bullpen moves this year … but we could be looking at more than end-of-season inning eaters.
📌 How are we enjoying the Ha-Seong Kim experience so far? The shortstop went 2-for-4 in his Atlanta debut on Tuesday, then hit the decisive three-run homer on Wednesday.
- If you missed it, check out Mr. Sugiura’s column on the signing — which he says feels like another Alex Anthopoulos special.
📌 The Cal Quantrill experiment is over after two starts and 12 earned runs. The Braves released him yesterday.
SPOILER ALERT
Here’s a sentence we (thankfully) don’t get to write about the Braves very often: They’ve got a chance to play spoiler down the stretch.
As MLB.com points out, most of Atlanta’s opponents on the forthcoming homestand still have plenty to play for:
- Seattle currently sits in the American League’s third and final Wild Card spot, with a cushion of just 1½ games.
- The Cubs are 5½ games back in the NL Central and five games up in the wild card race … but you never know.
- While Houston leads the AL West by 3½ games, it would prefer to climb into a top-two overall spot to avoid the Wild Card round.
The Braves’ mid-September road trip to Detroit could have playoff implications for the Tigers, too.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Credit: Courtesy photo/Atlanta Braves
Credit: Courtesy photo/Atlanta Braves
Tonight is “Grunge Night” at Truist Park, presumably because the team from Seattle (where the music style was invented) is in town.
Regardless: Please enjoy this ad featuring Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II wearing Photoshopped flannel.
Thanks for reading Braves Report. Tell a friend — and maybe give the AJC’s Sports Daily newsletter a shot, too.
Until next time.
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