Is Ozzie Albies’ inconsistency a sign of his decline?

Having crawled out of a massive hole to begin the 2025 season and 10-8 so far during the month of May, now maybe isn’t the time to complain about the Braves. Although, this isn’t so much a complaint, it’s rather an observation that I’m sure we’re all becoming aware of, especially recently: Ozzie Albies is frustratingly inconsistent.

Honestly, Albies has always been a bit of an inconsistent player. It’s just that, this season, it feels as if it’s getting worse, so I looked at his game logs for 2025.

At this very moment, it’s been “Good Ozzie”. He’s currently riding a seven-game hit streak entering Wednesday night’s game against the Nationals, a span that includes a solid (albeit pretty power-less) .333/.400/.407 slash-line with two doubles and a pair of RBI. But, before that, it was “Bad Ozzie”, featuring six consecutive games in which he didn’t record a single hit. And though that 0 for 25 stretch wasn’t as bad as it perhaps looks, featuring six strikeouts and several hard-hit outs, obviously zero knocks in parts of three different series is never great from one of team’s star players.

Prior to the hitless streak above, which began on May 7 and ended on May 13, Albies’ performance had been a lot less erratic. In fact, from Opening Day until May 6 (his first 35 games), he never went more than one game without recording a hit, allowing him to slash .245/.305/.381 with five homers, four doubles and 14 RBI (91 wRC+) in that span. While not exactly great numbers, you could simply say Albies was just having a bit of slow start to the season. Plenty of other Braves hitters were slow out of the gate.

But overall, what we’re seeing with Ozzie Albies lately is a bit concerning, even for a player generally considered a “streaky” hitter. For the season, he’s been abysmal against left-handed pitchers, as all five of his long balls have come against righties as well as seven of his ten XBHs. Versus southpaws, Albies owns a .212 AVG and 31 wRC+, compared to an admittedly not-great-either .230 AVG and 86 wRC+ when facing righthanders. It seems like when he actually does make contact against a southpaw, it’s just a softly-hit grounder. According to his batted-ball results, that’s mostly true, shown by his 40% ground-ball rate against lefties (29.7% vs. RHP), though his 31.1 Hard% is actually better (19.8 Hard% vs. RHP).

You could argue it’s still early. He’s only played 48 games so far, and it may just take some time for him to get going at the plate. But Albies’ down year in 2024 certainly doesn’t help create any optimism. Of course, he missed nearly two months last season due to a fractured wrist, allowing him to only log 99 games, in which he finished with a .251 AVG and 10 homers (95 wRC+), good for just 1.3 WAR. It’s very likely that wrist was still an issue when he returned to action in mid-September, as he went just 7 for 38 (.184) to close out the ’24 campaign.

Assuming there are no lingering problems with his wrist, what caliber of player is Albies now? Is it time to lower our expectations?

For much of his 20s now, he’s been essentially a 4-WAR player for the Braves, even featuring MVP votes in both 2021 and 2023. But this is a guy that debuted in Atlanta in 2017 as a 20-year-old, taking the majors by storm and hitting .279 with 54 home runs in his first 375 games spanning his first three seasons. Ozzie Albies has been around awhile, having already played in 918 games at the big league level. Now in his ninth year in Atlanta, he has a lot more miles on him than your typical 28-year-old MLB player.

So, maybe, what we’re seeing this season is more in line with the type of player Albies currently is. Instead of a .280 hitter that’s capable of 30-35 homers and 15-20 stolen bases, perhaps he’s now a .250/25 HR type of guy but obviously — as he gets older and into his 30s — tops out at ten or so stolen bases. Maybe his game will just feature more streakiness as he gets older — that’s pretty reasonable to expect. Or hopefully… this is all just a bit premature, and as the season progresses, we forget about this as he once again ends the year as 3.5-4 WAR player.

Albies’ inconsistency this season has already negatively impacted his ZiPs projections for 2026, and by quite a bit. Along with first baseman Matt Olson, Albies is listed among MLB’s steepest decliners so far when it comes to their projected numbers for next season, according to FanGraphs.

His projected WAR total for the 2026 season, entering 2025, was 2.4. But that figure has dropped by 0.8 as he’s now projected to finish at 1.6 WAR for next season. Granted, Albies’ 2026 drop in WAR is one of the lowest on the list (and Olson’s is an 0.9 drop), but it’s still pretty telling that Albies is already projected to lose nearly 1 WAR of value from one season to the next, based on his performance so far in 2025 in his first roughly 50 games. It’s a little more understandable for Olson, given he’s already into his 30s.

Either way, it may seem a bit odd to be writing this while the guy is literally in the midst of a hitting streak – I realize that. But the bottom-line is right now Albies just doesn’t seem like the player we’re accustomed to seeing. Perhaps the power outage – just one homer in his last 30 games – is causing more concern, or just the inconsistency in general. But hopefully, Ozzie Albies gets it going soon and puts together another one of his big seasons.