Trio of Braves win award nobody wants to win

The Braves recently rattled off a 10-game winning streak — and they’re still nine games under .500. That’s how disastrous this season has been from start to finish.

Considering the preseason expectations — Atlanta entered with the second-best odds to win the World Series — it’s hard to find a more disappointing campaign in recent memory. Injuries certainly played a role, but the most discouraging aspect was watching former All-Stars regress to the point of being virtually unplayable.

Unfortunately, Brian Snitker had no choice but to keep running them out there, and he paid the price. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a trio of Braves — Michael Harris II, Marcell Ozuna, and Ozzie Albies — received an award from Jayson Stark of The Athletic that nobody wants to win: NL LVP (Least Valuable Player).

“Michael Harris II was my first-half LVP. Marcell Ozuna was the June-through-September LVP,” Stark wrote. “And somewhere in there was Ozzie Albies, who pretty much never bore any resemblance to that energizer who played second base for the Braves from 2018-23.”

Michael Harris II was arguably the worst player in baseball during the first half of the season. A switch did flip after the All-Star break, as he played at an MVP level for about a month, but September brought another brutal downturn, with Harris posting an unsightly .567 OPS.

Ozuna’s season was the inverse. He started as one of the best offensive bats in baseball, but after a hip tear began bothering him, his production cratered.

“Since then (June 1st), he’s hitting .199, which ranks second to last among the 81 NL hitters with 300 plate appearances … and slugging .359, which ranks 74th … and has been worth minus-0.4 WAR, according to FanGraphs, which seems not that valuable,” Stark continues.

There’s nothing less valuable than a designated hitter who can’t hit. At least when Harris was scuffling, he still provided elite defense at one of the most important positions on the field. It’s not the ending anyone envisioned for Ozuna’s time in Atlanta, but there were certainly more highs than lows during his five seasons with the club.

Ozzie Albies’ year mirrored Harris’ in many ways. Both were among the worst hitters in the sport in the first half, but as Albies got healthier from a lingering wrist injury, the bat came alive. Over his final 37 games, he nearly hit .300 with an .840 OPS, flashing power from both sides of the plate — the Albies Braves fans had grown accustomed to seeing.

Unfortunately, another wrist injury ended his season early, and now there are real questions about what version of Albies the Braves will get in 2026.

It’s a sobering shift for an organization that has been showered with praise every September/October since 2018. But this group deserves every bit of criticism. This season was a failure on all fronts, and a serious look in the mirror is needed to ensure this kind of collapse doesn’t repeat itself next year.