The 2023 Atlanta Braves: an embarrassment of hitting riches

OCT. 2, 2023

Murderers’ Row has been acquitted. The offense of the 2023 Atlanta Braves has eclipsed that of the vaunted 1927 New York Yankees as the best in baseball history.  

Anchored by National League MVP front-runner Ronald Acuña Jr., the Braves lineup led the majors in runs, hits, home runs, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS (on-base plus slugging). Exhale…because much like the first inning of games—where the Four Horsemen of Hotlanta, Acuña, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Matt Olson (each an all-star, mind you), helped accrue 405 total bases, the highest first-inning mark ever—we are just getting started.  

With a gaudy .501 team slugging percentage, these Braves founded their own club, as no prior team had ever surpassed the .500 plateau. Their team OPS of .845 was good for the ninth-best season since 1900, but their 50-point margin over second place is the largest in history. Their home run total, 307, matched the 2019 Twins, juiced ball beneficiaries, as the most ever. Remove team-leader Olson’s total of 54 and the Braves would still have more homers than the second-place Dodgers’ 249, a plus-58 gap, the second highest ever. For good measure, when the ball stayed in the yard, their youthful athleticism wreaked havoc on the bases, showcasing a level of kleptomania unmatched by any other team built to bash. Their 132 stolen bases are the most among the top 50 home run hitting teams of all time.

Now, as a sagacious readership starts conjuring thoughts of bigger bases, designated hitters, and other epoch disparities, herein lies the need to acknowledge a dissonance that ails all historians of the national pastime: Performance across different eras is difficult to compare. Thus, in an attempt to attenuate these differences, consider so-called relative dominance—that is, how an offense compared to the same players and teams playing under the same circumstances in the same season. Alluded to in the foregoing paragraph, sheer comparative mathematics can paint an even better picture of Atlanta’s offensive prowess.

Run production is the key to offense in baseball, just as run prevention is the key to pitching and defense. These Braves produced runs with a prolificacy unlike any other team, this season and historically. They scored 947 runs; the league average, or mean, was 747.8 runs. The Braves’ run output was an astounding 2.45 standard deviations above the mean. No team in the history of Major League Baseball has achieved higher.

Moreover, through modern sabermetrics, we can take a step further in contextualizing this high-octane offense. Fancy, complex metrics like OPS+ and wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus) exist to normalize differences in scoring environments. The OPS+ of the 2023 Braves trails just one other team in baseball history, and their collective wRC+ is tied with said team as the highest ever. That other team? You guessed it—their opponent in this title bout—the 1927 Yankees.

Led by Babe Ruth, the heralded ’27 Yankees squad featured three other Hall of Famers in the lineup, most notably Lou Gehrig, who won the MVP that season. Earle Combs and Tony Lazzeri would join the iconic duo in Cooperstown. Two additional men, Mark Koenig and Bob Meusel, completed the hexad known as “Murderers’ Row”—a unit that brought fear to opposing pitchers and a World Series championship to the Bronx.

Compared to the 2023 Braves, however, the 1927 Yankees offense was less balanced. It relied heavily on Ruth (225 OPS+, 208 wRC+) and Gehrig (220 OPS+, 205 wRC+) to facilitate run production and, relevant here, spike the teamwide averages (127 OPS+, 125 wRC+). Only three other regular contributors (minimum 400 plate appearances) boasted an OPS+ higher than 100 (considered an average hitter) and none higher than Combs’ 141. The same is true of wRC+, three others above average, none excessively so.

A much deeper attack characterizes this Atlanta team (124 OPS+, 125 wRC+). Seven Braves regulars were in green numbers with each metric, and an eighth, Eddie Rosario, posted exactly 100 in both. Shortstop Orlando Arcia, who started in the All-Star Game, missed the century mark in each by margins of one and two, so he’s not exactly a gaping hole in the lineup. In fact, the Braves lineup had no holes. Seven through nine in the order slashed a collective .259/.317/.428, while the leaguewide average slash across all batting order positions was .248/.320/.414. Simply put, the Braves’ worst hitters were better than many teams’ best.

But—and it’s a necessary if noxious damper to this statistical slobfest— a critical question remains unanswered for Atlanta’s sluggers. Now what? For these Braves to etch their name in baseball lore, they must do what the 1927 Yankees did, and that’s validate their greatness with a World Series victory. The best offense of all time should be up to the task.