We are two weeks shy of the 2025 All-Star Game, and the MLB Season can go in a million different directions.
The expanded playoffs are certainly helping create more parity, but even so, it does feel like this season has more chaos potential than in recent years.
There are only three teams more than five games out of a playoff spot in the American League, and five more in the National League, and one of those is the Atlanta Braves, who could still be heard from this season despite being 7.5 games behind the final wild-card berth.
Priced as one of the favorites to win the championship before the season, things couldn’t have gone worse for the Braves out of the gate.
Atlanta started the campaign with seven consecutive losses, putting it behind the 8-ball in a National League that featured a half-dozen World Series contenders.
Oddsmakers were careful not to let Atlanta’s odds drift too wide, knowing that there would be plenty of opportunistic bettors looking to buy low on a trendy preseason World Series pick, and that seemed like a deft touch after the Braves stabilized in May.
But things took another turn for the worse in early June, as the Braves dropped seven in a row to fall 10 games below .500.
One month later, the Braves are eight games below the Mendoza Line and 7.5 games back of the St. Louis Cardinals for the final wild-card spot.
For most teams, that would spell the end of the season, but the Braves are just too talented to write off.
Atlanta’s offense has been middling for much of the season, but with Ronald Acuna Jr. now back and in form, the Braves have a strong chance of improving over the second half, which should give their pitching staff more breathing room.
The Braves were projected to have one of the best rotations in baseball this season, but it’s been closer to good than great, partly because of injuries to Spencer Strider and, now, Chris Sale.
Sale is slated to be out until late August, but the Braves should have enough in their ranks to make a push without their ace. Strider should get better with each passing start after his long layoff, and Spencer Schwellenbach has been rock steady through the first half.
Atlanta will need Strider to find his A-game, and they’ll have to hope for some stability in the back-end of the rotation, but those are clearable hurdles.
There’s no denying that a lot has to go right for the Braves in the second half just to stay in the wild-card hunt, but there are reasons for optimism.
Atlanta’s plus-8 run differential is right on par with a handful of teams they’re chasing in the playoff race, and FanGraphs projects the Braves to have the third-best winning percentage (.549) in baseball for the rest of the season.
That likely won’t even be enough for Atlanta to get into the dance, but if the Braves can beat that projection by a few games, they will be in the conversation. And if they do find a way to crash the party, they’ll enter October as the hottest team in baseball.
While most sportsbooks have the Braves in the 40/1 range to win the World Series, DraftKings has them hanging at 80/1. That is quite a tempting price on a team that has the upside to get white hot in the second half and turn this entire season on its head.
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.