The Most BROKEN Team In Baseball Continues To Fall Apart

2024 is drunk, in a number of ways, but especially with the MLB season. I mean, at this point, if you asked me if the 2024 MLB season was drunk, on crack, or on meth, I'd just answer with yes. There's so much off about this year, and this type of stuff happens every year, don't get me wrong, but it seems even crazier this year, especially where the land of Coca-Cola is, or the Stone Mountain, or Hotlanta, or just Atlanta. So welcome back, or welcome if it's your first time here, and if you end up enjoying this video, consider joining the OGs and subscribing. Thank you. As over the years, we've gotten very used to the Atlanta Braves just straight up dominating. They've won their division for six years in a row, they've won at least 97 games in half of those seasons, and in the year where they won the least amount of games of the six, they won the World Series. The World Series almost seemed like just the beginning, like the scratch of the surface of what was coming to the Braves, as crazy as that may sound. Because yeah, they won the World Series, but they also didn't have Ronald Acuña Jr., who had gotten hurt halfway through that year. Spencer Strider hadn't broken out yet. There was just seemingly so much through the pipeline to be excited for years to come beyond the championship, and that was only proven to be the case. Acuña returned and won MVP a couple years later in 2023. Spencer Strider has since broken out and has quickly become one of the most dominant power pitchers in the world. The other 2022 rookie, the NL Rookie of the Year, who finished ahead of Strider, who was at number two, Michael Harris II, has been awesome, and the Braves have won at least 101 games in the last couple of seasons. Despite the Mets also winning 101 games in 2022, the Braves would come back from a large division deficit to take it from them, before proceeding to dominate even more in 2023, with Ronald Acuña Jr. winning the MVP award with an insanely historic season. As fun and great as these seasons have been for Atlanta, they both also unfortunately ended in deja vu with the ultimate kick in the balls, losing the NLDS to the Phillies in four games. As frustrating as that is, things still look great heading into 2024. The Braves, despite playing the unfortunate role of a rocky villain the last couple of years by getting knocked down in Philly, were still picked by virtually everyone to take the division this year, and by a lot too. Most expected the Phillies to be good, but the Braves from top to bottom still looked to be the best. They had the MVP, Strider was expected to put it all together and win a Cy Young award, arguably the best offense in the game. I mean, there wasn't much to not love about the 2024 Atlanta Braves, but fast forward a few months and the sky seems to be falling. To start, things have completely flipped this year regarding the regular season between Philly and Atlanta. Even though the Phillies always won in the end, the Braves still always won a lot more games than the Phillies and finished way ahead of them in the standings. In 2024, there's been a complete switch up. The Phillies have dominated all year long, are literally the best team in baseball, all of baseball. While the Braves haven't been bad at all, they're still a good team, but not nearly as dominant as they've been the last few years. Especially with their bats, going from a lineup that had virtually zero weak spots last year to a lineup full of them this year. So many hitters are having down years, but that's not the worst of it. The biggest issue is the baseball gods' sudden decision to want to curse this team. I don't know if they made a deal with the devil or what's going on, but if I walked you into a hospital this year, you'd be freaking out asking me how I just showed you the same exact place in two different areas. Why is it like this? Well, let's go back to the start. Spencer Strider, like I said, was already being picked to win the Cy Young Award this year. Then he goes out and basically couldn't have dominated anymore, throwing 22 and two-thirds innings, giving up just two runs and striking out 35 hitters. It was ridiculous. Now, yeah, it was just spring training, but when you're already picking this guy to win the Cy Young Award and he goes out and does this, just treating things like it was a video game, it's fun to think about what was coming next. Unfortunately, that's going to continue being the case. Just thinking about it rather than seeing it. Strider would make just two starts to kick off the regular season, and the second was when it was clear there was an issue. His velocity was down, he was spiking fastballs, and eventually had to be taken out because of discomfort he was feeling in his elbow. Getting an MRI that revealed damage to his UCL, and days later it was announced he was going under the knife to repair his elbow and miss the rest of the year. So that was the first domino to fall, and that alone is rough. I mean, Strider's the man, the ace of the Braves and someone who we haven't fully seen the potential of yet, but you don't have him for the rest of the year. It sucks, but you gotta move on and keep finding other ways. But that of course gets tougher and tougher when your top players go down, which is what's continued to happen. Strider was one thing, and then things only got worse, a lot worse, a little over a month later when Acuna would go down in pain on a lead he was taking at second base, and he was actually able to walk himself off the field after some help by the team trainer, so this was originally believed to just be some sort of knee soreness, and then all of a sudden it was announced that an MRI revealed a complete tear in his left knee and he'd have to miss the rest of the season as a result. So the Cy Young pick and MVP winner are down, who's next? After a lead off single in a game, Michael Harris would go first to third on a double by Ozzy Alves, but as he got to third, felt something in his hamstring having to be taken out of the game. He's still out to this day trying to fully recover, and he's not out for the year like Strider and Acuna as this wasn't any sort of insane injury, but with the way things have been going for Atlanta, I wouldn't hold my breath. The left hamstring injury happened over a month ago and he's still not that close to returning, hopefully ASAP, but by the time he does, the rest of the team may be gone too. On the morning of July 21st, Max Fried, who's been the starter in the Braves rotation next to Curseo, was put on the injured list with inflammation of a nerve in his forearm. I'm no doctor, but the forearm is never good news because that sometimes can lead to elbow surgery. Apparently Fried felt something in his forearm while warming up with arm circles during the All-Star game but didn't say anything until he underwent an MRI a couple days later after telling the team he was feeling discomfort. What also sucks about this for Fried specifically is what happens to him in a few months, free agency. Normally this would be a top arm on the market, but an injury like this would rightfully so, scare any team from any long-term deals. So hopefully this forearm issue isn't too serious, but it's still bad news and it's very easy to just think the worst regarding how the rest of the team has gone. Because just hours later during the game, that same day after an attempted tag of a runner stealing second, Ozzy Albies would hurt his wrist badly, leaving the game. It was initially looked at as bad but not with specific details with Albies immediately expected to go to the injured list and soon later it was revealed that x-rays showed a fractured wrist and Albies is expected to miss two months. It might be time to start bubble wrapping everyone else on the team. Or hell, even if you just live in Atlanta, you're probably not safe either. Something's going on and what I also realized is none of these season-ending or threatening injuries happened on freak plays. Strider and Freed had theirs just flare up, which is how it usually is for pitchers, so that's no surprise. But Acuño's is also like a completely no-contact injury, just messing up his knee on his own with Michael Harris's being the same, messing up his hamstring running the third on his own. Albies is the closest to a freak play, but even that was relatively normal as he along with every second baseman and baseball make contact to tag runners out stealing all the time. Yet this time it for whatever reason was worse and it broke his wrist. The most impactful players on this team you could think of are dropping left and right. The team this year was already not fully what we've seen it to be the last couple of years. They're struggling a bit despite still hanging in the race. Things are just so off this year. One of my best friends who's a Braves fan is already looking ahead to 2025 and I don't blame him one bit. How many injuries is it going to take before it's not even worth seeing this team do anything? And of course that is if it's even possible for them to do anything. The Phillies currently run things and I would say the Braves have a shot at giving them a run for their money, but when guys are going down like it's World War 3 it's hard to believe that happening. Let me know your thoughts and thank you for watching.