The Braves have quite a few items on their offseason to-do list.
There’s the huge three-year running hole at shortstop, where the club will hopefully make some sort of deal with Ha-Seong Kim.
Lord knows the starting rotation could use a reliable arm that takes the ball every fifth day to bolster a good but injury-prone group.
And the bullpen is looking for a closer (and probably another high-leverage arm as well).
The one spot on the roster that hasn’t generated much discussion in the early days of the offseason is designated hitter. When Alex Anthopoulos met with the media for an hour last week, the name “Marcell Ozuna” was not mentioned once, nor was the DH’s position really discussed. It’s a significant opening for a club that has played Ozuna in that spot virtually every day since the DH position came to the National League a few years ago.
So, what will the Braves do in 2026? Let’s explore a few options.
To be clear, I don’t think Kyle Schwarber will call Atlanta home for the next four to five years. But he is an absolute tank at the top of the order and would transform the group around him.
Unfortunately for the Braves, Schwarber is coming off a season that will earn him MVP votes. He’s probably made another $50 million in the last six months, and he was already set for a big payday before he started working on nuclear power in Philadelphia this summer.
There has also been talk of Pete Alonso playing DH to expand his market, but that seems unlikely for the Braves for several reasons.
The disadvantage of a design hitter like Ozuna and Schwarber is that they only hit. There’s no positional versatility, and it prevents the Braves from using the position to give other players a day or two of rest without losing their bat in the lineup. Jurickson Profar isn’t exactly a golden glove in left field, Ronald Acuña Jr. has a long list of lower body injuries at the moment, and Michael Harris II has suffered his fair share of injuries as well.
To me, this feels like being the leader in the clubhouse for two weeks in October.
Drake Baldwin was fantastic this past season. He made 97 starts at catcher and 12 at DH with a stellar 125 wRC+.
Sean Murphy, pork belly as always, was just okay. He made 76 starts at catcher and 7 at DH before ending his season prematurely with a torn hip that had apparently bothered him for years. He finished the year with a 97 wRC+.
Using a catcher’s bat at DH feels like you’re limiting your lead offensively. Baldwin is a great hitter as a catcher; he would only be good as a DH. Murphy is average in the league offensively as a catcher, but his bat would be pretty mediocre as a DH.
The challenge, of course, is that you want Baldwin’s bat in the lineup every day without burning him out by August. Catching in Atlanta during the summer is brutal work. Ask Brian McCann, who spoke openly about running out of gas during the second half of the season.
Murphy will recover from hip surgery this season and Atlanta expects him back at the start of spring training. Unless they trade him and the remaining three years of his deal, Murphy will take it into account one way or another. But trying to guess what level of offensive production Murphy will give you feels like spinning a wheel with 10 outcomes.
They perform it with Ozuna
An interesting possibility is to bring Ozuna back on a cheap one-year pact. Ozuna had a 114 wRC+ on board last season, a roller coaster of highs and lows. That won’t destroy your lineup at the DH spot.
That said, Ozuna turns 35 in a month, and his batted ball data took a sharp turn from his stellar 2023-2024 campaigns. He is well-liked in the clubhouse, but given his age and offensive trends, it’s possible that bringing him back for another season would set money on fire if it could be used to add an impact starter or shortstop.
One variable: Performance aside, the Braves like Ozuna and what he does in the clubhouse. Players have credited him with helping them get out of a slump with their swings, and he is seen as an older brother to many Latin players in the locker room. That means something. It may not mean he gets a new contract, but I could see it happening.
To wrap this up, the Braves have options as Halloween approaches. The designated hitter position may be at the bottom of the totem pole for offseason priorities, but it’s a big decision they’ll have to make in the coming months.
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