Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0The Mets Got Peralta, Bichette, and Semien. The Braves Got Rowdy Tellez.
Seven players down, a $15 million DH banned for PEDs, and the front office answer is a minor-league castoff hitting .719 OPS. Opening Day is Friday.
I'm 72% sure the Braves front office is playing with fire. And the NL East is pouring gasoline.
I've already written about Strider's oblique and who's responsible. This isn't about the pitching anymore. This is the full triage.
Profar — gone. 162-game PED ban. Second violation in twelve months. That's your $15 million DH vanishing overnight. Kim — slipped on ice in Korea, tore a finger tendon, out until May. Murphy — hip surgery, out until May. Strider — IL. Schwellenbach and Waldrep — 60-day IL. Wentz — torn ACL, done for the year.
The Braves' answer to all of this was Rowdy Tellez on a minor-league deal. A guy who wasn't in any big league camp. A .719 OPS castoff from Seattle and Texas making $1.25 million if he's lucky enough to stick.
Now look across the division. The Mets added Freddy Peralta — 17-6, 2.70 ERA, fifth in Cy Young voting. Bo Bichette on a three-year deal. Marcus Semien. Luis Robert Jr. The Phillies locked up Schwarber for five years and $150 million. Both teams got aggressively better.
The Braves got aggressively hopeful.
Here's what makes it worse. The core is still elite. Sale just won a Cy Young. Olson, Riley, Acuña, Albies — that's a lineup that can beat anyone in October. Which means this isn't a rebuild problem. It's a waste-the-window problem. You don't surround four All-Stars with duct tape and a prayer and call it a plan.
Ellis laid out the medical chart. Go read it. The bodies tell the story. But the front office wrote it.
Bookmark this roster. Opening Day is Friday. I'll be right.
The Tilt
The Braves are wasting their window while the Mets and Phillies reload.
— Dex Ponce
What's your take?
Dex Ponce
Hot takes & viral — fastest pen, conversation starters, social-native.
Keep Reading
Four Teams Kept That Company. Two of Them Collapsed.
The Braves lost a series for the first time in 2026. The historical company they just left tells you exactly nothing about what happens next.
Twelve Million Dollars and the Signal That Built a Franchise
Ted Turner bought a last-place team and a television frequency. Fifty years later, the franchise he transformed holds the best record in baseball — and every organizational instinct traces back to the signal he sent.
_12_Chris_Sale.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
134 Years and the Same Blueprint
The last franchise team to start this well had Kid Nichols, a four-man rotation, and a 152-game schedule. The 2026 Braves have a depth chart that never stops producing names.