ZiPS gives the Braves an excellent forecast heading into 2023

Given the roster the Braves have assembled, it would require some special contortions to develop a forecast that doesn’t have the club looking like a superb contender in 2023, and to no one’s surprise, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS, via Fangraphs, indeed does not engage in contortions of any sort. I’ll just quote the man himself to summarize:

The Braves ought to be one of the teams competing to lead the majors in wins in 2023. And ZiPS believes they have the highest floor of all the reasonable contenders — the Mets, Cardinals, Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Blue Jays, and Astros. This is an excellent team.

You can see the entirety of the release here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-zips-projections-atlanta-braves/.

Particular callouts on this club are, again, things you probably already knew:

• Left field is an uncharacteristic problem area compared to the rest of the roster.
• The rotation is deep and solid, and ZiPS gives pretty high marks to fifth starter option guys like Bryce Elder and Ian Anderson beyond expecting some well-above-average work to all the more-ensconced rotation options.
• Raves about the bullpen — a unit which is arguably way harder to project than others, but it is what it is. Like much of the rest of the roster, there’s a lot of implicit praise for the roster and organizational depth assembled here.

In addition, Vaughn Grissom gets an average-y projection by combining a below-average batting line with bad-but-not-awful shortstop defense; Orlando Arcia ends up at more or less the same place with a somewhat worse hitting projection and a better defensive one.

There’s a lot more to mine from individual results and percentile projections provided (yay), but I’ll leave that to you all now that the projections are up.

With only a few teams left to go, the Steamer-ZiPS blend should be integrated into the Fangraphs standings and depth charts soon, and we’ll cover that when it happens as well.