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When Ozzie Albies signed his present contract, I decried it in such phrases that, nicely, “decried” was an correct description. This 22-year-old center infielder, coming off a season of 24 dwelling runs and 4.0 WAR, had signed away his prime incomes years to the Braves for seven years at a mean of $5 million per. Two choice years might hold him in Atlanta via 2027 with out rising the contract’s AAV. It was an all-time swindleI wrote. Esau bought a greater deal when he bought his inheritance for a bowl of stew.
Six years later, I sit right here considering a query that when would’ve appeared unfathomable: Ought to the Braves choose up these choice years?
By means of his first 83 video games, Albies is hitting .223/.297/.321, which is a wRC+ of 74. He has by no means earlier than hit beneath .259, nor slugged beneath .450, nor posted a wRC+ beneath 100 in any earlier wholesome season. There’s in all probability slightly unhealthy batted ball luck in there, and a few malaise from Atlanta’s comprehensively irritating, injury-riddled season to this point.
However Albies is barely underperforming his xwOBA by 9 factors, and his hard-hit price, 28.1%, is within the seventh percentile amongst main league hitters. For a participant who’s profited so immensely from the best mixture of contact high quality and launch angle, right here’s a troubling quantity: His barrel price is simply 3.4%, a Tenth-percentile determine relative to the league and Albies’ lowest determine in that class since his rookie yr. In 2023, when he hit 33 dwelling runs, Albies ran a barrel price of 8.2%. In 2021, his different 30-homer season, Albies’ barrel price was a career-high 9.3%.
Denuded of his potent bat, Albies is simply barely retaining his head above alternative degree. However as to the query I posed above the break — may the Braves reduce him free after this season? — that’s a kind of intentionally inflammatory rhetorical questions folks like me let free with the intention to get you to learn.
As poorly as Albies has hit this yr, it could be the shock of a lifetime if Atlanta didn’t choose up his choice, even when he will get to September and his wRC+ continues to be within the Ford administration. There are two causes.
First, it’d take a reasonably ruthless bastard to fireplace Albies in any case he’s executed for the Braves. A part of the rationale I used to be so outraged on Albies’ behalf when he signed this extension needed to do together with his immense potential. This tiny little man had already performed greater than 200 video games within the majors earlier than he turned 22, and never solely survived however carried out. It was not unreasonable then to anticipate Albies to show into one thing like a switch-hitting Mookie Betts.
That didn’t occur, after all, however over the primary six seasons of that extension, he performed 656 video games with a 110 wRC+, and even with the pandemic and varied accidents, he produced 15.0 WAR over that point. However numbers don’t actually do justice to a franchise stalwart. He’s made three All-Star groups, gained a World Collection, bought God is aware of what number of jerseys and t-shits. To not generalize off one information level, however my mother-in-law is a big Braves fan, and Albies is her favourite participant.
This isn’t some itinerant center reliever; this can be a lifer. There in all probability are entrance places of work on the market ruthless sufficient to ditch Albies after one actually unhealthy season, however Alex Anthopoulos and the Braves hold getting gamers to signal long-term under-market extensions as a result of it’s supposedly a superb place to play.
Second, like every thing else about Albies’ contract, his first choice yr is unbelievably low-cost: simply $7 million. Furthermore, whereas his 2027 group choice has no buyout, if the Braves wished to chop Albies this offseason, they’d should pay $4 million to do away with him. In essence, that makes this a $3 million resolution.
For a man getting into his age-29 season who was an All-Star and bought MVP votes two years in the past, $3 million is nothing. Right here’s a sampling of infielders who’re both method older than Albies, or far more washed than Albies, or each, and what they bought final winter on the open market from groups to which they (for essentially the most half) had little or no emotional attachment:
Ozzie Albies’ Free Agent Comparables Until He Snaps Out of It
Albies is simply flat-out price $3 million subsequent yr. If he’s this unhealthy once more in 2026, then we are able to speak about his 2027 choice, however that’s one other weblog publish for an additional day.
Having established that the reply to a query no person was asking is, “No,” let’s get to the scary half.
Albies was by no means an enormous bat pace man. It’s not his fault; he’s little. This might sound a bit bizarre to say, as a result of it appears like one million years in the past and he’s nonetheless solely 28, however Albies was one of many first gamers who developed as a prospect post-swing aircraft revolution. Gamers who had good hit instruments had been taught to swing more durable and put the ball within the air, and Albies was nice at it.
Even now, he’s within the high quartile of the league in superb assault angle proportion. He’s 18th in air-pull price amongst 281 batters with no less than 100 balls in play this season.
However he’s not hitting the ball as laborious as he used to:
The factor that makes Albies tough to judge is that he, greater than nearly some other hitter, is definitely two hitters. He’s a switch-hitter with two extraordinarily totally different swings. I truly requested him about this a pair years in the past once I was kicking round an article on the decline of the switch-hitter. (The Athletic printed an identical article whereas I used to be it kicking roundso I by no means used the quotes.)
Albies realized how you can switch-hit within the minors; he’s naturally right-handed (clearly, given the place he performs), however while you attempt to mirror your pure swing, he mentioned, there have been all the time variations. And he’s toyed with totally different stances and swing sorts over time; he’s extraordinarily open from each side, however that high quality has gotten extra excessive together with his left-handed swing and fewer excessive together with his right-handed swing. Right here’s what he’s been doing in 2025. First, from the left aspect:
After which from the best:
The tweaks he made — he began going barely much less extraordinarily open in 2024 — have truly helped Albies put higher swings on the ball. At the same time as Albies’ bat pace has suffered fairly a bit from the left aspect, his losses have been minimal from the best, the place he’s squared the ball up rather more regularly over the previous two seasons:
Ozzie Albies’ Bat Pace
Yr
Batting
Avg. Bat Pace (mph)
Quick Swing Fee
Squared Up/Contact%
2023
L
70.1
10.7
30.8
2024
L
68.9
6.5
30.2
2025
L
68.3
4.5
30.8
2023
R
69.9
11.7
30.1
2024
R
69.4
10.0
39.8
2025
R
69.4
12.7
40.9
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Albies’ efficiency as a switch-hitter is one in all my biggest baseball fixations. I’ve come to comprehend that lots of my fixations come from traumatic arguments I had in regards to the early 2010s Phillies as a younger blogger, and that is no totally different. Again then, Shane Victorino was a switch-hitter with two distinct swings, simply as Albies is now. From the left aspect, Victorino had a slappy swing; from the best aspect, he appeared like Albert Pujolsand with not-much-worse outcomes. Victorino had a profession wRC+ of 93 batting left-handed, and a profession wRC+ of 130 batting right-handed.
That is related to Albies as a result of he’s (or no less than has been) a monster in opposition to lefties hitting right-handed: .326/.351/.537, a wRC+ of 135. Towards right-handed pitching batting left-handed, he’s OK at greatest: .245/.309/.428, for a 95 wRC+.
The issue for Albies now, because it was for Victorino then, is that far more pitchers throw right-handed than left-handed. For his profession, Albies has seen nearly three right-handed pitchers for each lefty. For each plate look he takes as Manny Machadohe takes 2.8 as CEDDANNE RAFAELA.
Victorino finally gave up switch-hitting on the finish of his profession, and I put that instance to Albies after we spoke, as gently as I might: Would he ever think about hitting right-handed completely?
“We’ve talked about it earlier than, however it’s not a factor I feel I might do.”
Why not?
“As a result of I’m a switch-hitter,” he mentioned, with a weighty silence afterward to point that he’d favor to drop the topic.
However, Albies tried going right-on-right on the finish of final season. He’d damaged his left wrist in July, and was racing to get again on the sphere in time to assist the Braves make the playoffs. It wasn’t an enormous pattern — 9 video games, 33 PA — however neither was it a rousing success. He hit .226/.273/.452.
This stoop, which is shortly turning into a nasty season, full cease, would ordinarily be an ideal alternative to attempt one thing new. To reinvent oneself, even. However Albies can not rely on crushing left-handed pitching.
He’s sustaining his bat pace, he’s hitting the ball in the best locations, and the ability is simply gone:
In 90 plate appearances from the best aspect this season, Albies has simply three walks and 4 extra-base hits, all doubles, resulting in a wRC+ of 39. For the primary time in his profession (pandemic season however; he solely performed 29 video games that yr), Albies is doing considerably worse in opposition to left-handed pitching.
What I don’t know is the place the bleeding is coming from or how you can cease it. Albies is chasing extra from the best aspect than in any season besides 2022, however he ran a 43.0% chase price in 2023, when he hit .391 as a righty and set a profession excessive in dwelling runs. He’s on tempo to set a brand new profession excessive in stroll price, but when there are obtrusive indicators of general passivity, I don’t see them. His SEAGER is under his profession common, however he was by no means among the many league leaders, and it’s not a lot decrease than it was in 2023 anyway.
Albies’ decline is mysterious sufficient to tempt one to search for exterior explanations: modifications to the baseball, perhaps, or lingering results from that damaged wrist. Albies wouldn’t be the primary star participant — and even the primary extraordinarily brief second baseman of his era — to get abruptly and inexplicably misplaced for a season. Jose Altuve was dreadful in 2020, his age-30 season, then popped again and made the All-Star group in 2021. He completed fifth in MVP voting in 2022. Solely now, in his age-35 season and amid a place change (in my view, an ill-advised one) is he nicely and really slowing down.
If Albies is in line for the same bounce again, selecting up that $7 million choice would be the smartest resolution Anthopoulos ever made. However one of the vital dependable abilities in baseball has evaporated, virtually in a single day, and I’m beginning to fear.
