Same Old Braves?

People are saying “Same old Braves” and ‘What’s wrong with the Braves?” – without stopping to review what happened this season.

1. Season-ending injuries: Pena. Beachy. Hudson. Venters. O’Flaherty. Martinez. Pastornicky. Had these players not gone down the Braves record would’ve been several games better.

2. Others that have missed time due to injuries: Freeman. Heyward. Gattis. Schafer. Uggla. BJ. Laird. Maholm. Janish. Walden. Reed Johnson. In total, over three-quarters of the roster missed time to injury.

3. The continued ineffectiveness of Uggla, BJ, and Francisco.

Despite all these setbacks the Braves easily won the NL East, with one of the best records in baseball. They were in first place every day of the season, except one. With all this juggling manager Fredi Gonzalez should be named manager of the Year. Freddie Freeman is a MVP candidate. Andrelton Simmons is having the greatest defensive season in baseball history. He and Jason Heyward should win Gold Gloves, and Freeman is also contending for one. Chris Johnson is battling for the batting title. Evan Gattis has led all rookies in home runs all season. Craig Kimbrel is having another record-setting season, and should be in the running for the Cy Young Award.

What should the Braves have done differently? There were no great hitters on the trading block at the deadline, no one with better stats than players currently on the Braves roster.