Presenting the Braves' All-Quarter Century Team, the best in Atlanta since 2000

New York Times

23-05-2025

ATLANTA — The past quarter century of Atlanta Braves baseball includes three distinct eras: the carryover and last stretch of National League East dominance for Bobby Cox's 'Team of the '90s' and its three Hall of Fame pitchers; the belt-tightening and rebuilding period with only one division title in 12 seasons through 2017; and the current era of bigger revenues at Truist Park, larger payrolls and seven consecutive playoff appearances and one World Series title.
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I assumed that selecting the franchise's All-Quarter Century Team would be difficult. But it was more fun than arduous.
I've covered the Braves daily as a beat writer since 2002, and I also saw them a ton during 1995-2002 as a Marlins beat writer — back when they were the Florida Marlins playing at Pro Player Stadium and when prosperous newspapers sent beat writers to cover postseason games even if their own city's team wasn't involved.
That meant I covered a lot of Braves baseball even then, when Atlanta pitchers had a monopoly on the Cy Young Award and the Jones Boys exuded so much swagger that brightly colored accessories weren't required. But that's another discussion for another day.
From 2000 to present, the Braves have had two ballparks, three managers, 13 NL East titles, one World Series championship and terrific performances on the mound and at every position. That included one first-ballot Hall of Famer who spent multiple seasons at two positions, allowing for some creativity in this exercise.
Without further ado, here's the Braves' All-Quarter Century Team, as selected by me without any outside influence.
Freeman was signed and developed by the Braves, with whom he spent 11 full seasons and was the 2020 NL MVP, a 2021 World Series champion and a five-time All-Star. He collected five other top-10 MVP finishes, three Silver Slugger Awards and a Gold Glove. Many Braves fans still — and might always — bemoan that the team didn't re-sign him, pivoting to a trade for Matt Olson when contract discussions with Freeman stalled before the 2022 season.
Freeman debuted at age 20 for Atlanta in 2010, and from 2011 to 2021, he hit .296 with an .894 OPS for the Braves while averaging 69 extra-base hits (28 homers) per 162 games. For 11 seasons. Though Olson has been the NL's second-best first baseman since joining Atlanta and led the majors in 2023 with 54 homers and 139 RBIs (both franchise records), Freeman continues as a perennial MVP candidate with the Los Angeles Dodgers and hit a World Series Game 1 walk-off grand slam last year that cemented him in that team's lore as well.
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Giles was a tough call over current second baseman Ozzie Albies, a three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger Award winner. Neither was viewed as a strong defensive player, and both were slowed by injuries. But Giles was the better, most consistent all-around hitter, batting .285 with an .809 OPS and 108 OPS+ in six seasons with the Braves through 2006. Albies, in his ninth season, all with Atlanta, has a .268 career average with a .783 OPS and 106 OPS+.
To be clear, Chipper Jones is one of the top third basemen in MLB history. That's his position. But he was also the Braves' best left fielder of the past quarter century, statistically speaking. So, for our purposes, we'll cheat and put Jones in left field so we can also get Riley on this team at third base, where the two-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger Award winner has developed into a strong defender (recent errors notwithstanding) while hitting .273 with an .836 OPS and 123 OPS+ since debuting in 2019. That included a three-year stretch (2021-2023) in which Riley hit .286 with an .878 OPS while averaging 35 doubles, 36 homers, 99 RBIs, 6.2 bWAR and 159 games played and finished sixth or seventh in NL MVP voting three times.
I was going to put Simmons on this team over Dansby Swanson and Rafael Furcal simply because 'Simba' is the greatest defensive shortstop I've seen in three decades as an MLB beat writer, as superb with the glove and arm at his position as Andruw Jones was at his. But then I looked deeper into the stats and realized Simmons also had an advantage there over Swanson, with more bWAR (15.6) in three-plus seasons for Atlanta than Swanson (14.9) in six-plus seasons. (Furcal led with 21.9 in six seasons.) Furcal and Swanson were better hitters than Simmons, but on balance each was a below-average MLB hitter with Atlanta, with Swanson and Furcal each posting a 95 OPS+ as Braves and Simmons an 85 OPS+. But Simmons was simply spectacular in the field, beyond a generational defensive talent, and seemingly every other game he left your jaw hanging with his glove work.
Because he went on to win a Silver Slugger Award with the New York Yankees and a World Series ring with a 2017 Houston Astros team that was later tarnished by a sign-stealing scandal, some Braves fans seem to forget how good McCann was in his first nine MLB seasons with the Braves. 'BMac' was terrific. He was the best-hitting catcher in the NL, if not all of baseball, for most of those years and an outstanding pitch-framer, game-caller and team leader. In his first six full seasons through 2011, McCann was a six-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger Award winner, batting .287 with an .850 OPS while averaging 26 homers and 101 RBIs. This while starting 118 or more games every season at catcher during that span, including years with 129, 130 and 132 starts at the position. Elite hitter, ironman behind the dish. Easy choice here.
The best Braves player of the post-Hank Aaron era and one of the greatest switch hitters and third basemen in history. Perhaps the extraordinarily talented Ronald Acuña Jr. will enter that best-Brave-since-Hank discussion eventually, but it'll take a lot more healthy and hugely productive seasons before he could displace Jones, the 1999 NL MVP and first-ballot Hall of Famer who played 19 seasons, all with Atlanta, and finished with a .303 average, .401 OBP, .529 slugging percentage, .930 OPS and 141 OPS+ in 2,499 games. Oh, and hit .303 from the left side and .304 from the right.
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In a nine-year span through 2004, Jones hit .307 with a .950 OPS while averaging 32 homers, 106 RBIs and 155 games. Jones came up as a shortstop, switched primarily to third base as a rookie, was used occasionally in the outfield and moved to left field for two full seasons (2002-2003) to accommodate Vinny Castilla after Castilla signed as a free agent. Of Jones' 364 games played in the outfield, 338 were in 2001-2004.
Widely regarded as the greatest defensive center fielder in a half-century and arguably of all time, Andruw Jones debuted at 19 for Atlanta and spent 12 seasons with the Braves, winning 10 consecutive Gold Gloves beginning in his age-21 season in 1998. What makes that all the more impressive is this: During that decade-long Gold Glove streak, Jones averaged 34 homers, 103 RBIs and 158 games played while slugging .504 with an .847 OPS and 5.8 bWAR per season. That included an MLB-leading 51 homers with 128 RBIs in 2005, when he finished a close second in MVP balloting to Albert Pujols. Based on Jones' recent annual voting-percentage increases, he should be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in one of the next two classes, the last two years he's eligible on the writers' ballot.
Chipper Jones has called Acuña the most physically talented player ever to wear an Atlanta Braves uniform. That's saying something, considering the franchise was home to the legendary Hank Aaron along with Hall of Famers such as Eddie Mathews and Jones himself. But the sheer all-around exceptional skills of Acuña are obvious, and it all came together in 2023 when he hit .337 with 41 homers, 73 stolen bases, 106 RBIs, 149 runs and a 1.012 OPS from the leadoff spot. Only a pair of serious knee injuries — ACL tears in the right knee in 2021 and left knee in 2023 — have stalled what was shaping up as one of the most prolific starts to any career in decades.
The designated hitter was utilized in the NL for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and then permanently beginning in 2022. Since then, there's been no better DH (outside greater Los Angeles) than Ozuna. After splitting time between DH and the outfield in 2022, and after having his two worst seasons in 2021 and 2022 while dealing with injuries and off-field legal matters, Ozuna moved to DH full time in 2023 and has prospered, to say the least. Since May 1, 2023, Ozuna has hit .296 with 85 home runs (tied with Olson for fourth in MLB), 224 RBIs, a .557 slugging percentage (fourth in MLB) and a .936 OPS in 333 games and 1,410 plate appearances through Wednesday.
One of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, Maddux won four consecutive Cy Young Awards, including three with the Braves from 1993 to 1995 after coming from the Chicago Cubs as a free agent. He won a remarkable 355 career games with a 106.6 WAR and 18 Gold Gloves. Though the best years of his 23-season career came in the 1990s, Maddux remained formidable into the 2000s, going 68-37 with a 3.16 ERA during the 2000-2003 seasons for Atlanta with 10 complete games and 900 regular-season innings in that span. Those were his ages 34-37 seasons, and Maddux had at least 16 wins and 34 starts in each. He returned to the Cubs, then the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, for the last five seasons of his career.
The left-hander made his MLB debut with the Braves in 2017 and became a full-time starter in 2019, going 71-31 with a 3.06 ERA in 145 games (142 starts) over six seasons through 2024 and helping the Braves win the 2021 World Series with six scoreless innings in a clinching Game 6. Among pitchers with 700 or more innings from 2019 to 2024, Fried ranked second in wins (71), fourth in ERA and tied for ninth in WHIP (1.14). He left as a free agent after last season when the Braves didn't make an offer competitive with others he received, including the stunning eight-year, $218 million deal he signed with the Yankees.
Another of the celebrated 'Big Three' starters, along with Maddux and Tom Glavine, each a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Though Smoltz's HOF resume was bolstered by his years as an elite closer — 144 saves as a full-time closer during 2002-2004, a majors-leading 55 saves in 2002, a 1.12 ERA in 2003 — he returned to Atlanta's rotation at age 38 in 2005 and went 44-24 with a 3.22 ERA in 100 starts over three seasons, with 577 strikeouts in 667 1/3 innings. He was twice an All-Star in those three seasons and had sixth- and seventh-place Cy Young finishes, after winning the Cy Young a decade before with a 24-win season in 1996 that included 276 strikeouts in 253 2/3 innings. Maddux and Glavine were regarded as the best pure pitchers, the deep thinkers of the trio, and Smoltz was the power pitcher with the best pure 'stuff' of the trio. He was also the single most competitive athlete I've ever covered, and probably the toughest.
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Hudson was the Braves' best and most productive pitcher in the period between the Big Three and Fried's ascension, but his accomplishments from 2005 to 2013 with Atlanta tend to get overlooked because most of that period came during the lull between the franchise's most successful periods. Hudson was nonetheless a frontline ace after the Alabama native signed with the Braves at age 29, following six seasons and 92 wins with Oakland. Hudson went 113-72 with a 3.56 ERA and nine complete games in 244 games with the Braves, including four seasons with at least 16 wins and a fourth-place Cy Young finish in 2010 after going 17-9 with a 2.83 ERA in 228 2/3 innings.
Like his pal Maddux, most of Glavine's best years as a Brave were well behind him by 2000, including Cy Young Awards in 1991 and 1998 and three other top-three Cy finishes and six All-Star selections. But the lefty still had plenty in the tank, as evidenced by his 2000 season with Atlanta when Glavine was 21-9 with a 3.40 ERA in 35 starts and 241 innings at age 34, earning the seventh of his 10 All-Star berths and finishing as the Cy Young runner-up to Randy Johnson. Glavine had 305 wins in 22 seasons, including 244 in 17 seasons with Atlanta. He was 55-27 with a 3.35 ERA during 2000-2002 with the Braves before going to the Mets as a free agent, something many Braves fans held against him for a long time, even after he returned to Atlanta for a truncated age-42 season, his last before retiring.
He's at Triple-A Gwinnett trying to make it back to the majors with the Braves, but no one should expect Kimbrel to be nearly the pitcher he was in his previous stint with the team. That's because very few closers ever had a five-year run like Kimbrel with the Braves at the outset of his career, a stretch that ended more than a decade ago. He was 21 when he debuted with Atlanta in May 2010, and by the following season, he was the NL's best closer and remained that when traded in a cost-cutting move during a rebuild before the 2015 season.
From 2010 to 2014, Kimbrel was otherworldly, posting a 1.43 ERA and 0.903 WHIP in 294 appearances for Atlanta, with 186 saves and 476 strikeouts in 289 innings. He led the NL in saves in four consecutive seasons, with 46, 42, 50 and 47. Kimbrel was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2011, ahead of Freeman, and was an All-Star every season from 2011 to 2014, finishing in the top nine in Cy Young balloting in each of those seasons and receiving MVP votes in three.
(Top photo of Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones from 2007: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)