I’ve wanted to revisit some ideas about big rebuilds and what comes next, so I started looking into it around the All-Star Break. However, the process sort of spiraled into something bigger, and as it went on, I realized that the first half of the article was a little more timely than the back-half. So rather than finish the whole thing and then start making decisions on publishing and where to divide it, I made the call to just preemptively split it up and publish the first part before it got too out-of-date, while still working on the back-half. As a result, I can’t really promise when Part 2 will be coming just yet, but it will hopefully be soon.​
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Over the last few seasons, I’ve been maintaining something of a series where I look at rebuilding teams. The main focus initially was comparing the complete teardown and rebuild of the circa-2020 Orioles with the one pulled off by the early-2010s Astros, since there were a lot of similarities in the two (including a shared lineage of personnel). A few other rebuilds also got mentioned over the course of those articles, but I eventually got around to a piece centered around the Braves’ retooling as a contrasting method. Ever since then, I’ve had a sort of mental connection between all of them.
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The last piece in that series came over two years, right at the start of the 2023 season, and that looked like the end of things. The Orioles would roar out to a division title (their first since 2014) and 101 wins (their first 100-win season since 1980). The only team ahead of them was that Braves team, who won 104 games and looked to be moving into the peak years of their dynasty following their 2021 title.*
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​*Also, all stats in this piece are going to be from Baseball-Reference or Fangraphs. ​
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If that had been the end, it would have been a satisfying conclusion to a long process. The Orioles’ rebuild finally paid off, the Braves’ kicked into high gear, the end. 2024 didn’t go quite as smoothly for either team, as both fell to second in their division and around the 90 win mark. But hey, there’s always some randomness over 162 games and following up a 100-win season can be hard. The important thing was that they made it back to the playoffs. And sure, those playoff runs ended poorly, but again, that happens sometimes. Both of them would be well equipped to try and come back the next year in 2025…
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You almost certainly know how that’s gone so far. Those 2024 swoons look less like bad-luck blips and more like omens for what was to come. At the 2025 All-Star Break, the two had near-identical records (43-52 for Baltimore, 42-53 for Atlanta) and were both around a dozen games out of the division, with only the faintest hopes of a second-half comeback. It’s difficult to decide which one is the bigger disappointment.
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