Until last season, Atlanta Braves fans were thrilled with the work Alex Anthopoulos had done during his time running the front office. The wins were plentiful, the division titles constant, and he delivered the city of Atlanta a long desired World Series win in 2021. It’s hardly surprising that fans are happy when a team is winning and not happy when they are losing, but Anthopoulos faces an issue with the Braves that he really hasn’t really encountered here before.

Last season, the injuries were too numerous to overcome and few fans blamed AA for the team’s shortcomings last year. In previous offseasons and/or trade deadlines, Anthopoulos correctly identified team needs and addressed them in novel ways that mostly worked out (Tyler Matzek, Jorge Soler, Josh Donaldson, Chris Sale, Matt Olson, Charlie Morton, etc.).

Now, Anthopoulos presides over what appears to be a very, very flawed roster and given how little the Braves did to add to that roster last offseason combined with some very high profile losses in free agency the last few years, fans are blaming him.

Alex Anthopoulos may now have to oversee a true overhaul of the Braves roster in order to win fans over again

In fairness to Anthopoulos, there is a certain amount of sad revisionist history going on right now. There are fans coming out of the woodwork saying that they always thought Matt Olson or Ozzie Albies or Austin Riley were bums and their struggles this season prove that the Braves should have never given them the extensions that they got. Those are sad people who don’t actually watch Braves baseball games and who need to go outside more often. The vast majority of those extensions were widely praised when they happened and were objectively good ideas.

The problem now is that the Braves have a lot of guys locked into roster spots for the foreseeable future and what had worked for Atlanta for many years isn’t working anymore. Albies’ injuries over the years seem to have caught up with him as he is in decline, Olson is working on his second straight feast or famine season, Michael Harris II looks like he needs time in the minors given many of his at-bats, and the Braves’ offense as a whole is a shadow of their former selves. Thankfully Ronald Acuña Jr. has been amazing since coming off the injured list, but the majority of the Braves’ lineup has regressed in 2025.

Combine those offensive issues with a bullpen that Anthopoulos himself admitted he failed to address adequately after the loss of Joe Jimenez basically collapsing in on itself and you have a team that just doesn’t look like a playoff team right now. That is a lot to fix in a short amount of time and unlike previously, Anthopoulos is truly getting most of the blame for it for the first time leading the Braves’ front office.