Atlanta Braves: 5 requirements for the Braves to win the NL East in 2019

 The Atlanta Braves haven’t changed much since the 2018 season, but the rest of the Division certainly has. With division foes making several key additions, there are going to be some things that must happen for the Braves to have a shot at winning the NL East.

Coming off of a year in which the Atlanta Braves surprised the world by winning 90 games and pacing the division for a NL East crown, there really should have been a strong desire to make some notable additions, as the fire has been lit and a precedent has been set.

“Addition” maybe is a better form of the word, since General Manager Alex Anthopoulos has yet to cause the word to turn plural, only adding third baseman Josh Donaldson as his single “notable” move for 2019.

But I’m certainly not here to complain and bash Anthopoulos. Honestly, other than maybe one or two decisions, I’m feeling what Anthopoulos is putting down.

Yes he could have been a little more aggressive this offseason, and yes there were a plethora of improvements just chilling out there on the Free Agent market.

However, it’s pretty apparent that Anthopoulos has some sort of plan, and that plan doesn’t involve making many changes to the current team. So if you’re still expecting a great big ol’ splash, than I’m sorry:  you will probably be disappointed. We’ll find out in due course if that plan was smart or not.

This isn’t about additions or lack of additions, though. The Braves have what they have and must do the best with who is on the roster at this very moment.

At the time of this writing the Philadelphia Phillies were in the midst of finalizing a deal with Free Agent Bryce Harper, adding yet another reinforcement to an opponent in the Division.

The Braves did a lot of things really well in 2018. That’s pretty obvious by their National League East Division trophy. It takes a great season for a team to win their respective division (well most of the time).

But as you already know, the Braves didn’t win the World Series last year, nor did they run away with the Division sporting a 15 or 20 game lead; and I just mentioned that there has been a lot of additions by other teams in the division… except the Marlins of course.

So logically it’s a pretty safe bet that the Braves will need to be even better in 2019, right? The same performance from last season will not end with the Braves on top – at least not likely.

So since it has been addressed and realized that the Braves had many strengths in 2018, there also needs to be some sort of an awareness of their weaknesses… the things that prevented the Braves from finishing with more wins during the regular season or from beating the Dodgers in the NLDS.  These are the weaknesses that need to be addressed and fixed.

Goals are put out by every organization each season, and the Braves are no different. There are several things that they need to work on.

I’m going to focus on just five in this column today. There are surely more that can be looked at, but these five seem the most important to the direct success of the team.

Let’s look…