Atlanta Braves, MLB Network Radio prove why baseball is unpredictable

Not many people picked the Atlanta Braves to repeat as NL East champs in 2019, but nobody did it worse than the crew at MLB Network Radio.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or aren’t active on Twitter, you’ve probably seen the MLB Network graphic where 18 experts made their predictions for the 2019 season and none of them picked the Atlanta Braves to win the NL East.

Now we can’t be too harsh on those guys as the majority of our staff had the Washington Nationals winning the division.

But to have 18 guys make predictions and not one of them had the team that won the division the year before winning it again is just hard to believe.

https://twitter.com/Folty25/status/1175436650060636161

As you can imagine, Braves fans — as well as Mike Foltynewicz, have reminded MLB Network about their preseason picks.

Even at the game on Friday night, there was a girl in the crowd who had a poster board print out of the picks.

The fan base has been so loud that MLB Network couldn’t help but send a response and have a little fun with the situation.

But again, not only did none of them pick the Atlanta Braves to win the NL East, but not a single one of them had the Braves even making the playoffs as a Wild Card!

That’s what is so surprising to me. Again, I thought the Washington Nationals would win the division, but I still thought this team was good enough to get a Wild Card spot.

The Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, and New York Mets stole the headlines in the offseason while the Atlanta Braves and Alex Anthopoulos — for the most part — just sat back and watched.

Outside of signing Josh Donaldson, Brian McCann, and Nick Markakis, not much was done to improve the team from 2018, which is why not many ‘experts’ picked the Atlanta Braves to repeat.

But that’s why it is almost impossible to predict baseball. There is no way one can know what is going to happen over the course of a 162 game season.

And when the Atlanta Braves started the season 18-20 and were four games back of the Phillies, a lot of those experts — and many fans — looked like they would be right.

But nobody else in the NL East really got off to a good start, and the Braves offense took off once Brian Snitker moved Ronald Acuna Jr. back to the leadoff spot.

They then got a big boost from Austin Riley, some sneaky good acquisitions of Anthony Swarzak and Jerry Blevins to help settle down a terrible bullpen, and then a big signing of Dallas Keuchel.

And then at the trade deadline, AA completely overhauled the backend of the bullpen with three huge acquisitions.

There is no way any of those experts could know those things were going to happen.

But what they should have known, is that the Atlanta Braves have built one of the best young cores in all of baseball. And that young core didn’t take a step back in 2019, instead, they’ve gotten even better and are just getting things started.

I can guarantee you those experts won’t make the same mistake next season.