Braves Plans to Revamp Baserunning Not Going as Planned to Start

A key narrative heading into the Atlanta Braves' 2026 season was that the baserunning was going to take a leap forward. The intention is for it to play a role in the offense reinventing itself. So far, it’s in need of some tweaks.

Four players have been picked off at first base so far this year: Ronald Acuña Jr. twice, along with Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies once each. They’ve successfully stolen one base on four total attempts.

All three of these players are stolen base threats. Acuña is the highlight of the three, but Albies and Harris have shown they’re capable of swiping 20 bags in a year. Having them picked off before they have a chance to move up an extra base is a tough situation to have.

It’s early in the season, sure. Can they overcome this? Obviously. That being said, seven outs on the basepaths in six games is steep. Getting caught stealing is going to happen. That’s the nature of it. But the pickoffs are something that needs to be eliminated.

It’s not biting them too much right now. They’ve won four of their first six games to get the year going. But it’s something that is capable of catching up to them, depending on the timing.

Let’s say the Braves are down a run, and they get the lead-off man on in the late innings. He gets picked off. The batter at the plate hits a double right after. That’s a scoring opportunity that’s been missed. It’s a rally-killing scenario.

The Braves brought in Antaon Richardson to be the first base coach with baserunning in mind. A big selling point was that he was able to make Juan Soto a 30/30 player and get the Mets running like a track team on the basepaths.

It has yet to translate to Atlanta. The team is likely more than aware. They know with the modern game that it’s advantageous to be able to give pitchers headaches in this way.

“I think with the rule changes, I think you got to adapt to the game, and with the changes and the rules, it favors baserunning and the base-stealing aspect of it,” Walt Weiss said on opening day.

The Braves head west for their first road trip of the year. Getting the baserunning going en route to getting it off to a better start than last year would be an ideal way to do it.

Reynaldo López is on the mound for the Braves on Thursday to get things going out in Arizona against the Diamondbacks. First pitch is set for 9:40 p.m. EDT.