ATLANTA -- You might have heard by now that Alex Anthopoulos, the Atlanta Braves' fourth-year general manager, resurrected his team's season by acquiring four new outfielders before the end of July. It was a strategy that initially caused confusion -- the Braves had a losing record and sat on the fringes of contention at the time -- but is now widely celebrated for the way it catapulted Atlanta to its first World Series appearance in more than 20 years.
Anthopoulos seems equal parts amused and uncomfortable by the praise. At 44, he has led a baseball-operations department long enough -- 10 years, including six with the Toronto Blue Jays -- to know mistakes are inevitable and successes fade quickly. He referenced a line attributed to former basketball coach Tex Winter in an ESPN documentary, "The Last Dance," about the Chicago Bulls' 1998 season: "You're only a success at the moment you do a successful act."
"It's true," said Anthopoulos, whose team will look to take a 2-1 series lead over the Houston Astros in Friday's Game 3 at Truist Park in Atlanta. "When all this stuff is over, you start from scratch. No one cares. If you're bad the following year, you're gonna get ripped, you're gonna get killed. No one's gonna say, 'Well, give him a break, they were in the World Series last year. They won the division four years in a row.' That's gone. That's old news. No one cares."
The logic is sensible, but Anthopoulos is also missing something: The players he added in July may go down as the most impactful group of midseason acquisitions in baseball history.
No, seriously.
The four outfielders -- Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler -- had accumulated a combined 0.7 FanGraphs wins above replacement before joining the Braves. All can be free agents this offseason (Duvall and Pederson have mutual options for 2022) and, unsurprisingly, didn't cost much of anything in prospect capital. But no team has ever ridden its midseason acquisitions to postseason success like the 2021 Braves. At least not offensively.
The numbers make that clear.
Below is a list of teams with the most cumulative postseason home runs by players who began that season elsewhere, courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau:
2021 Braves, 9
2004 Astros, 8
2004 Cardinals, 6
2010 Giants, 6
All of those Astros home runs were hit by Carlos Beltran, all the Cardinals home runs were hit by Larry Walker and all but one of those Giants home runs were hit by Cody Ross. The Braves' homers have been spread through all four of those outfielders.
Now here are the most combined hits in a single postseason by players who were on another team that season:
2021 Braves, 43
2003 Cubs, 36
2012 Giants, 34
2000 Yankees, 33
And the most extra-base hits:
2021 Braves, 16
2010 Giants, 15
2003 Cubs, 13
And the most RBIs:
2021 Braves, 28
2000 Yankees, 26
2018 Dodgers, 20
2003 Cubs, 20
And, lastly, the most plate appearances (with three to five games remaining this season):
2000 Yankees, 170
2021 Braves, 166
2012 Giants, 141
2003 Cubs, 136
The Braves won just 88 games during the regular season, but they went 34-18 in August and September, won the National League East by 6½ games, then beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Division Series and knocked off the 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers to claim their first pennant since 1999. When they clinched a trip to the World Series last Saturday, they became the first team in history to get there despite not having a winning record until as late as Aug. 6.
After a long-awaited champagne celebration that night, Freddie Freeman was asked if the Braves had benefited from the best trade deadline in baseball history.
"I'm gonna go with yes," he said with a laugh.
Much bigger stars have been moved midseason, of course (Max Scherzer, Kris Bryant and Craig Kimbrel were traded just this year). And a long list of players have made bigger impacts in the stretch run of the regular season (CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez and Mark Teixeira all had major impacts for new teams in 2008 alone). But no team has rebuilt an entire grouping on the fly and relied upon it so heavily in October.
It was a strategy shaped by failure.
Seven years ago, Anthopoulos oversaw a Blue Jays team that was nine games above .500 and 2½ games out of first place heading into the final day of July, but did practically nothing at the trade deadline. He was out of money, wasn't willing to include prospects in deals that would open payroll flexibility, and watched his team fade down the stretch. From that experience, he learned to earmark funds heading into each season and to assist his players when necessary. Heading into 2015, he withheld $7 million and later swung midseason deals to acquire David Price and Troy Tulowitzki, helping the Blue Jays capture their first division title in 22 years.
This year played out slightly differently. The Braves initially trimmed payroll coming off a fan-less 2020 season, but Anthopoulos said team chairman Terry McGuirk approached him in early July to announce that the attendance was better than projected and he wanted to steer additional revenue into the roster.
Anthopoulos' first move was to acquire Pederson from the Chicago Cubs for low-level minor league first baseman Bryce Ball on July 15. On the morning of July 30, the Braves were still just 51-53, five games out of first place in their division and nine games back of the second NL wild-card spot with four teams ahead of them. But their run-differential was plus-46, far better than that of any other NL East team. They were playing below expectations largely because of an outfield that was without Ronald Acuna Jr. (torn ACL) and Marcell Ozuna (domestic abuse allegations) and lacked suitable internal options.
Anthopoulos saw upside. He secured Rosario from the Cleveland Indians (for veteran infielder Pablo Sandoval and, most importantly, cash) and Soler from the Kansas City Royals (for 23-year-old Class A pitcher Kasey Kalich). Then, with hours left before the deadline, he called back Miami Marlins GM Kim Ng to fatefully revisit Duvall talks that had previously stalled, ultimately obtaining him for 25-year-old catcher Alex Jackson.
Suddenly, the Braves had four new outfielders.
"We knew we had a chance to get in the playoffs," Anthopoulos said. "We wanted to put ourselves in position to get to the postseason, but beyond that, playing meaningful games in September, I think, is valuable. It's valuable for the players, the employees. Going into the offseason, you try to get players to sign with your club. Playing meaningful games, being in it, I think, it's important. I think it's really important."
Duvall, Pederson, Rosario and Soler combined for an .837 OPS over the final five weeks of the regular season, helping the Braves overtake the reeling New York Mets and the flawed Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East. In the postseason, they've elevated themselves further.
Rosario, still recovering from an abdominal strain after his acquisition, was the NLCS MVP after becoming the first player in baseball history to accumulate 14 hits in the first six games of a postseason series. But the others have had their moments, too. Pederson hit the three-run homer that accounted for all the scoring in Game 3 of the NLDS. Duvall hit a home run and robbed a home run in the same inning of a big win in Game 4 of the NLCS. And Soler became the first man in history to begin the World Series with a home run, sparking a Game 1 win in Houston. They have combined for 57 home runs since joining the Braves, the most ever in a single season by players who began the same season on another team.
Before all that, those four outfielders indirectly injected a sense of belief for a languishing group that needed a midseason jolt.
"He showed us, and he showed the world, that he still believed in us," Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud said of Anthopoulos. "I think it lit a fire under us."