Jurickson Profar is rapidly earning his place as one of the most reviled figures in the history of Atlanta sports. On Tuesday, ESPN's Jeff Passan broke the news that the Braves outfielder had been suspended for the entire 2026 season after testing positive for PEDs. If that sounds familiar, it should: Profar was also suspended for a positive PED test last spring.
He missed 80 games in 2025; this time, pending a successful appeal, he'll miss all 162. (If he were to somehow test positive for a third time at some point, he'd join former Mets reliever Jenrry Mejia as the only players to be banned for life over PED violations.) The Braves will no longer be on the hook for Profar's $15 million salary this season, but that's cold comfort to a team that just lost a projected starter mere weeks before Opening Day — with few internal candidates behind him and precious little time to find a halfway decent replacement.
The Braves' spring from hell just got a whole lot worse
Can Atlanta weather yet another storm, or has this spring doomed their 2026 season before it even starts? And what would that mean both for the Braves and the rest of the league?
It's hard to imagine a spring going worse than what the Braves have had to deal with over the last month or two. First, they lost starting shortstop Ha-Seong Kim for 4-5 months back in January after he slipped on some ice and tore a tendon in his right middle finger. Then, camp opened with the news that righties Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep would be out until at least the summer due to elbow issues.
That's two important pitchers, one a potential ace, plus another starter at a premium position. Now you can add Profar to the list, who was penciled in as the team's everyday DH until this news broke.
Projected lineup
Position | Player |
|---|---|
RF | Ronald Acuña Jr. |
C | Drake Baldwin |
1B | Matt Olson |
3B | Austin Riley |
LF | Mike Yastrzemski |
2B | Ozzie Albies |
DH | Dominic Smith |
CF | Michael Harris II |
SS | Mauricio Dubon |
The top of the Braves order still looks plenty fearsome, though questions linger about the health of both Acuña Jr. and Riley. But the losses of Kim and Profar are really felt in the bottom half, which drops off a cliff in a hurry. It's unclear just who would start at DH if the season began tomorrow, but Smith — a nine-year vet who Atlanta brought into camp to serve as organizational depth — feels like the best bet over someone like Eli White given his experience and pop.
Then again, Smith has a lifetime OPS+ of just 98, so it's not like he's moving the needle much. Unless both Albies and Harris II can bounce back after miserable 2025 campaigns, there isn't a single average hitter in this bottom four. The Braves were hoping their lineup could rebound into one of the best in baseball this season; now it's looking more and more like a liability.
Free agent targets
The good news is that the Braves now have a bunch of unexpected money to play with. The bad news is that, well, there aren't many places to spend it on March 3. A veteran outfielder like Max Kepler or Tommy Pham might make some sense, and Andrew McCutchen is looking to move on from the Pirates and has plenty of experience at DH (though he comes with less positional flexibility). All of them would offer a higher floor and a higher ceiling than Smith or any of the other options the Braves are currently looking at.
Then again, none of those names posted an OPS above league average last season, and both Pham and McCutchen are pushing 40. Again: With just weeks to go until Opening Day, most of the viable free agents have already signed.
Trade candidates
So what about the trade market? The Mets almost certainly aren't sending Mark Vientos or Brett Baty to a division rival, but what about someone like Ryan Mountcastle in Baltimore or even Yandy Diaz in Tampa? Both have been in trade rumors all winter long (Mountcastle because of the O's corner infield surplus, Diaz for financial reasons), and neither would figure to cost all that much.
Speaking of logjams: Could the Astros maybe be a fit here? Houston seems like it's going to need to move off of Isaac Paredes at some point, and he'd instantly raise Atlanta's ceiling as the regular DH. Plus, he comes with another year of control in 2027 and could fit in as the second baseman if the Braves decide to move on from Albies in free agency.
Could this help put Alex Anthopoulos on the hot seat?
In a vacuum, it's hard to blame the Braves too much for the predicament they find themselves in. They're no doubt as shocked as anyone that Profar tested positive for the second year in a row, and pitchers get hurt all the time. But every team deals with injuries to some extent or another; it's how well you've insulated yourself from those injuries that matters.
And from that standpoint, it's hard not to look back at Atlanta's offseason and wonder a little bit. For the second straight winter, Anthopoulos largely sat on his hands outside of bringing back closer Raisel Iglesias and adding reliever Robert Suarez. He did nothing to upgrade his team's rotation depth, and while Dubon felt like a smart bench addition at the time, he also did very little to add around the margins of this lineup.
Now the Braves are in crisis, and it's not hard to see 2026 ending in much the same way 2025 did. If that's the case, is it time to start asking some questions about Anthopoulos' future? It would be the second straight season that Atlanta missed the playoffs, on the heels of an ugly Wild Card sweep at the hands of the Padres in 2024. The team's farm system is generally considered to be among the worst in MLB, and homegrown stars like Albies and Harris II have regressed badly. Anthopoulos' World Series win in 2021 bought him a bunch of good will, but that's notn going to last forever.
The NL East could not be more wide-open for the Mets
What a difference a few months can make. The sky was falling for the Mets in December, when David Stearns allowed Pete Alonso, Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo to walk out the door and struck out in his pursuit of Kyle Tucker. Now, though, New York has rebuilt its roster with guys like Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert Jr. — while their division appears to be melting down around them.
The Nationals project to be one of the worst teams in baseball this year. The Marlins could have been interesting if they ever showed even a passing interest in spending money. The Braves are hemorrhaging talent on a seemingly daily basis. At this point, it feels like the only team that can push the Mets in the East is the Phillies ... who have glaring question marks in the outfield and made very few meaningful additions this offseason.
Maybe Zack Wheeler can come back strong, Andrew Painter can hit the ground running and Bryce Harper can put together an all-time revenge year. That's a lot of ifs, though, and it feels like Philly is closer to the bottom falling out than they are to winning 100 games in 2026. All of a sudden, the Mets might be the most stable organization in this division.
The National League is falling even further behind
And really, you could say the same thing about the NL as a whole. The Dodgers are the Dodgers, of course, the odds-on favorite to win a third straight World Series title. The Cubs also figure to be very competitive after replacing Kyle Tucker with Alex Bregman and trading for Edward Cabrera.
Outside of those two, though, who do you really trust in the Senior Circuit? Sure, the Brewers always find a way to win a ton of games, and they have the depth to make up for the departure of Peralta. But it's also true that Milwaukee's two biggest moves of the winter involved trading its ace and its starting third baseman (Caleb Durbin). The Padres are trending in the wrong direction. The Reds and Giants left a lot to be desired this winter. The Pirates still feel like they're a year away.
There are a ton of question marks there, is the point, in contrast to an American League that boasts genuine heavyweights in the Blue Jays, Yankees and Mariners plus offseason risers like the Red Sox, Tigers and Orioles. Los Angeles aside, MLB is feeling even more imbalanced heading into 2026.