John Smoltz Has Bold Take On Atlanta Braves' Early Season Success

· Yahoo Sports

Could the Braves be better than LA?

John Smoltz won a Cy Young and 213 games across 20 seasons in Atlanta, so he knows the Braves better than most people on the planet.

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That is why it meant something when the Hall of Famer looked at the 2026 National League race and still picked the Los Angeles Dodgers over his old team.

Smoltz Trusts the Dodgers' Roster

Smoltz sat down with DJ Siddiqi of Casino.org and said the Braves are the healthiest club in baseball right now, but he kept coming back to what the Dodgers have put together.

"I think right now the healthiest team is the Atlanta Braves," Smoltz said. "But to say what the future holds, the Dodgers have assimilated the best roster all together. And in that case, I kind of give a nod to the Dodgers based on their roster. But it's still up in the air based on all the other components. It's going to be hard-pressed to accumulate the kind of roster that they did, unless you make some trades. They've definitely got the head start over the rest of the teams."

The Dodgers are 40-22 and chasing a three-peat that no team has pulled off since the 2000 Yankees.

Ohtani, Betts, Freeman, and Tucker lead a lineup that can beat you a dozen different ways, and a rotation that opened the year with Yamamoto, Glasnow, Sasaki, and Ohtani just backs up what Smoltz is saying.

Why Atlanta Could Still Be the Better Team

Here is the thing, though.

The Braves are outplaying the Dodgers right now, and it is not really that close. Atlanta owns the best record in the National League at 42-20, two games clear of Los Angeles.

This is the same team that went 76-86 last year.

First-year manager Walt Weiss has completely changed the feel of this clubhouse, and the results speak for themselves.

Chris Sale is leading the rotation with a 2.02 ERA and eight wins, and the lineup kept producing even after the Braves lost catchers Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy to injuries in May.

Baldwin was hitting .303 with 13 home runs before he went down, and Atlanta did not miss a beat without him.

That is the kind of toughness that matters when the games get bigger in October, and it is the same thing Smoltz was getting at when he said health would be the biggest thing for the Braves going forward.

The Dodgers might have the better roster on paper, and nobody should argue that.

But the Braves have the better record, a bit fewer injury questions, and a team that seems to believe last year's mess was a fluke.

If they stay healthy and add a piece at the trade deadline, Smoltz might have to change his answer by the time October rolls around.

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