The Braves won just 88 regular season games, but remember that they had to play a huge chunk of the season without Ronald Acuna Jr. Acuna, in just 82 games, put up 3.5 wins above replacement while batting .283/.394/.596 with 24 home runs, 17 steals and 44 extra-base hits overall. Not having a full season of that guy will bring any team’s wins down.

On a cool, rainy day in April of 2002, I was visiting with Don Mattingly on his farm in Evansville, Ind., for a book I was writing, “Pride of October,” on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of