The Braves’ 10 Greatest Hitters

Hank Aaron (1954-74)

Although the steroids era reduced the Hammer’s standing among the all-time home run leaders, many still regard him as number one on the list of “legitimate” home run hitters; lists aside, there is no argument that he’s of the most popular and gracious players to play the game.

Born in Mobile, Alabama—a hotbed of future big-league sluggers that also produced fellow Hall of Famers Willie McCovey and Billy Williams—Aaron came to emergence in the Negro Leagues and chose the Braves over the New York Giants (who were also interested) because he felt he’d have a better chance to play every day. Ironically, it was an injury to a former Giant-turned-Brave (Bobby Thomson) that created room for Aaron and gave him that everyday chance in 1954 as a 20-year-old rookie. Aaron quickly developed into an MVP-caliber player, winning the NL honor in 1957 while leading the Braves to their first world title in 43 years—and their only one while in Milwaukee.

Using quick wrists that made up for an unassuming body frame, Aaron muscled up on an almost robotic basis, eclipsing 40 homers eight different times while keeping his average over the .300 mark as pitching dominated the 1960s. Age would not slow Aaron down; he launched a career-high 47 homers in 1971 at the age of 37, and two years later parked another 40 over the fence in just 396 at-bats as he closed to within one homer of Babe Ruth’s all-time career mark. Under intense media scrutiny and a myriad of death threats mainly from those who didn’t want to see a black man overtake Ruth’s record, Aaron surpassed Ruth in the first week of the 1974 season and held the record for 33 years until Barry Bonds surpassed him under controversy of a different kind. (Aaron grudgingly accepted the steroid-tainted Bonds as the new home run king.) For the final two years of his career, Aaron—finally showing his age—fittingly returned to Milwaukee as the Brewers’ designated hitter in a move that seemed more ceremonial than strategic.

Aaron remains the all-time leader in runs batted in with 2,297 and is third in hits (trailing only Ty Cobb and Pete Rose) with 3,771; he was named to a record 25 All-Star Games, all in succession.

Eddie Mathews (1952-66)

For the bulk of his career, Mathews was best known as Aaron’s slugging partner in crime, though his 512 career homers certainly deserved better than second billing. Mathews’ time with the Braves spanned 15 years, and he’s the only player to wear a Braves uniform in all three cities represented by the franchise: Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta.

Signed by the Braves the day after graduating from high school, Mathews attracted a great deal of buzz in the minors with a swing that Ty Cobb labeled as one of the very few he saw to be “perfect.” In his second year at the major league level—and the Braves’ first in Milwaukee—Mathews exploded, hitting .302 with 47 homers and 135 RBIs. Mathews’ pre-Aaron fame peaked in 1954 when he appeared on the cover of the very first issue of Sports Illustrated—but he suffered no cover jinx, belting 40 or more home runs four times through the 1950s; he ended the decade with his second home run title thanks to a two-game tie-breaking playoff against Los Angeles that counted as regular season results. Typically quiet, Mathews nevertheless wasn’t afraid to get in opponents’ faces when the moment required it, as star players like Frank Robinson and Don Drysdale found out when they played too rough against him. Mathews’ overall productivity was permanently curtailed in 1962 when he suffered a shoulder injury; he was traded to the Houston Astros in 1967, just seven homers shy of 500 for the Braves.

Dale Murphy (1976-90)

When the Braves broke out of mediocrity in the early 1980s, it was the lumbering, clean-cut and baby-faced Murphy, a devout Mormon, who led the way offensively. And while the team’s rise to the top would be short-lived, Murphy would continue as an A-list talent for much of the decade, winning back-to-back NL MVP honors in 1982-83.

Murphy was brought up as a 20-year-old catcher in 1976, was converted to a first baseman and, when that led to a few too many errors, moved quickly to the outfield—where he eventually won five Gold Glove awards. At his peak, Murphy was an all-around force at the plate, hitting for average and power with a discernable eye that led to many walks; he also was deceptively quick, stealing 30 bases in 1983 to become only the second player in franchise history (after Aaron) to collect at least 30 homers and 30 steals in the same year.

After hitting a career-high 44 homers in 1987, Murphy’s star quickly declined, hitting well below .250 for each of the next three seasons before being traded to Philadelphia in 1990.

Freddie Freeman (2010-21)

Durable, dependable and sizeable (6’5”, 225 pounds), the young first baseman from California was a loyal servant who gave the Braves a sure and steady diet of offense from the first moment he stepped upon the field, prompting the organization to reward him with a $135 million contract extension that kept him in Atlanta through 2021.

Freeman hit a respectable .282 with 21 homers and 76 RBIs in his 2011 rookie campaign that placed him second in the NL Rookie of the Year vote—trailing only teammate closer Craig Kimbrel. After an agreeable sophomore campaign, Freeman sprung to a stellar 2013 effort when he hit .319 with 23 homers and 109 RBIs, landing him in fifth place in the NL MVP vote. From there, he only got better; he clubbed a career-high 38 homers in 2019, and followed that up in 2020 with an MVP performance, batting .341 with 13 jacks and 53 RBIs in a 60-game season shortened by the COVD-19 pandemic.

With many of the veteran stars he grew up under traded or retired, Freeman took on the mantle as the Braves’ clubhouse leader—and why not, given that his comic namesake went by the superhero alias of Captain Marvel Jr.

Chipper Jones (1993-2012)

The talented and brash switch-hitting third baseman staked a legitimate claim to be remembered as the most popular player to perform his entire career in a Braves uniform. His entry into the majors was delayed a year after suffering a season-ending spring training knee injury in 1994, but his mild 1995 rookie campaign was highlighted with a terrific postseason performance in which he hit .364 with three home runs to give the Braves their only championship in the Bobby Cox era. Jones’ overall numbers improved throughout the 1990s, culminating in a sensational MVP performance in 1999 when he hit .319 with 45 homers, 110 RBIs, 41 doubles, 126 walks and 25 steals. His clubhouse leadership emerged in the 2000s as his numbers leveled off, reprising his peak play from 2006-08 when he hit a collective .342—including his lone batting title in 2008 at age 36, batting .364—and set a major league record in 2006 when he put together a string of 14 straight games with at least one extra base hit. Jones’ .303 career average, 468 home runs, 1,623 RBIs, 1,512 walks and eight All-Star Game appearances made him an easy choice for the Hall of Fame.

Wally Berger (1930-37)

Few, if any, major leaguers have carried an entire team on their backs offensively as Berger did for the Braves in the 1930s. As a 24-year-old rookie in 1930, Berger crashed onto the scene with 38 homers with 119 RBIs, both rookie records that have since been broken. The rest of the team hit only 28 homers, starting a trend that would continue for much of Berger’s reign in Boston as he slammed 45% of the team’s round-trippers from 1930-35; only Babe Ruth has ever managed to hit a higher percentage of a team’s total home run output over a six-year period. When an aging, overweight Ruth himself appeared with the Braves at the end of his career in 1935, his six blasts were second on the team to Berger’s NL-best 34. Berger’s own power soon began to fade and the Bees (as the Braves were known between 1936-40) correctly sensed that his career was on the downslope, so they shipped him off midway through 1937 to the Giants in New York, where he never was able to regain his stroke.

Ronald Acuna Jr. (2018-present)

A mesmerizing mix of prodigious power and stunning speed, the Venezuelan-born outfielder presaged his superstardom on the major league scene by tearing apart the minors in 2017, the Arizona Fall League later that October, and then Spring Training in 2018. Once the games began to count, the 20-year-old Acuna didn’t disappoint—winning NL Rookie of the Year honors (beating out another big-time star on the rise in Juan Soto), followed by a brilliant sophomore season in which only a late-September injury kept him from going 40-40, roping out 41 home runs with an NL-high 37 steals. Few teams struggled to contain Acuna—except the Miami Marlins, whose pitchers frequently hit him with the first pitch of the game, enraging both the Braves and the baseball world at large.

After another terrific start in 2021, Acuna tore his ACL while attempting a leaping catch against the wall; mystifyingly, the .500 Braves took off in his absence and won the World Series. Following a disappointingly modest 2022 season, a healthy and hungry Acuna went full-throttle in 2023 with not just a 40-40 campaign, but an unprecedented 40-70—taking advantage of liberalized new rules making it easier to steal bases. He thus set modern franchise marks with 73 steals as well as 149 runs, winning the NL MVP.

Despite another ACL tear that cost him most of the 2024 season, Acuna clearly remains one of the most exciting (and still young) players in the game, and will remain Atlanta property through 2028 as the Braves keenly locked him up early with an eight-year, $100 million contract.

Marcell Ozuna (2020-present)

Prone to prodigious years but also sudden downturns in numbers, the bulky slugger nicknamed the Big Bear arrived in Atlanta after sporadically solid tenures with Miami and St. Louis and made an immediate impact, leading the NL during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season with 18 home runs and 56 RBIs over 60 games. It led to a four-year, $65 million contract—and a love-hate existence with Braves fans as injuries and external issues kept Ozuna from maintaining peak form. 

Gradually transitioning from the outfield to the designated hitter role, Ozuna was one of three Atlanta players in 2023 to smash 40 or more homers, adding another 39 a year later as he eclipsed the .300-30-100 margin for a second time in his career while earning his third All-Star Game appearance. 

But Ozuna has not been without turbulence throughout his career. With the Marlins in 2016, he declined a late-night ride on a speedboat piloted by teammate Jose Fernandez, even trying to talk the star pitcher out of what would become a fatal outing. In Atlanta, he was caught by police in the act of committing spousal abuse on his wife; his ensuing suspension and injuries prematurely ended his role in a 2021 season capped with a world title for the Braves. A year later, a summer DUI arrest compounded a season straight year of misery on the field, leading to boos from impatient Truist Park fans. But Ozuna’s bat has since gone back on track, leading to hopes within the Atlanta organization that his troubles are firmly behind him.

Tommy Holmes (1942-51)

The Brooklyn-born outfielder was a wartime star for the Braves who enjoyed a tremendous career year at the expense of (mostly) replacement players filling in for absent veterans beholden to the war effort in 1945. But Holmes was consistently solid for the latter, postwar half of the 1940s when major league rosters returned to full strength. Originally signed by the New York Yankees, he was granted a wish to go elsewhere when his pinstriped future was blocked by that team’s veteran star players; Holmes quickly became an everyday force for the Braves, always hitting around .300. But it’s Holmes’ 1945 campaign that starkly stands from the stat sheet; he hit .352, hit a NL-high 28 home runs, knocked in 117 runs and, most memorably, hit safely in 37 straight games to set a NL record that stood for 33 years. Holmes briefly (and unsuccessfully) managed the Braves from 1952-53.

Bob Elliott (1947-51)

Acquired from Pittsburgh in 1947, Elliott took over for Holmes as the Braves’ premier offensive force. He immediately established a strong presence in Boston, capturing the 1947 NL MVP award with a .317 average, 22 home runs and 113 RBIs; he followed that set of numbers with a .283-23-100 campaign in 1948, adding in a league-leading 131 walks as he helped lead the Braves to their first pennant since the fabled 1914 Miracle Braves. Nicknamed “Mr. Team” by his teammates for his dominant play, Elliott played at peak form through 1951 before age finally caught up to him and prompted a trade to the Giants.