The Braves have acquired left-handed reliever Jerry Blevins from the Athletics, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Oakland announced that it will receive cash or a player to be named later in return. Atlanta subsequently selected Blevins’ contract, optioned Wes Parsons to Triple-A Gwinnett and transferred reliever Arodys Vizcaino to the 60-day injured list.
An Athletic earlier in his career, Blevins never made it back to Oakland this year after returning to the organization on a minor league contract in the offseason. The 35-year-old instead tossed 10 2/3 innings of 1.69 ERA ball with 13.5 K/9 and 3.38 BB/9 with the A’s Triple-A affiliate.
Blevins had to settle for a role in the minors after a trying 2018 as a member of the Mets, with whom he posted a 4.85 ERA, 8.65 K/9 against 4.64 BB/9, and a measly 21.8 percent groundball rate. Difficulty retiring same-handed hitters played into Blevins’ struggles last year, a season in which he declined sharply after a largely impressive run with the A’s, Nationals and Mets. From 2016-17, his first two full seasons in New York, the soft-tossing Blevins managed a stingy 2.87 ERA with 11.97 K/9, 3.86 BB/9 and a 43.3 percent grounder mark across 91 innings. He was tough on both left- and right-handed hitters in the first of those two seasons, though the latter teed off on him in 2017.
Blevins will now join an Atlanta bullpen which is in dire straits, having limped to the majors’ eighth-highest ERA (4.74) with its worst walk rate (5.87 per nine) and second-worst fWAR (minus-0.7) this season. In the Braves’ estimation, the fact that lefties Jonny Venters and Jesse Biddle are on the injured list and fellow southpaw A.J. Minter has been awful helped create a need for Blevins.
At least he throws strikes
I hope that’s sarcasm because nearly 5 BB/9 is definitely not throwing strikes.
Look at the team stats…that’s an improvement. Smh
something like 10 of our 13 losses we had the lead. Could easily be 20-6 right now and cruising. You don’t even have to be an ‘arm chair gm’ to know our biggest weakness was bullpen coming into season…Now we’ll be scrambling to fix it, kinda like waiting til middle of the busy season for your job to hire help; you’ve already fallen behind and struggle to catch up.
12 of 14 we’ve had the lead
even better ha!
Who else is sick of hearing, “Annnnnd a leadoff walk…”
hand raised
clever idea. could work out quite nice for the Braves
Ladies and gentleman…we got em!
The beatings will continue until personnel improves.
Literal, please. Figurative beatings leave no scars.
I really enjoy your posts by the way.
There were a couple more that I deleted in fear of the penalty box. Don’t want that hanging on my conscience when some nut Braves fan with an obsession for Jeff Blauser does something bold once in his life.
lol, nice
Welcome back top the NL east and the big leagues
Better than doing nothing but skeptical this will work out any better.
Braves still putting off sacrificing any real value to fix the bullpen (money/draft pick to sign you know who or trading prospects for bullpen help)
Still trying to put a band aid on a wound that needs multiple stitches
I was always against bringing up starting pitcher prospects and putting them in the pen, but at this point why not. If they’re that talented its gotta be an improvement right?! Guess Gwinnett is going for championship this year and we cant mess that up huh smh
Maybe, but when they have the excess, aren’t trading them to fill holes (which was part of the plan) and there are only so many spots to start, why not? I would also entertain using some of these prospects giving them multiple IP. Bring Wilson on in the 5th or 6th and let him get 35-50 pitches in. This idea of putting labels on these guys when we need to just be getting them IP to know if they should be on our roster or trade bait needs to stop.
He was pitching pretty good in AAA. It’s a nice acquisition for the Braves who are in dyer need of relief arms. I’m little surprised the A’s did not call him up with the way some of their bullpen guys have been pitching.
Cant send down Soria and Rodney because Beane idiotically threw Kimbrel-type money at them.
It got to be a 40 man roster thing since the A’s do not have a lefty reliever on the team. Not sure why they don’t get rid of Morales he is a easy out now.
Thanks for reminding me of how I was scolded for saying Soria was a mistake and an overpay when it happened. Soria’s not going to snap out of it. Watched enough NLCS to see he’s so rippable.
Watching Oakland in-person I cannot believe they were a playoff team last year.
They can’t really get rid of Soria with his contract. It was an overpay at $8m for sure but not Kimbrel money. Rodney on the other hand, I think they can comfortably release him. They’re not paying him too terribly much.
Rodney is getting about $6 million a year. Morales is only owed $2 million this year by the A’s might as well say goodbye to him now because in 2 weeks Olson is back.
The Morales trade was the worst move ever. So pointless, Canha, Pinder and Profar all have extensive 1B experience, and Seth Brown is mashing at AAA too.
I’ve hated all of the A’s moves since Nov 1 2018. What a stupid direction Beane sent them in.
And they gave Soria $15M and Rodney $6M, thats $21M, pretty sure Kimbrel would take a 1/21 deal.
The morales trade was a little redundant. Completely unnecessary
A’s need to bring up Bolt, Brown, Murphy and Payton and DFA/trade Morales, Hundley and Grossman and burn an option on Canha. Profar has to stay but it might be time to start shopping him for a hotter hand.
I agree with all those guys. Payton is having a ridiculous year so far. I think it’s too early to give up on Profar. They still have 3 years of control with him and he’s in his prime years right now.
Never should have traded Cespedes.
Soria’s contract is for $8.5 Rodney is at $5.25 that’s not Kimbrel money. 1 year for $13.75 does not get Kimbrel.
Yeah this’ll fix it sheesh, that was a s*** show last nite…. Whatever happen to O’day, safe to assume that’s part of the trade that will never materialize?!
This is exactly what CLE went thru last season. Pen did not get addressed over the winter, it failed to sort itself out early in the season, then the FO shops the clearance bins and throws a motley crew of retreads out there with no success. CLE eventually had to trade rising star Francisco Mejia to SD for help. Braves need more than Kimbrel at this point, so that’s not gonna happen. Bottom line is you simply cannot successfully rebuild a bullpen in season unless you overpay with a lot of prospects.
Pay $9 mil for an injured O’Day
Can’t pay $9 mil in the offseason to snag Ottavino
Even if Liberty Media is incredibly cheap, AA’s terrible decisions have wrecked this team.
$23 mil on Donaldson. $9 mil on O’Day. What an absolute joke. Imagine having Grandal instead of Donaldson, Ottavino instead of O’Day, and willing to trade a pair of of pitching prospects (think Allard and Wilson) who will likely never touch this rotation for Will Smith and Watson.
All of this would literally keep our payroll even.
Just imagine having a competent GM for a few seconds.
Grandal
Freeman
Albies
Swanson
Camargo
Acuna
Inciarte
Markakis
Culberson super utility
Folty
Fried
Soroka
Gausman
Teheran/Newcomb/Touki/Wright
Smith
Ottavino
Watson
Minter
Jackson
Parsons
Agreed, plenty of options were available and our GM didn’t go for any of them.
You do realize why O’Day is on the team, right? Because Baltimore wanted to shed his contract and AA took it on as part of the deal for Gausman so we didn’t have to trade any worthwhile prospects. He was basically dead money.
Give AA as much guff as you want about not addressing the bullpen in the offseason. But saying we paid O’Day $9 mill instead of signing Ottavino is ridiculous.
“So we didn’t have to trade any worthwhile prospects”
Listen to yourself. We did pay O’Day $9 mil. We paid $9 mil so we could keep our prospects. $9 mil that we then didn’t have to sign Ottavino instead (although in fairness we had the money to do both but let’s keep this simple)
So yeah sorry to tell you we actually did pay O’Day 9 mil instead of signing Ottavino.
On top of that AA pretended O’Day was a huge upgrade to our pen to justify not signing anyone else in the offseason.
Or have we conveniently forgotten how he tried to sell us all on O’Day being the big upgrade to fix our pen??
AA is cancer and needs to go.
Ottavino was going to the Yankees no matter what. You can quit with that. He said himself, he wanted to be a Yankee since he was a kid growing up in New York.
Corbin said that too
I agree as well, but something should’ve been done to address the bullpen. I still believe AA got the rug pulled out from him, the ol’ Lucy football trick, we have the money oh no we don’t. Otherwise putting all the money in Donaldson’s basket makes little sense. The good news, the team is one or two players away from being consistently competitive this season. The bad news, the organization appears to be too cash strapped to purchase Kimbrel and AA is too gun shy to pull the trigger. But there’s always next year and of course we have our “Financial Flexibility “.
If you think anyone besides Liberty Media is to blame, you’re clueless.
If you think AA has made good decisions with the money Liberty Media has given him you’re clueless
I love fans that still blame Liberty when the GM states they have money that they’re just not using until mid season when they need to. Fortunately for him, they might not need to. Whatever’s not spent goes into the bonus pool, no? Do you know how hard it is to fit standard clubs in a 5-series?
I know right, everyone knows the trunk is so much bigger in a 7-series. AA gotta save up for that bimmer somehow! The struggle is real….
The only reason we paid for O’Day is because of Gausman, in which we traded inferior prospects so BAL could get salary relief and tank properly to inevitably get a top pick that will fail miserably before finding stardom somewhere else. Context is your friend.
Again we paid for him to keep prospects. That’s STILL paying for him.
What aren’t some of you understanding.
We also paid for Touki by taking in Arroyos contract. Touki wasn’t free.
This is the same thing. That money spent on ODay to save prospects is gone. Meaning it could have been used to sign Ottavino. Meaning we very well could have just shipped some better prospects, but chose to pay for ODay instead of saving it to sign someone like Ottavino knowing full well there was plenty of RPs available this offseason
So yes we paid ODay at the expense of one of the FA RPs this offseason. Hate to break it to you all.
Sell it however you want. It’s money gone to hang on to prospects we DONT NEED
It all boils down to terrible decision making by AA however you want to look at it.
So what are you all really arguing about here?
That is like saying the money for Grandal wasn’t spent on Donaldson because Donaldson isn’t a catcher.
Sorry but money gone is money gone, regardless where it was spent.
If we don’t bring ODay, don’t bring in Donaldson… we have the money to easily add Grandal and Ottavino.
That’s the bottom line.
As Donaldson HRs to put us back ahead. Hindsight is 20-20, but not many could have predicted that Grandal would sign for that little. That being said, he was asking for years and ATL continues to be big on Contreras. Ottavino has always been a Yankee, even when he was contractually-obligated to pitch for COL.
MJ – you have seen the light. Well done. AA is a very average GM with a lot of hype. You’ll like to moves down the road and then you’ll want to pull your hair out the very next second. AA apologists need not apply.
Grandal? The guy was terrible in the playoffs. They are fine at catcher with Flowers/McCann.
A’s have no lefty and a struggling pen. Why not drop Rodney and call up Blevins? I wonder if that cash is meant for another move?
I don’t know if I would say that AJ Minter has been “awful”, he definitely hasn’t been reliable.
He’s been awful
Awful would still give the impression that he is “full of awe”, which my semester studying linguistics states is too kind. He has been full of sumpin’, but awe it ain’t.
I don’t know how some of you apologists can say these things with a straight face.
1.92 WHIP
What exactly do you call that?
Garbage.
I wouldn’t say Minter has been awful, either. He’d have to improve about two or three notches before he gets to “awful.”
He sucks, period. He has no control and his cutter is just batting practice for righties.
Is really the Braves has a good arms in the minor? Look at the Minor league standing?…we’re not so good. I been telling people we need to convert Folty as a Closer and keep the young arm of Wright,Fried in the Big club and suffer with them.
So you want your best starting pitcher to be a closer? You realize that only taxes the bullpen even more, right?
AA had one thing to fix this last off season, pitching. He instead decided to spend $23 million on Donaldson. Maybe I am wrong, but I thought our offense was pretty good last year. Sure we could and anyone can always use a “slugger,” but we needed pitching help. AA and Shitker should both be let go. Let Ron Washington manage.
Can we go back to Christmas and start over?? Sell the team and/or just listen to the fans, fire AA, have camargo at 3rd, outfield of acuna, pache, and a confident/comfortable Duvall.. Sign 2-3 BP pieces instead of donaldson and trade ender for another?
This is worse than a broken record for months now and yet they just stay silent; ridiculous and embarrassing way to give back to you fans..
I thought you were being sarcastic at first. Now I realize you’re just dumb.
Well, seeing where you’re from I wouldnt expect you to understand or keep up..Man, we used to whoop your teams when you brought your “all star” teams to the states eh!
Stick to the one thing your country is relevant for, well maybe 2.. Hockey and curling.
Good God, man. Is all that really necessary?
I’m shocked it was for cash considerations. I thought for sure they would’ve traded minor league assets instead of sending precious Liberty Media money.
I’m sure we are talking pocket change, not robbing the kids college funds. You made me laugh.
FOLTY FOR CLOSER
DOWNVOTE
New pitching coach same results these young kids cant throw strikes
Where is our pitching coach btw? Marty Reed has been “acting” coach for awhile now, Eddie Perez is in the bullpen.
AA needs to be sent packing, he had one thing to fix in the off season and didn’t do it. He decided to pay Donaldson $23 million, when he could have signed some quality arms. Greg Holland anyone…$3.25 million I think. There were plenty of arms out there at good value. I am so sick of hearing our bullpen guys have great stuff or the stuff is there.
Completely agree. Don’t let the bullpen problems distract you from the real problem, AA.
If I could only fix 1 problem this year, get rid of AA or fix the pen, I’d choose to get rid of AA so at least the future has a chance.
MJ I usually agree with most of what you say…but are you really Coppys burner accout?! Man you hate AA ahahaha….At this point bring back Frank Wren, at least he didn’t sit on his hands!
AA did this in Toronto too. Need a SP and OF bat, let’s overpay for Martin. Play .500 ball the first 100 games and then empty the cupboard for Tulo, Price etc to hide the earlier mistakes. A good GM would have had that team with Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion in the postseason with many more prospects to burn.
Atlanta is lucky they had a deep system prior to AA’s arrival.
This shows me the front office still has a pulse to some degree. Would be nice to add more help but a 35 year old lefty who throws strikes is amazingly a improvement.
The Braves need to make a deal and get some… sometimes you have to trade talent to get talent.
The Braves have no closer, and apart from that there is no consistent 7th or 8th inning guys. They got rid of a reliable guy like Moylan to their detriment as far as I am concerned-Snitker didn’t use Moylan the right way anyway.
I can’t see how the Braves can get consistent results if they continue this way. Today’s loss is the perfect example of throwing guys in there and hoping it will pay off. Minter is not a closer, he’s an ideal 7th or 8th inning guy.
Just end the season. The team has zero pitching.
Braves have LH reliever at Gwinnett, Grant Dayton with 1.7 ERA, so Blevins just does not make sense. Ben Rowan a righty but with 0.00 ERA, so why Blevins?
clearly they wanna make sure Gwinnett is stacked. That’s the more important part of the Braves organization, making sure the minors are competitive……it costs way less, common business sense
Thomas Burrows RHP needs some more work with only 10 IP on the year, but I am big on him. He was a great get from SEA and a Florence, AL-native.
This entire offseason, I and I alone kept chirping for bullpen help! In fact, I kept saying this market had the opportunity to get 2-3 quality to elite bullpen arms for far less than what we paid donaldson. A lot of you barked back at me saying I was dumb. I think we could have gotten donaldson and those bullpen arms, but this stupid team owners and gm are crushing us. CRUSHING US! LETS GO! FIX THE BULLPEN
You and you alone? Seemed like there was a chorus the size of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing that same tune…
Not true. I would constantly get badgered by braves fans on this site claiming we need catching or 3B or RF way ahead of bullpen. Heck even starting pitching. No one would would listen, now they are listening. Well the fans are. Liberty isn’t
Lol no kidding.. The Braves FO needs to step up and admit fault that this team isn’t running away with the division. This game today is the perfect example of how the season has gone. Offense scores only to be negated by the horrible pitching; disastrous teeter totter to watch day after day.
Show your fanbase you want to win or the fans should cease their support until then, but unfortunately the passionate fans on this board are far out numbered.
I could see not caring when you’re in rebuild mode, but when you could easily be running away the division with 3 moves, you can bet the fans of this organization should want to oust anybody involved of not going for the jugular NOW.
And Blevins first batter faced with his new team….a walk!!!!!
What else is new? A lead off walk
you beat me to it. lol
But he actually got a broken bat out from Blackmon, which is what every other RP hasn’t been doing and preventing the walk from scoring. I don’t care if you walk them as long as you bare down and get the outs stranding them. Sobotka walked someone that came around and scored today. Blevins looks like Andrew Miller next to the rest of them.
You’re right there. He came through and did what he was asked to do…His job. The way the Braves needed it. I’m hoping his veteran presence does wonders for this bullpen. And I agree with your analogy. He did look as if the walk didn’t rattle his confidence. I went back and watched his relief appearance and saw what you were saying and again I agree with you completely.
The 23 million man saved the day today. It won’t be the last time either.
Wouldn’t have to save the day if we had a decent bullpen. Not that I don’t like JD, but our offense is producing enough runs to win games and likely would without him. I’m glad we have him, but we prob should have spent the money on the bullpen now that we know we truly don’t have “financial flexibility”