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Braves Acquire Yoan Lopez From Diamondbacks

By Anthony Franco | May 22, 2021 at 7:05pm CDT

The Braves announced they’ve acquired reliever Yoan López from the Diamondbacks. Outfield prospect Deivi Estrada has been sent to Arizona in return. Atlanta optioned López to Triple-A Gwinnett.

Arizona designated López for assignment earlier this week to clear 40-man roster space for the selection of Josh Reddick. The righty has gotten off to a difficult start to the year, pitching to a 6.57 ERA over 12 1/3 innings. That’s his second straight season of poor run prevention, as López only managed a 5.95 mark across 19 2/3 frames in 2020.

Those struggles led the D-Backs to move on from the 28-year-old, ending his six-year tenure in the organization. The previous front office regime signed López to an $8.27MM bonus as an amateur coming out of Cuba in January 2015. Under the terms of the previous collective bargaining agreement, the López signing barred the Diamondbacks from signing any other international amateur prospects for greater than a $300K bonus during either of the 2015-16 or 2016-17 international signing periods.

That decision proved to be one the organization would regret, as López never lived up to those lofty standards. He wasn’t completely unproductive in Arizona, though. López tossed 60 2/3 innings of 3.41 ERA ball in 2019, proving to be one of the D-Backs more reliable relievers that season. While he’s struggled to keep runs off the board the past two seasons, he has at least shown some flashes of promise.

López is inducing ground balls at a decent 45.2% rate, and he’s seen a slight uptick in swings and misses this year. His 21.3% strikeout rate is a career best (albeit still three percentage points worse than average for a reliever), excluding a 2018 season in which he only pitched nine innings. More impressively, López has generated whiffs on 12.7% of his pitches, a mark that’s slightly better than league average. He also brings a power arm to Atlanta, sitting 95.7 MPH on his heater.

Perhaps most appealing for the Braves is López’s contractual flexibility. He still has all three minor league option years remaining, so the front office can shuttle him back-and-forth between Atlanta and Gwinnett as they see fit for the next few seasons, so long as he sticks on the 40-man roster. As a player with 2.011 years of MLB service, he’s only making slightly more than the league minimum salary this year.

In return, the Diamondbacks will pick up a low-level developmental flyer. Estrada, 20, didn’t advance past the Dominican Summer League in the Atlanta organization. He hit .307/.433/.366 with more walks than strikeouts in 255 plate appearances at that level in 2019, playing mostly center field. Estrada has never been included on a Braves system ranking at Baseball America or FanGraphs.

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Arizona Diamondbacks Atlanta Braves Transactions Deivi Estrada Yoan Lopez

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View Comments (22)
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22 Comments

  1. BrittinghamSports

    4 years ago

    I don’t know much about Yoan Lopez but the Braves definitely need more right-handed relievers. Chris Martin is the only righty in the Braves bullpen who I really trust and he seems to get weird fluke injuries out of nowhere every single season. Hopefully Shane Greene can help too. I just hope Greene doesn’t fall apart like Craig Kimbrel did with the Cubs after missing so much time. Greene in theory is one of the 2 best right handed relievers the Braves have right now but he hasn’t even pitched in a game since last season. Greene’s peripherals were never great either so he could be a disappointment. Is Yoan Lopez any good? If he were I would’vr thought he would command more in return for a trade than this and he wouldn’t be going straight to the minors.

    6
    Reply
  2. TradeAcuna

    4 years ago

    AA with another great move

    1
    Reply
  3. Rsox

    4 years ago

    Braves need bullpen help. Could be a solid pickup

    4
    Reply
    • Doxie

      4 years ago

      Dbacks pitching not so hot either !

      Reply
  4. bravesfan

    4 years ago

    Look, I don’t get giving up anything other than cash for the guy… but if he returns to his 2019 self, then excellent move. That said, I don’t expect a lick of actual help from him.

    9
    Reply
    • Doxie

      4 years ago

      I wouldn’t give up a 20 year old for Lopez.

      5
      Reply
      • bravesfan

        4 years ago

        He’s has made it past rookie ball at age 20, but he was pretty solid there. Definitely a prospect that the odd 2020 didn’t help. He likely won’t turn into anything, but he clearly has a little potential..

        1
        Reply
  5. bravesnation nc

    4 years ago

    Club didn’t give up a lot to get this guy. Braves farm has OF depth already so taking a flyer isn’t bad. My issue from day one was you don’t detract from your strength which was the bullpen. Now you got guys scrambling to get ready and get up with club in Greene. Rushing a guy only brings issues and possible injury. They should have retained Greene and Melancon. Melancon btw already has 15 saves. Will Smith is a 8th inning guy and is prone to the long ball. His 4 seamer has velo but is a straight fastball, if he misses location it gets hit hard and far.

    4
    Reply
  6. GarryHarris

    4 years ago

    Deivi Estrada may hit but he’s a DH. He can’t field very well.

    Reply
  7. brandons-3

    4 years ago

    Fun fact: Yoan Lopez hit Dansby Swanson in the face during a simulated games during the brief time they were both Diamondback prospects in 2015. It’s why Swanson still wears the face shield on his batting helmet to this day.

    4
    Reply
    • Sid Bream Speed Demon

      4 years ago

      They all wear the face shield now.

      3
      Reply
  8. saywhat

    4 years ago

    Nothing to see here – unfortunately.

    Reply
  9. Orel Saxhiser

    4 years ago

    I like Lopez’s stuff and wouldn’t have minded the Dodgers taking a shot with him. Low-risk, high-reward. The kind of dice roll that good teams make. If he doesn’t figure it out, you won’t see him a Braves uniform.

    3
    Reply
  10. KCJ

    4 years ago

    Wasn’t his costly signing originally a Tony LaRussa move? If so, it should give his players (ya know, the guys with the lockers instead of an office) something else to laugh about. Either way, he and Dave Stewart sure set that franchise back about 5 years with their collective brilliance.

    2
    Reply
  11. russ5tide

    4 years ago

    Yet Another band-aid for a much bigger problem. At this point the braves bullpen needs an evasive surgical procedure and yet the FO and AA keep putting band-aids on the wound. All the braves need is another struggling arm who comes in and gives up 3-5 runs, 2 walks and a SO in 0.1 inning of work. It’s no wonder some of the braves hitters don’t show up half the time. They know it won’t matter anyways. I love this team but the FO owes it to them to give them better. Period!

    1
    Reply
    • RunDMC

      4 years ago

      The addition of Lopez should illustrate how scarce resources are. You’re screaming for water in the middle of the desert. Greene should be ready very soon that should make them rely less on hit-or-miss Minter, sometimes Smith, while Martin settles in. Also looks like some reinforcements at AAA should be up sometime with Jasseel De La Cruz looking great out the gate, among others. Hopefully Muller gets it together.

      1
      Reply
  12. Neil G

    4 years ago

    When I popped into this website a couple weeks ago, there was 1 regular poster claiming that Bryse Wilson is (and I quote) ‘absolute garbage’. Same poster and another regular poster were claiming that the Braves don’t want to win.

    It’s one thing to know nothing of baseball. It’s quite another to run your mouth (keyboard fingers in this case) about the subject anyway.

    3
    Reply
    • FredMcGriff for the HOF

      4 years ago

      Bryse is needed especially since Ynoa took himself out. Hopefully Tucker gets another start so we can see what he’s capable of.

      2
      Reply
  13. R.D.

    4 years ago

    The Braves had every chance to just resign Melancon.

    2
    Reply
    • RunDMC

      4 years ago

      Agreed, but ATL is not a closer away from a 2020 bullpen. SD and Melancon are in a good situation. He’s still hittable but good enough in a large enough ballpark with a decent defense to be very effective, with elite setup men.
      AA may trust his metrics a little too much by passing on Melancon, but live by the sword die by the sword.

      2
      Reply
      • jswanny41

        4 years ago

        So we know melancon was offered an unsatisfactory contract by the braves? Him signing for cheap to go back to the west coast and play for a good team didn’t surprise me. He did ask his wife for her permission to waive his no trade clause with the giants after all

        Reply
  14. bravesfan0618

    4 years ago

    We had a bullpen, but instead of paying them what they deserved, we decided to go cheap and see what young arms would come around. Well that hurt.

    Reply

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