Craig Kimbrel’s return to the Braves lasted just one day, as the club announced today that the veteran reliever has been designated for assignment. Left-hander Austin Cox was recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett to take Kimbrel’s place on the active roster.
Kimbrel signed a minors contract in March, providing a full-circle moment in rejoining his original organization. The story reached a pinnacle when Atlanta selected Kimbrel’s contract to the active roster yesterday, and he posted a scoreless inning in the Braves’ 5-4 loss to the Giants. It was an eventful inning, as Kimbrel allowed a hit to Heliot Ramos and a walk to Jung Hoo Lee, but Ramos was caught stealing and Kimbrel picked Lee off first base to emerge unscathed.
While it may surprise fans to see a prominent name like Kimbrel so quickly shuffled off the roster (and after a scoreless frame, no less), today’s move may reflect the reality of where the 37-year-old is at during this stage of his career. Kimbrel is, after all, coming off a rough 2024 campaign that saw him released by the Orioles in September after posting a 5.33 ERA in 52 1/3 innings. Kimbrel had a 3.10 ERA and two All-Star nods over 188 2/3 innings during the 2021-23 seasons, but he seemed to lose his effectiveness in the later stages of those three seasons or into the postseason.
That said, it isn’t as though Kimbrel doesn’t have anything left in the tank for his 16th Major League season. He posted a 2.00 ERA over 18 combined innings with Double-A Columbus and Triple-A Gwinnett, with a 32.86% strikeout rate in that small sample size but also a 12.86% walk rate. Control has been a question mark for Kimbrel even in some of his best big league seasons, but a spike in his home run rate in recent years has contributed to his struggles.
Kimbrel’s minors deal with the Braves had a distinctive “rolling opt-out” clause that would’ve allowed Kimbrel to exit the deal at any point if another team offered him a spot on their Major League roster. News of this clause surfaced only a few days before Atlanta selected Kimbrel to its active roster, but obviously none of other 29 clubs felt compelled to try and lure the right-hander away beforehand. Kimbrel’s minor league contract called for a prorated $2MM salary if he was called up the active roster, so (as per The Athletic’s Dave O’Brien) the Braves will now be on the hook for roughly $25K, counting Kimbrel’s day on the active roster and however long his DFA period may last.
While Kimbrel has more than enough MLB service time to reject an outright assignment and re-enter free agency, it is possible he might accept an outright to stay with Atlanta. Staying in a familiar organization might hold more appeal for Kimbrel than re-entering the market after his long stay in free agency last winter, plus the Braves’ ever-revolving bullpen could mean that Kimbrel may get another look in the majors in relatively short order. It all depends on what Kimbrel wants to do at this point of his career, though it doesn’t appear as if retirement is in the cards.
And he’s immediately out of here. A sad end to a great career.
I have my reservations that he’s done. Appears the Braves may be punting the season and preparing to sell at the deadline.
If that was the case, they would have kept Kimbrel
Here…here…
I believe the expression is “hear, hear,,,”
I’m thinking this was arranged WITH Kimberly and either he’ll be back or it was designed to allow him to pitch once more in a Brace uniform. More likely the former . While I hated his end in Boston, I root for anyone doing it for non-monetary reasons.
Awww Kimberly:)
There their
I believe the expression is “Beer here!”
They’re there their.
There there. 🤣
There, there. (I’m just funnin’ ya.)
Dilly Dilly!
And lest we forget, giggity, giggity!
There there
Why? If you’re punting the season, you want to evaluate your borderline Quad A young talent. You don’t want to clog your roster with someone who’s not in your 2026 plans…..
We have enough peripheral data from his AAA pitching to have a strong predictive power that he’s not worth holding as trade bait.
I’m certain it’s beer near here.
They are definitely selling
Who’s tradeable? AA never sells nor trades for anyone of substance at the deadline…. Just going to stick with the status-quo and not improve the team either way is my prediction.
If this doesn’t convince everyone the Braves are completely mismanaged I really don’t know what will.
You knew what the velocity was so why bring him up if you didn’t like what you would be getting?
And you replace him with a 28 year old with 4.22 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in 10 innings at Gwinnett.
What?!?!?
Oh by the way, Austin Cox’s avg velocity in his 4 seam fastball? 91.5
Clown organization
That was fast. Makes all the comments over the last week calling for him to be on the team seem a little premature.
Thanks for the memories Craig.
Are the Braves tanking?
if they were tanking, they would have kept Kimbrel
And Arcia.
No they just don’t have a great team this year. They will probably sell off pieces & fill back up the minors w/prospects. They depleted it w/so many trades.
With the new draft rules, I really see no point in tanking. White Sox had the worst record in baseball last year and they are drafting 10th.
The rule that affected the White Sox and A’s draft position won’t affect the Braves. Teams with revenue-sharing payouts are ineligible to receive lottery picks in three consecutive years, .Braves did not receive a lottery picks last year – therefore they can improve their odds of a top 6 pick with a worse record. Read the rules here: mlb.com/news/draft-rule-changes-with-new-cba
Ok then let them lose every game. I don’t care. I’ll laugh when they do get the 1st pick and I’ll be right.
Why even bother?
Braves on a DFA bender
Paging Jesse Chavez…
This is the craziest Atlanta season in a long time. Nothing makes sense
I was thinking the same thing. What are the Braves doing?
They even sat down with Craig yesterday and had a very nice interview with him where he was saying how happy he was to be back and he would help the braves in any role. Why waste time to sit down with him for a nice story only to DFA him less than 24 hours later?
right? i mean i get this roster move kind of, i mean we do this weekly to guys all the time, just to get an inning out of a guy. But the Dodgers never make a big deal out of it, they dont interview em or make social media posts cause they know he’ll be gone tomorrow.
Not sure why the Braves would do all this to someone like Kimbrel and then just DFA after a pretty good outing and who they have in the bullpen at the moment. Very odd
Clown car stuff.
Being “mediocre” in the National League when Dodgers, Cubs, Padres are clearly better, isn’t ideal. Look at the O’s strategy of holding on to prospects when they had a great team for three years. Atlanta took their swings now need to sell big & try again in 2027.
detroitdave84: And the Mets have a better record than all those teams.
Detroitdave84 — It’s only 2 years of greatness for the Orioles, not 3. Those prospects are still barely MLB players…still 3+/5+ years of those guys wearing Orange and Black.
“Holding on to their prosoects”? Like every other team? How many teams move their top 1-2 prospects that are universally top 20 prospects in the game? The Padres for Soto?? (and they kept Jackson Merrill too) Did the Red Sawx for Garrett Crochet? (No).
Which Soto type of trade did the Orioles Not exactue and “hold” on to their prospects? Which player was available for an Orioles prospect package that would have aligned the Orioles record with the pre-season predictions?
Though the Braves and Orioles are similarly disappointing from expectations, they arrived there from different sets of variables. Each team may be indeed be sellers, but cores/prospects aren’t going to be moved, just the soon-to-be Free Agents.
Agreed. The Braves are trapped and lost at the same time. Sadly
Why?? I don’t even understand this move. Braves sound like they’ve given up on season. Prob the best closer Braves ever had exception Smoltz but my guess is they’re allowing him to sign with contender?!
The braves are the only team that wants him, so im assuming that kimbrel is going to easily clear waivers and go back to triple A instead of go to free agency where no one signs him
Seeing him throw 90-93 last night was odd. Slider looked okay but didn’t realize he had lost that much life on the fastball.
Yet you don’t cut Iggy
Make it make sense?
Did he sign a one-day contract to retire as a Brave?
Rangers
Dodgers in 3, 2, 1….
His numbers in minors don’t look terrible in the page. No idea about his stuff though.
As a Dodger fan I could not sign off on that. His first go ‘round in LA was a high wire act that gave most of us a heart condition. I seriously doubt anyone in LA would even consider a second chapter.
Phillies should pick him up. No way Kimbrel is worse than Romano
They can share the closers duties.
Seattle has just made a trade with the Braves. They obtained the rights to Craig Kimbrel for cash and a box of seeds and bucket of bubble gum. Kimbrel is expected to take the 7th inning role with Brash in the 8th and Munoz as the closer.
lol I don’t know if they will but it seems likely. We need a couple guys that can stop losing the lead in late innings. Another game we lose the lead in the 8th once again. Like last year we lost a lead in record time. It wasn’t so much BP last year it was scoring less than 2 runs for way too long.
I am not why we still have Donnie K on the team. We can’t play him because he is awful. I thought Tellez would be gone first at least he hits the ball in fair territory. Had a GS taken away last night in front of the waist high fence. Scored 2of the 4 runs the other 2 would have been nice. Maybe dump Donnie K Pop Out on waivers and call up Locklear. He is at least hitting the ball.
I honestly think AA has lost his mind. Don’t understand this move at all unless Kimbrel had a say in it. If this is the mindset though, might as well start taking offers on a lot of people.
The braves season is so terrible their fans are upset a washed up pitcher who pitched ONE inning was DFad
Throwing at 93 or so, flat and two outs were a pickoff and a caught stealing.
Zero trade value too
He’s probably a future braves hall of famer. He had one of the best relief runs of all time with them. It’s disrespectful to bring him up just to cut him. You seem to lack common sense.
Welllllll, this whole Kimbrel thing lacks the aforementioned common sense.
And they basically traded him because they had to include a good player when they were dumping Melvin Upton Jr’s contract years ago.
Lmfao what disrespect to one the greatest Braves relievers of all time.
It’s reality, not disrespect.
A normal relief arm, fine. But when you bro g up a guy with such a history with the franchise the fans are going to react differently.
I know the gm is trying to g to win games, not fans, but you’d think at some level we factor in.
11 games out of the division, 7 out of the Wild Card, still have Rafael Montero and Raisel Iglesias on the active roster. Are they really so much better than Kimbrel at this point and have done enough this year for both to keep their roster spots?
mlb1225: A better question is does it matter?
Well that’s what I mean with being so far out of a playoff spot. Barring a miraclous rebound, the chances of the Braves even getting to a Wild Card spot is low at best. Why not have some fun and see what Kimbrel can do? Can’t be so much worse than iglesias or Montero.
I think they DFA’d him so they can sign him to a new milb contract and send him down. That’s their M.O. with players who are out of options.
Or, he becomes a F.A. and signs with someone else.
For anyone that watched it, this isn’t surprising. Yes the inning was clean, but he couldn’t locate and the velocity just isn’t there anymore at age 37.
It was actually a borderline miracle they didn’t allow a run, thanks to some great defensive plays on the basepaths including a caught stealing and pick-off.
A small nostalgic part hoped the command was first game back jitters, but understand the reality that they can’t wait for that inning to blow up when it happens in another game.
Thanks for the memories, Craig. Sorry Fredi never used you in Game 4 of the NLDS.
I watched the game and agree with everything you said. I didn’t think it was a good outing. He looked a little wild at times.
Now here’s why this is surprising
1. They knew what his velocity was. What he threw should not have been a shock.
2. The guy they replaced him with averages 91.5 mph and has a 1.40 WHIP
3. His strikeout actually did come on a high fastball, so there’s clearly enough deception to get outs
4. No one made any hard contact on him. Ramos single was weakly hit. Admittedly the next guy he walked on 4 pitches a believe so no need for contact of course. But the last guy also never made contact and struck out.
I get that the control was not great and he got bailed out with some baserunning mistakes but I didn’t see anyone hit him hard in that outing.
If they had a better option coming in to replace him sure maybe this was enough. But who is Austin Cox? None of his peripherals scream he’s an improvement and at the end of the day no one hit Kimbrel hard. He was a little bit wild and that’s really the only negative because they already knew where his velocity was sitting or at least they should have.
Did no one watch Kimbrel pitch yesterday? his best pitch was to first base
Considering the hellscape the day before, he looked fine
He’s turning into the modern day Jesse Chavez.
Mets, please give Kimbrel a chance. This bullpen was already below average, and now they are way overworked, its unsustainable. Kimbrel is better then Castillo, Butto, Kranick, Waddell, Stanek, and Reed Garrett (many people would disagree with me on Garrett but he walks too many people)
This is your most epic troll effort ever.
Should we trade for Alec Bohm too?
@Major League Baseball Fan Bohm would be a better option then any of our current third basemen, just look at his stats. I don’t understand your point?
“just look at his stats.”
Sure thing!
Alec Bohm – 0.2 WAR in 59 games, 92 OPS+
Baty – 1.1 WAR in 45 games, 103 OPS+
If you’re going to troll, put some effort into it.
@rct you’re ignoring Bohm’s history of success. Show me Baty’s past 2 seasons
The Braves will gladly ship Kimbrel over for Garrett. Or for any one of those guys, come to think of it. Lol
I wouldn’t even watch the Braves games if it weren’t for the enthusiastic, energetic, exciting, fast thinking, great leader of men, and in such great physical and mental condition, the great Brian Snitker!
You forgot handsome, good looking, generationally GQ, Brian Snitker. I bet spellcheck wants Brian Stinker.
He looked better with hair and a mustache, lol.
Didn’t we all………
Baseball is often a cruel business, and this is a prime example. Immediately after suffering a soul crushing loss that seems to be a flash point in a frustrating, inconsistent season AA seems to say, “That tears it!!!” and DFAs Blewett. He calls Braves legend Kimbrel up as an emphatic statement. 24 hours later he does the same to Kimbrel, and it was all just a moment of madness. We can only guess what is next, but my money is on AA blowing it up next month.
Not bad pay day for Craig
*Sitting at the top of the dugout,*
*Watching the Braves fade away.*
*I Shouldn’t have put in Iglesias*
*Hoping that he would save the day.*
*Now I’m flying a long 5 hours,*
*All the way to the Frisco Bay!*
*And I’ll be sitting at the top of the dugout,*
*Wondering if my job will last past today!*
*Sing it with me, Brian !*
AI be Damned.
I don’t know if I’d call this a top story
Craig Kimbrel took a dump. Story.
I don’t get why the Braves called him up in the first place. His salary was guaranteed only if they called him up. The Braves are paying well over a million dollars for Kimbrel to show up one day. And Kimbrel doesn’t even have to formally retire. He can just lay on a beach all summer and still make $1.26 million and then retire after the season. Must be nice.
Yeah, that is hard for me to understand as well. And some luxury penalties too, right?
hiflew: The contract calls for a prorated salary for MLB time, so they’re only paying him a fraction of that amount.
The 1.26 mil is the prorated amount. The total contract was $2 mil
Yeah i mean there had to be other guys who would have signed to a minor league deal who could have given you inning.
LOLBraves
They need a retooling. Even if it means trading a core player to replenish their farm a bit.
Trade Michael Harris 2.
This move was calculated so the Braves can bring up a more experienced reliever, 41 year old Jesse Chavez. They probably have a dozen blank contracts for him, so why waste paper.
I’m all for not having to see that ridiculous stance of his ever again.
I do not understand, we lost 2 good relievers last year due to injury and free agent. We did not replace them, we shopped at the bargain isle. The old saying you get what you pay for. Our closer has saved many games for us, he has done a good job. I fear his career is about finished. The reason I have lost hope is our bull pen is the worse in MLB. Our defense, starting pitching is good enough to win with. Offensively, we do have some that are struggling but I still think we can win with them. Our bullpen is terrible. Like I have already stated, you get what you pay for. I hate to see some of the guys come in, but that’s what you get when your players come from the waiver wire.
Braves fans in shambles over a washed up 37 year old closer lol.
The “Braves fan” here who’s trying to convince the thread that Kimbrel’s outing last night was encouraging also evaluates relievers by using their ERA. Don’t damn all of us by assuming that opinions like that are what we all believe. Kimbrel threw 6 strikes out of 14 pitches and got 2 of his 3 outs via caught stealing and a pickoff at 1B. The Braves probably just called him up to fill the roster spot of recently dfa Blewett until another move was made—-like the pickup of Jose Ruiz. Business is business.
Seriously!? They just brought the guy up.
Watch LA claim this washed up bum.
Kimbrell’s contract with the Braves had an opt out clause; if a Major League team offers him a job then he has to be promoted to Atlanta or released.
“Come to Poppa,” says this Nats fan.
To the Angels!
Yes he was throwing 92, Yes he got lucky outs but he pitched a scoreless inning, something Braves relievers haven’t done all week
I have been a braves fan since I was a kid but the mismanagement of them this year shows the front office cares nothing about the fans or putting a competitive team on the field. When the braves decide they want to win again please let us know.
All that fuss for nothing…
Another team needing bullpen help will pick him up.
Maybe he’ll take a run at Jesse Chavez’s streak