TODAY: Kimbrel cleared waivers, and the Braves announced that Kimbrel elected free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to Triple-A.
JUNE 7: 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,,,”
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.
He’s made a ton of money. If he’s sticking around for, at best, 2M prorated then he clearly wants to keep playing and salary is irrelevant.
Autocorrect and my poor eyesight…
Or maybe it’s: Beer here, another one near.
Lol two people to thumbs up here….here especially with 4 dots each.
Where? Wear.
Whether or not punting on the season, if he would ve brought back anything of value they would ve traded him not cut him. All waiting til the deadline does is leverage and create urgency. Regardless of deadline, prior, or offseason player value is player value. If Kimbrel had enough he’d have been traded.
Milk, Milk, lemonade around the corner fudge is made
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.
Ozuna will be traded. We won’t give him a new contract cause we have plenty of bats for DH plus we won’t pay him what others will. We can get a lot for his bat. If we are out of the race by the deadline he will be the first to go. Also Eli White and Verdugo will be on the trading block.
They’ll get nothing of value for Ozuna if he’s dealt. Injured and numbers are way down. Good article at Battery Power 2 days ago evaluating and comparing his trade values to comparable players.
That injured guy went 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs last night. Sure his #s are down and most certainly would impact his trade value. He still is a potent bat that contenders would be interested in.
“That injured guy” has a tear in his hip. He’s putting off surgery until after the season. His power has been sapped since he got hurt. Both Ozuna and the organization have been very open about the injury. It’s possible that if the Braves continue their freefall, Ozuna might elect to go ahead and have the surgery to give him more time to heal up in his upcoming free agency. Possible trade partners are certain to be aware of his condition. The Braves have made no effort to hide it.
The point I was getting at is he is still producing. If he continues to play as I’d assume he’s going to as it’s his walk year, he provides value to many teams at DH even if he continues to produce less.
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.
detroitdave84: Building a strong farm system is much easier said than done.
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.
YEP: But you wouldn’t be right. You just said there’s no point in tanking. Now go ahead and laugh. 🤣
Some folks are Olympic Gold Medalists in resolving cognitive dissonance by an automatic, unrelenting belief they’re always right. 🥇🫠
Auto correct screwed me. It was suppose to be don’t get. Either way I’m laughing. I hate the Braves. I wish they lost every game.
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.
Yeah, I get he’s getting older, but losing 8 mph off your heater without ever having a serious injury is a bit strange….could be family life or something off the field has caught up with him over the years and diminished his offseason preparations.
A contender won’t want him.
Yet you don’t cut Iggy
Make it make sense?
Did he sign a one-day contract to retire as a Brave?
Rangers
Might have agreed to give him one more moment in the sun, and now he stays with the org just long enough for all the salary available to kick in.
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.
Phillies already know that kimbrel is just going to blow leads
The Phillies do have quite a few “Batting Practice” pitchers out in their pen now.
Here’s the thing: Kimbrel CANNOT be worse than the worst reliever the Dodgers (or every other team) will use in 2025.
There’s room for him somewhere.
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.
We have better relief options than kimbrel
I know it’s early but locklear is looking like another quadruple A player
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
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.
Do you want your team to be respectful, or try to win? They can respect him after retirement with a day.
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.
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
Bohm doesn’t have a history of success. It’s his sixth season and he has 4.0 career WAR, and the majority of that was accumulated in April and May of last year. He was benched last season in the playoffs because he was so bad. And who cares what Baty did two years ago? We’re talking about 2025. Troll harder, fool.
@rct WAR is a made up stat. Harrison Bader has been just as valuable as Lindor this year according to WAR. Do you really believe that? I use my eyes, I don’t need some fancy stat
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.
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.
Not mine, maybe yours. But I am far from the only person who thought his stance was some sort of ridiculous affectation.
LMAO!
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.
Ummm…I don’t think it is worth it. But the Nats do need some help.
He can replace Williams as the starting pitcher
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
As a 30 plus year Braves fan heads need to roll over and in upper management. This is how a future hall of famer gets treated and after everything he has done for this team over the years. Really mad right now.
He would be an upgrade for the Rockies
Bad move to dfa. Not even veteran presence in the pen? Was a snowflake insulted. Johnson one blown save & one loss. Kimbrell whip high but no runs. Should have sent Johnson down. Id expect this from a 1st place team on the verge of getting a top
Closer, but this doesn’t make sense.
Should have given him the closers role.
Couldn’t be any worse.
How has Snitker not been fired yet? Some bad luck, which should even out, but even with that, Braves have been playing way below their potential…
Even AA’s job is up for debate at this point, in my opinion. 2021-23 aside, this team has dramatically underperformed and gotten tons of critical roster decisions wrong.
AA signed an extension through 2030. He’s going nowhere.
I agree he probably won’t be fired, but he is at least partially responsible for the way the Braves have played. Olson over Freeman, Murphy over Contreras, all those convoluted roster maneuverings where they took on tons of dead money for a horrible Kelenic, the Profar signing, not adding a 5th starter this offseason…so many bad calls. I get lots of players are generally underperforming based on their talent levels, but lots of those moves were terrible when they were made, and only look worse now. This is a culmination of lots of bad calls trying to add to a terrific team. The farm is pretty weak, and they want to reset their tax status this year, so all signs point to them being a seller this deadline, unless they dramatically improve quickly, which is hard to imagine at this point…
The Braves were so stacked it caused the mets to punt on the 2023 season before the 2022 trade deadline, lol.
This is surprising. He didn’t pitch horribly in his one outing but it wasn’t good. The thing is, who is gonna pitch better in our bullpen? Do we truly think cox will? lol I mean it’s likely more of a money decision than anything. They want to control that prorated $2 million salary to give them flexibility and say under that tax penalty, which is clear as day that they are doing everything under the sun to accomplish. Stinks as a fan having to watch this madness. Especially since we know how talented the team has proven to be in the past. But I think we will see a wave of big trades for the Braves at the deadline. Ozuna, RI, and I’ll even bet Sale is traded. And I would trade Ozzie also. What this season has proven is that our farm is completely depleted and there aren’t just a few good prospects, but that there are in fact, none. We need more and the Braves need to trade guys will little time remaining on their contract to help rebuild it while we still have this window of guys like Riley, Olson, Strider, Acuna locked up for a good min more
@bravesfan: The Braves have plenty of good pitching prospects at every level of the system. You’re right in that they have no position player prospects of note in the upper 2 levels, but they’re much better off than “none” in High A, Low A, and Rookie ball. Having no position prospects at AAA isn’t as big a deal for Atlanta as it is for teams that don’t have every position covered at the ML level except SS (position most in need of an upgrade) and LF (which should be much better when Profar returns in a month.) The starters in the ML infield, Cf, RF, and at catcher are all solid. Middle infield depth in Atlanta, Gwinnett, and Columbus is weak. ML team should be calling up 3 mil arms besides Dodd and trading Montero, Johnson, and Iglesias. How much worse could prospect relievers be than those 3 have been? Call up Landon Harper, Hayden Harris, and either Lara or Joseph. Could also call up Blake Burkhalter and use him in the pen before transitioning him back to starting next season.
Every team better be on Craig’s list and his radar
If only Pittsburgh could sign him and add a few bats. Since Don Kelly took over, they are .500 after a slow week under him that saw 2-7 mark. To be 16-16 or whatever since last month, is phenomenal. Add a bat and some pen help, who knows what happens by the end of the season. Possible playoff inspirations?
They need more than one good bat, and a much better bullpen.
I guess you can’t read well. “A few” is definitely more than one.
This is going to sound tin foil hat-ish: but his call-up/DFA in 24 hrs has to be something related to his pension/retirement/svc time that we arent privvy to. In otherwords, the braves actually did him a solid here.
Is kimbrel a hof’er?
Overall #s similar to wagner
But kimbrel’s 1st half career was hof worthy, 2nd half a mixed bag
Seems close given the number of saves he’s racked up, but IDK.
Fact: He was dominant in his time and prime. Compare to Sutter, who IS in the HOF. I gotta say yes.
Pitched more innings than Sutter since 2000
More strikeouts than Walter Johnson since 1940.
For some it’s hard to say goodbye
Yep. The Braves have their reservations.
Little know fact, you won’t see him on HoF ballots, he’s opted out of Cooperstown instead he’s heading to D.C., lifetime exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, back among his kinfolk.
My question is did he get Rave reviews for that 1 inning.
3 star on Uber
That crumbled fast. Like the toll house cookie structure with a little rain
Hang em up bro
You would think this bad Braves team would keep him on the MLB roster just to sell tickets if nothing else. There are worse players than Kimbrel on this team.