The Braves will decline their $7MM club option on right-handed reliever Pierce Johnson, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll receive a $250K buyout and become a free agent. Johnson is the second affordable reliever whose 2026 option has been declined by Atlanta today. The Braves also opted for a buyout over exercising Tyler Kinley’s $5.5MM option.
It’s a fairly surprising decision regarding Johnson, who’s pitched well in two-plus seasons with Atlanta — particularly in 2025. The 34-year-old righty was acquired from the Rockies at the 2023 deadline, posted a sub-1.00 ERA down the stretch and was rewarded with a two-year, $14MM contract. Johnson has pitched 115 1/3 innings of 3.36 ERA ball since putting pen to paper on that deal, including a 3.05 ERA in 59 1/3 frames this past season. He’s posted nice strikeout and walk rates overall, and in 2025 fanned one-quarter of his opponents against an 8% walk rate.
That said, Johnson will be 35 next May and is coming off a poor finish to his season. Nearly half the runs he allowed on the year came over the final month of play. From Aug. 25 onward, Johnson was rocked for nine runs on 19 hits and three walks. Four of those 19 knocks left the yard. His strikeout rate dropped nearly three percentage points, and his average fastball dipped by about 0.4 mph. Those aren’t necessarily catastrophic red flags, but it’s also surely not a finish with which he or the team is satisfied.
While both the Johnson and Kinley decisions are somewhat surprising in isolation, the broader trend of seeing teams turn down reasonably priced options early in an offseason has been around for several years. Just last offseason, we saw reasonably priced options on Colin Rea, Andrew Chafin and Danny Coulombe bought out. Those teams clearly preferred not to allocate notable resources to relievers who weren’t set to be key leverage arms in 2025 (though Johnson was a regular in high-leverage spots with Atlanta). Even as far back as 2020, Cleveland waived Brad Hand and bought him out rather than pick up a $10MM option.
It’s tempting to read a bit too deep into the Braves’ bullpen decisions today, but declining options on a pair of mid-30s relievers doesn’t necessarily serve as a portent for an uncharacteristically thrifty offseason. Atlanta is never a particularly big spender in free agency under president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos, but the Braves typically add a mid-tier free agent or two and are active on the trade market. More of the same could unfold. By forgoing the club options on Johnson and Kinley, their projected luxury tax number at the moment is around $197MM rather than nearly $209MM, per RosterResource.
As for Johnson, he’s coming off a nice run of two and a half seasons working as a setup man. He still sits 95-96 mph with his heater and still posted quality rate stats. He ought to command a big league deal in free agency, although the lack of a trade likely indicates that he might have a hard time exceeding the $7MM price point of his prior option.
With Johnson and Kinley out of the mix, the back-end of Atlanta’s bullpen includes Joe Jimenez, Aaron Bummer and Dylan Lee. Anthopoulos & Co. will surely make further additions in the months ahead. The Braves have already been linked to a potential reunion with outgoing closer Raisel Iglesias, and there’s no shortage of veteran arms to peruse on this offseason’s open market.
Gonna need a lot of relievers this off-season.
Still no reason to pierce johnson.
Pierce Johnson sounds like an adult film name.
Or a nickname acquired at a tequila fueled bachelor party.
Oh lord. Just axed two good relievers that had reasonable contracts. Idc what thy said “goal is to be a top 5 payroll in baseball”. This is the writing in the wall, they are going to keep payroll below the lux tax if not cut it. That’s 100% what is happening
Top 5 in baseball could be referring to draft order !?!? Obviously they’d have to dump a lot more than these two.
Now this is an intriguing name Hoyer should check out a possible reunion for.
if he likes johnsons, surely Hoyer would be intrigued
…but why?
AA must be getting ready for a full out raid on the Dollar Tree clearance bin this winter!!
But if there’s one area he spends in…it’s RPs. Would have again last year with Jeff Hoffman, had he passed his physical. AA took a championship away from TOR by declining the deal…Hoffman north of the border, and the rest is history. Let me keep thinking that, at least.
They mention it in the article above. He’ll be 35 next season and was god awful down the stretch. When relievers go bad, they go bad in a hurry and aren’t particularly hard or expensive to replace.
ooh that’s gotta hurt
Either that or he took the Jed Hoyer Bullpen Building Class 101.
@Uncle: With his past Cubs connection and his checkered career, Johnson seems like the kind of bullpen signing Hoyer might make.
RPs are the most expendable, least appreciated, least treasured, but in crunch time usually the most valuable players in baseball
This is a little concerning. If the Braves were planning to go over the luxury tax threshold, these would have been no brainer pickups.
Seems like there are pretty significant budget restrictions, or maybe they’re just rolling the dice that because there are a lot of RPs on the market, they’ll be able to add solid pen arms for $3-$4M later in the off-season.
not so much, Johnson has deteriorated the past 2 seasons and is 35
There will inevitably be a lot of relievers on the market late in the offseason. The fact remains Johnson wasn’t worth $7 million and Kinley wasn’t worth $5.5 million. Kinley had a nice showing in a small sample size after getting out of Colorado, but you can trace quite a bit of that to batted ball luck. It’s just as reasonable to argue that there are better ways to use that money
Pierce would be an upgrade for the Orioles’ current bullpen. Elias should probably sign him.
Surprised by Kinley – yes as he was strong in his time with ATL. Johnson, this past season, not so much.. Too much in love with his curveball which makes him very predictable.
The same applies to Kinley. He is a slider only pitcher, just like Johnson was a curveball only pitcher.
Kinley’s numbers in Atlanta speak for themselves.
That’s why they call him Curved Johnson.
It’s always possible Hefner noticed something he didn’t like with both guys as he was interviewing with AA and evaluating the staff.
They could always circle back to either or both later in the offseason, too.
Good angle on the situation!
Hefner doesn’t like Johnsons? Who would have guessed…
I would say one or both come out with a renegotiated contract with a one year extension similar to what they did with their relievers last year. I would particularly like to have Kinley back.