The Braves have signed right-handers Carlos Carrasco and Darius Vines to new minor league deals, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports. Both players were eligible for minor league free agency and apparently elected for the open market, only to both head back to Atlanta’s organization.
After inking a minors deal with the Yankees last February, the righty earned a spot on the Opening Day roster due to some injuries on New York’s pitching staff, giving Carrasco a chance to bank a few starts. Unfortunately, he posted a 5.91 ERA over 32 innings in the pinstripes, and was designated for assignment and outrighted twice during the next four months.
Carrasco twice passed on free agency after those outrights, but found himself changing teams again when the Braves acquired the veteran in a cash trade prior to the deadline. The Braves were looking for all the pitching help they could find in the aftermath of a plague of injuries to their starting rotation, and Carrasco went onto post a 9.88 ERA over 13 2/3 innings in an Atlanta uniform. He was DFA’ed and outrighted again in August and this time did elect free agency, only to quickly re-sign again with the Braves.
A staple of Cleveland’s rotation for most of his 16-year MLB career, Carrasco now heads into his age-39 season as just a depth option. The right-hander has a 6.36 ERA and a 17.6% strikeout rate over 239 1/3 big league frames since the start of the 2023 season, with the highest homer rate (17.5%) of any pitcher in that timespan with at least 230 innings.
Vines has spent his entire pro career with the Braves since Atlanta made him a seventh-round draft pick in 2019. He posted a 5.82 ERA over 34 innings in the Show during the 2023-24 seasons, dimming his potential as a possible rotation candidate for the team going forward. Atlanta designated Vines for assignment and outrighted him off the 40-man roster in August 2024, and Vines then missed the entire 2025 season recovering from an undisclosed injury.
This new minors deal likely reflects the Braves’ confidence that Vines will be healthy in 2026, as he tries to get his career back on track heading into his age-28 season. There’s no risk for the team in bringing Vines back on a minors deal to see what he has to offer, and a relief role could be in his future if he can’t find any consistency as a starting pitcher.
I have hope that Vines might end up as a serviceable relief pitcher, but no hope for Carrasco to contribute much more than being a warm body.
9.88 ERA what the heck bring Cookie back. Crazy but pitching depth is never a bad thing. Wonder what vines undisclosed injury was? Had to be something kinda major to cost him a whole season. Any who best of luck to him
LoL Cookie continues to find a job. Good for him. I guess the Braves know something the Yankees never did.
Pretty good dude to stash in the minors to help out with young players. Has the opportunity to get a cup of coffee. I think he’s OK with this role after last season. Cookie has a passion for baseball.
Minors deal. Gotta have warm bodies in AAA.
Thats what we kept saying all last off-season too. It’s starting off eerily similar so far…Ugh I hope I’m wrong.
If any of these pitchers need to pitch in the ATL the Braves are in deep do do. Suck up innings in Gwinnett hopefully.
So, in a normal situation, people are happy with this move because it’s nice depth to the pitching rotation with a history of injuries. Guys like these should be like ur #10 starter only filling in against the bad teams to give someone a break and just a spot start.
The problem is after seeing what happened last offseason and what’s already happened this offseason with the Braves declining reasonable team options for good players, they are showing signs that they will be cheap again and do everything to stay under the luxury tax. So my fear is, these guys are actually being slotted in as possible #5 guys, more likely 6, which is tooooo high and weak depth