10:25am: Fuentes will start for Gwinnett on Friday, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. He’ll get a couple minor league turns to build up to around 90 pitches and then be more strongly considered for the big league rotation.
8:48am: The Braves announced Monday morning that they’ve selected the contract of veteran lefty Martín Pérez from Triple-A Gwinnett. Right-hander Didier Fuentes was optioned to Gwinnett to clear a spot on the active roster. Atlanta already had a 40-man vacancy, so Fuentes is the only corresponding transaction needed.
Some fans will bristle at optioning Fuentes after he shined with four innings of one-run ball in long relief yesterday, but that four-inning appearance means he’d have been unavailable for the next few days anyhow. He’ll surely be back in the fold before long, but the Braves will presumably be cautious with his workload this season. He pitched only 70 innings total between the minors and major leagues last year.
Pérez, 35 next week, signed a minor league deal over the winter and was in the mix for a rotation spot this spring — particularly after Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep, Joey Wentz and Spencer Strider went down with injuries. He had a nice Grapefruit League showing, working to a 2.84 ERA in 12 2/3 innings, but Atlanta reassigned him to minor league camp to begin the season. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t an especially long stint. He can now step into the same long relief/swing role that Fuentes held, providing some length behind out-of-options starters Bryce Elder and José Suarez. Alternatively, the Braves could move either Elder or Suarez to a swing role and go with Pérez in the rotation.
A flexor strain knocked Pérez out for most of the 2025 season, but he was sharp in his limited action with the White Sox. He tossed 56 innings with the South Siders, his seventh career team, and logged a 3.54 earned run average. Pérez fanned only 19.3% of his opponents against a 9.6% walk rate. He’s never missed many bats but has generally held his own through sharp command, solid ground-ball tendencies and plenty of weak contact.
Atlanta will be Pérez’s eighth career team. He’s been a steady back-of-the-rotation starter for a good while now, starting a full slate of 12 games in the shortened 2020 campaign and making between 20 and 32 starts in the other five seasons from 2019-24 (while pitching to a collective 4.27 ERA). Last year marked the first time since 2018 that Pérez required a trip to the 60-day injured list.
And it starts. The rotation carousel.
Why burn the option?
The option was already burned when he started the season on the team. They can bring him up and send him down as many as times as they want this season without using up additional options.
Uh, no? If it’s the case no 3+ year veteran would have any options left. If a player doesn’t get sent down for the whole year then the option is intact.
@Kapler “They can bring him up and send him down as many as times as they want this season without using up additional options” – that used to be the case but not true anymore, under current rules there’s a limit of five options per option year.
To prepare to start.
An option is lost when a player who is on the 40-man roster spends 20 days in the minors in one season. Fuentes has to spend 10 days in the minors after being demoted so theoretically they can call him up again without using an option.
Probably going to have to limit his innings this year to 100-110. He only threw 70 last year and 75 the year before. Assuming he’s a starting pitcher mostly the Braves can’t use a roster spot for that all year. He’ll be on the Gwinnett shuttle this year
Doesn’t it impact service time? This crap has always been part of the game but it’s gotten worse with players sent down or DFAed after a good outing only because they need rest before taking the mound again. Hoping the new agreement changes the rules.
Fuentes only had 19 days in the majors last year. Rest assured he’ll have less than a year service time by the end of this year.
So you want to remove strategy from the equation just so people can have more service time? Weird take, in my opinion.
No but it’s part of the reason why games in recent years take so long. Factoring in when to rest relievers was always part of a manager’s strategy and it’s not fair for the player to be punished for doing his job. It also uproots the family when one is DFAed and claimed. At least, guarantee the minimum salary for the season if not the service time.
This isn’t a DFA situation. He is, at worst, having to move from Atlanta GA to Gwinnett GA. And when the DFA stuff happens, especially in the offseason, it’s not like the player immediately moves. Many players and their families live in the same place regardless of who they play for, hence why Charlie Morton would only sign with a couple of teams so he’d be close to his family.
Thanks Sid. I was really speaking in general terms. Years ago, young players knew in advance it was one start or appearance. Today, we don’t need 13 pitchers with that last one changing almost daily.
Things definitely went better than last time for him. I don’t see anything wrong with getting a fresh arm up Fuentes will have plenty more time in the bigs this year.
A bit of a concern that Fuentes will only have one option year left starting next year at such a young age but I’m sure the Braves are hoping he’s ready to stick next year.
“Be more strongly considered” — based on how Elder fares tonight vs. LV, you mean.
I’m beginning to think they’ll keep Elder around no matter how bad he might get simply because “he’s out of options”.
I’m mostly with you on that, however, they will be justified with atrocious outing.
I’m beginning to think Elder has photos of someone.
If you look at him objectively he is actually an elite 5th starter and you could make the case for him being an ok number 4
Elder has the most innings pitched for the Braves in the last 3 years. He is a very good to great 5th starter. He is getting better and better with his new cutter. The last 10 starts he has had with his new cutter something like 50 innings with 39 k and 10ish something walks. He is a valuable 5th starter. Respect the ELDER!!!
Didier, what a name
Elder led the Braves in innings pitched, durability is something all staffs need.
In my mind / memories of Perez, he has a history of starting seasons off strongly before regressing as the summer starts to approach. Probably wrong but that’s my thoughts on him.