The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve released left-handed reliever Aaron Bummer and placed catcher Drake Baldwin on the 10-day injured list due to an oblique strain. Atlanta also activated lefty Dylan Dodd from the 10-day IL, recalled righty Victor Mederos from Triple-A, selected the contract of catcher Chadwick Tromp and optioned right-hander JR Ritchie to Triple-A.
The Baldwin injury is a massive setback for an Atlanta club that’s also once again without veteran Sean Murphy (fractured finger). The 25-year-old Baldwin won National League Rookie of the Year honors in 2025 and has thus far played like he has his eyes set on some additional hardware; Baldwin has played at an MVP-caliber pace in 2026, sprinting out of the gate with a .303/.389/.543 batting line. After swatting 19 home runs in 446 plate appearances as a rookie, he’s already clubbed 13 in just 216 trips to the batter’s box in his sophomore season.
By measure of wRC+, Baldwin has been 60% better than average at the plate this season — the eighth-best qualified hitter in the sport. That’s a feat in and of itself, but considering the average catcher is about 12% worse than average at the plate, Baldwin’s immense production is all the more valuable. Couple that with strong blocking skills and average framing grades, and Baldwin has been one of the best all-around players in baseball. Both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference peg him at 2.2 wins above replacement through just over one quarter of the regular season.
The Braves have yet to put a timetable on Baldwin’s potential absence. Every injury case is different, but even Grade 1 oblique strains can sideline players for upwards of one month. A more severe strain would come with a lengthier absence. Atlanta skipper Walt Weiss will surely provide more details prior to this afternoon’s contest against the Marlins, who pounced the now-optioned Ritchie and the now-released Bummer for a combined 12 earned runs — six apiece — last night.
With Baldwin and Murphy both shelved, Atlanta will go from one of the sport’s most potent catching tandems to perhaps the lightest-hitting backstop tandem in baseball. Tromp joins 37-year-old Sandy León in handling catching duties for the foreseeable future. León hasn’t topped 100 plate appearances in a big league season since 2021 and carries a .176/.245/.268 batting line over his past 930 trips to the plate in the majors. Tromp is a career .221/.230/.390 hitter in 178 major league plate appearances. They’re both solid defenders, and Tromp has some modest pop in his bat, but both can be reasonably projected for an OBP in the .250 range.
More to come.
Das a bummer /:
Oblique strains can last longer than expected. That’s not good
Considering the cost, surprised they didn’t throw bummer on the IL and pray he returns looking slightly better so they could attempt to offload a portion of his salary. He’s super expensive for a bad bullpen arm. If I were the Braves, I’d package him with a project prospects maybe in the lower tier of our top 30 and see if anyone would take any of his salary off our hands, even if it was like 1 mil. We really need to consider doing the same with Lopez although I understand the hesitation there had how much more difficult it would be to trade him
Glad to see Bummer go…
Curious why James Karinchak is not the guy they are calling up
Baldwin going on the DL hurts bad… Hopefully it is nothing series.
Acuna might return tonight which could help
He technically returned last night and was only available off the bench.
Bad trade, bad contract.
The trade was fine. He was serviceable and they didn’t give up anything they weren’t going to give away
Bummer, man.
That’s a Bummer not that he got released but that Baldwin is hurt. The Tromp/Leon combo isn’t exactly going to produce anywhere near his offense but maybe they can at least be serviceable until he is back.
Been long overdue. And spare me with oh historically his xFIP shows blah blah