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Braves Select Nathan Wiles, Release Amos Willingham

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The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Nathan Wiles from Triple-A Gwinnett. Atlanta opened a 40-man roster spot by releasing righty Amos Willingham. Fellow right-hander Michael Petersen was optioned to Gwinnett to clear space on the active roster. The Braves acquired Wiles from the Rays in exchange for cash late in spring training. Willingham was placed on the minor league injured list earlier this month, and injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers — hence the decision to release him rather than try to outright him.

Wiles, 26, will give the Braves some length in the bullpen after Spencer Strider was unexpectedly placed back on the injured list yesterday following a hamstring injury. Atlanta has been planning to use an opener in tonight’s game, David O’Brien of The Athletic reports that’ll still be the case. However, since Wiles has been working as a starter in Gwinnett, he could give the Braves a much-needed long relief appearance. He’s stretched out fully; his last Triple-A start lasted six innings.

An eighth-round pick by Tampa Bay back in 2019, Wiles pitched to an ERA north of 5.00 in three partial seasons at the Triple-A level while in the Rays organization but has had a terrific start with the Stripers. He’s pitched 14 innings across three starts and held opponents to a lone earned run on nine hits and five walks with 15 strikeouts (27.8 K%, 9.3 BB%). He’s also kept the ball on the ground at a hearty 52.9% clip.

The Braves have several rotation depth options already on the 40-man roster, but Strider’s injury was particularly ill-timed. All three of Hurston Waldrep, AJ Smith-Shawver and Davis Daniel made their starts in the past three days. Righty Zach Thompson and lefty Dylan Dodd are both on the 40-man roster and have experience starting in the majors, but both are working as relievers in 2025 and both pitched as recently as Sunday (two innings, in Thompson’s case). Wiles would’ve been in line to start today for Gwinnett, but he’ll instead join the Braves ahead of what seems likely to be his major league debut behind tonight’s opener.

Willingham, 26, was a waiver claim out of the Nationals organization back in January. He’s yet to pitch a big league inning for the Braves, his hometown club, but he did tally 25 1/3 innings with the Nats from 2023-24. The results weren’t pretty, as he was tagged for a bleak 7.11 earned run average in that time. However, Willingham has a solid minor league track record. He’s pitched to a 3.67 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons, including a 3.40 mark in 98 frames of Triple-A ball.

As a Georgia Tech product and a native of Rome, Ga., Willingham was surely thrilled to be claimed by the Braves back in the offseason. Today’s release ends his tenure with the club for at least the time being, though it’s common for injured players who released under similar circumstances to re-sign a minor league deal with their current organization. That doesn’t guarantee that Willingham will follow that path, as he can now talk with 29 other clubs in free agency, but there’s ample precedent a quick reunion.

Braves Place Spencer Strider On IL With Hamstring Strain

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The Braves announced that right-hander Spencer Strider has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 18, with a strained right hamstring. Fellow righty Michael Petersen has been recalled to take his spot on the roster.

Strider just came off the IL less than a week ago. He had spent just over a year recovering from UCL surgery. He made one start, tossing five innings against the Blue Jays. He was scheduled to take the ball again tomorrow against the Cardinals. According to David O’Brien of The Athletic and Mark Bowman of MLB.com, he just suffered the injury while playing catch within the past hour. He then told the club that he wouldn’t be able to make his start.

At this point, there’s nothing to indicate this will be a significant absence, but it’s the latest speed bump in what has already been a frustrating season for Atlanta fans. The 2025 campaign has gotten out to a terrible start. There was at least a bit of momentum recently, with Strider’s return and the club sweeping the Twins over the weekend. But those three victories still leave the club in last place in the National League East with an 8-13 record.

Now Strider is going to miss at least a couple of turns through the rotation, meaning the club will have to quickly pivot in terms of their plans. Spencer Schwellenbach is taking the ball tonight. Bryce Elder is scheduled to pitch Wednesday on regular rest. Bumping Elder up to tomorrow to take Strider’s spot would mean pitching on short rest. Chris Sale and Grant Holmes are lined up to follow Elder.

Reynaldo López is also on the injured list and won’t be back anytime soon, as he’s going to be shut down into July. Ian Anderson was traded to the Angels just prior to Opening Day, with José Suarez coming back in return. Suarez himself was designated for assignment last night when the club acquired reliever Scott Blewett.

AJ Smith-Shawver was with the big league club earlier this year but he just tossed 5 2/3 innings at Triple-A on Friday, meaning he would have to pitch on short rest to take the ball tomorrow. Hurston Waldrep threw five innings on Saturday, meaning he shouldn’t be available. Davis Daniel logged five innings yesterday. Dylan Dodd has been pitching in relief in the minors but does have some starting experience. Zach Thompson was up with the club as a long relief guy earlier this year. He pitched in Triple-A yesterday, but only two innings, so perhaps he’ll have some availability for tomorrow.

That will be a short-term challenge, as the club is off on Thursday. If they want to get Smith-Shawver or any of those other pitchers into the mix, they should be able to do it by this weekend. Still, it’s a less than ideal development for the club at this stage. As mentioned, they have dug themselves into a bit of a hole in the early going. They have some work to do in order to get back into the mix in the coming months. Strider is one of the most dominant pitchers in the league at his best and was hopefully going to stabilize the rotation in the absence of López. That might still happen but will now have to wait for a couple of weeks, or perhaps longer.

Photo courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images

Braves Designate José Suarez For Assignment

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The Braves announced that left-hander José Suarez has been designated for assignment. That was the corresponding move to open a 40-man roster spot for righty Scott Blewett, whom they acquired from the Orioles yesterday.

Suarez, 27, was acquired from the Angels just prior to Opening Day. It was a one-for-one swap with righty Ian Anderson going to the Halos. Since then, Suarez has been working as a long reliever for Atlanta, tossing 7 1/3 innings over three appearances.

He has only allowed two earned runs in that time, meaning he’s currently sitting on a 2.45 earned run average for the year, but is probably lucky to be in that position. He has walked more opponents than he has struck out so far, with seven free passes to five punchouts. He’s been spared further damage by a .118 batting average on balls in play and 81.4% strand rate.

It seems Atlanta decided to cut bait before regression caught up with the lefty, so he’s been sent into DFA limbo. That can last as long as a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so any potential trade talks would have to take place in the next five days.

Any interest in Suarez would likely be based on his 2021 and 2022 seasons. Over those two campaigns, he logged 207 1/3 innings for the Angels, working both as a starter and reliever. In that time, he had a 3.86 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate.

Things haven’t been as great since then. In 2023, he missed a lot of time due to a shoulder strain and posted an 8.29 ERA in 33 2/3 innings. He didn’t get back on track last year, with a 6.02 ERA in 52 1/3 innings.

Suarez is out of options, so any acquiring club would have to keep him on the active roster. If he clears waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency as a player with at least three years of service time. However, since he has less than five years, heading to the open market would mean forfeiting his remaining salary. Prior to being traded to Atlanta, he and the Angels agreed to a $1.1MM salary for this year. If no club grabs him off the wire, he’ll likely accept an outright assignment and provide Atlanta with some non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images

Braves Acquire Scott Blewett

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The Braves acquired right-hander Scott Blewett from the Orioles in a trade for cash considerations, as announced by both teams.  Blewett was designated for assignment by Baltimore yesterday.

This is the second time in less than a week that Blewett has changed teams after being designated for assignment.  Blewett began the season with the Twins and made two appearances before he was DFA’d and then claimed off waivers by the Orioles.  Two more appearances followed in an O’s uniform before Blewett was designated again.

The roster shuffling is nothing new for Blewett, who had been DFA’d and outrighted several times in his career even before this month’s transactions.  His chances of sticking with the Braves are complicated by the fact that he is out of minor league options, so the Twins and Orioles had no choice but to first designate the right-hander before trying to send him down to the farm.

All these moves belie the fact that Blewett has actually pitched pretty well during his relatively brief time in the big leagues.  Over parts of four seasons with the Royals, Twins, and Orioles, Blewett has a 1.93 ERA, 23.1% strikeout rate, and 9.4% walk rate in 37 1/3 career relief innings.  His 2.16 SIERA is only a shade higher than his ERA, and an inflated 85.4% strand rate is countered by a .317 BABIP.

While Blewett isn’t a hard thrower and he gives up a lot of solid contact, there’s enough there that multiple teams keep showing interest in the 29-year-old’s services.  He’ll become the latest new face in a Braves bullpen that has been a bit of a revolving door, as the club brought several veterans to camp on minor league deals in a search for inexpensive relief depth, and both Rafael Montero and Jose Suarez were acquired in trades (from the Astros and Angels respectively) within the last month.

Braves Recall Alex Verdugo, Option Bryan De La Cruz

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The Braves announced that they have recalled outfielder Alex Verdugo from Triple-A Gwinnett. Fellow outfielder Bryan De La Cruz was optioned down to Gwinnett as the corresponding move.

Verdugo, 29 next month, is a veteran with at least five years of major league service time. That means he can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent. However, he agreed to accept an optional assignment due to his lingering free agency. He remained unsigned until the second half of March, eventually getting a $1.5MM deal from Atlanta. Since he had missed spring training, he agreed to head down to the farm for a while, effectively as a delayed spring training.

His inability to get a deal to his liking earlier in the offseason was surely due to his poor platform season. He had hit .282/.338/.430 from 2018 to 2023, production which translated to a 106 wRC+. That means he was only 6% above league average but that was still decent production, especially considering he’s a solid outfield defender. But with the Yankees in 2024, he hit just .233/.291/.356 for a wRC+ of 83. He was actually pretty decent through the end of May but hit just .219/.274/.315 from June onwards. He then added 56 postseason plate appearances with a .208/.309/.313 line.

That gave him little momentum going into the winter, which led to his aforementioned struggle to get a deal. For Atlanta, they were probably happy that he was out still out there, as their outfield wasn’t in great shape at the end of last year. Ronald Acuña Jr. tore his ACL and missed the second half, with an expected return at some point during 2025. The club took a shot on Jarred Kelenic last year, which didn’t work, as he hit .231/.286/.393. Michael Harris II saw his production drop for a second straight season after his Rookie of the Year performance in 2022.

The club made one big splash to upgrade the outfield this winter, signing Jurickson Profar to a three-year, $42MM deal. But just 11 days after they signed Verdugo, it was reported that Profar had been given an 80-game suspension for a positive PED test. Given the close proximity, it’s possible Atlanta knew of Profar’s test at the time of the Verdugo deal, but with the appeal process having not yet run its course.

Since the Verdugo deal, things have broadly gotten worse for the club. They are out to a 5-13 start, with their outfield being one of the key problems. Kelenic is hitting .146/.239/.244 thus far and Harris is at .179/.208/.299. Before getting optioned today, De La Cruz put up a line of .191/.240/.213.

It’s unclear what sort of production Verdugo can provide, but even something like his diminished 2024 offense would be miles ahead of what the club has received from its outfield so far. For what it’s worth, Verdugo hit .207/.303/.448 during his recent optional assignment.

Verdugo, Kelenic and Harris are all lefties, so that’s likely to be the alignment against right-handed pitchers. Even after optioning De La Cruz, the club has a couple of righty-swinging outfielders in Stuart Fairchild and Eli White, giving manager Brian Snitker some ability to navigate around tough southpaws. Ideally, Verdugo can stabilize things somewhat as the club tries to get the season back on track. Acunña will perhaps start a rehab assignment soon and be back with the club in the coming weeks. That will cut into the playing time of someone, likely Kelenic or Verdugo, depending on what happens between now and then.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

Braves Activate Spencer Strider

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April 16: Strider has been activated ahead of his start against the Blue Jays this afternoon, per a team announcement. Right-hander Zach Thompson was optioned to Triple-A in a corresponding move.

April 13: Prior to today’s game against the Rays, the Braves announced that the club had optioned right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver to the minor leagues. In the short-term, the move made room for righty Michael Petersen to join the club. More important than that move, however, is the impending shift in the rotation Smith-Shawver’s departure portends. As noted by multiple reporters, including David O’Brien of The Athletic, Smith-Shawver’s departure from the active roster will make way for the highly-anticipated return of right-hander Spencer Strider to the rotation on April 16 against the Blue Jays in Toronto.

Strider, 26, hasn’t pitched in just over a year after undergoing internal brace surgery on his UCL early last season. The right-hander has just two full MLB seasons under his belt, in 2022 and ’23, but in that time he posted a 3.36 ERA with a 2.43 FIP and a 37.4% strikeout rate. Those incredible stats were enough to get Strider a second-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year voting, an All-Star appearance, and a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young voting across the two seasons, and the decorated fireballer now figures to return to lead Atlanta’s rotation once again now that he’s healthy. It couldn’t come at a better time, as the Braves have struggled badly out of the gate with a 4-11 start to open the season. Those struggles are due in large part to a rotation that has lost Reynaldo Lopez for much of the 2025 season to shoulder surgery and has seen reigning NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale scuffle to a 6.63 ERA in 19 innings of work across his first four starts this season.

Strider’s long-awaited return to the big league mound means the end of Smith-Shawver’s stint in the rotation to open the year. The right-hander was generally serviceable for Atlanta across three starts, with a 4.61 ERA that clocks in just below league average and a 4.16 FIP. While Smith-Shawver’s 26.2% strikeout rate in those starts was solid, a 12.3% walk rate raised enough concerns that the club has opted to stick with Bryce Elder in the rotation despite his ugly 7.20 ERA in two starts against the Dodgers and Rays. That leaves Elder to pair with Grant Holmes at the back of the club’s rotation for the time being, though Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, and Dylan Dodd all remain available at Triple-A as potential rotation options if Elder fails to improve.

Strider may not be the only reinforcement the Braves are getting from Triple-A this week. O’Brien suggests that “all signs are pointing to” an impending call-up for outfielder Alex Verdugo, who was signed to a $1.5MM deal three weeks ago but has spent that time in the minor leagues catching up after missing most of Spring Training. It’s possible he would’ve spent the entire month of April at Triple-A, but things changed when Jurickson Profar was suspended for 80-games due to a failed PED test. That’s left the Braves to try and get by with Jarred Kelenic, Stuart Fairchild, and Bryan De La Cruz in the outfield corners while Ronald Acuna Jr. heals up after suffering a torn ACL last May.

Verdugo should help to bolster that outfield mix somewhat, giving the Braves a more proven veteran to handle left field in place of Profar while he serves his suspension. While he posted a lackluster 83 wRC+ with the Yankees last year, he had been a consistently league average bat for the Red Sox in each of his four seasons with the club prior to that, hitting .281/.328/.444 (105 wRC+) overall during his time in Boston. Whether Verdugo will ultimately join the Braves in Toronto for their series against the Blue Jays or instead be called up next weekend for their series against the Twins remains to be seen, but O’Brien indicates that Verdugo’s return to the majors appears to be imminent.

Braves Release Buck Farmer

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The Braves have released right-hander Buck Farmer, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He’d been pitching on a minor league deal for Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett.

Farmer, 34, signed that minor league pact back in February. He’s spent the three prior seasons as a durable member of the Cincinnati bullpen, giving the Reds 193 innings of 3.68 ERA ball — primarily in low-leverage/middle relief spots.

Farmer has generally kept his run-prevention numbers at solid levels, but his fastball velocity and strikeout rate have been average over the past two seasons. His command, or lack thereof, has been an issue throughout the bulk of his big league career. Farmer walked 10.3% of his opponents during his time with the Reds, a near-identical match with his career 10.5% mark. He also plunked a career-high seven batters last year, which was nearly double the rate at which he’d hit batters in previous seasons.

Both spring training and the early portion of the season in Triple-A have been a struggle for the veteran Farmer. He appeared in five Grapefruit League contests with Atlanta and pitched 5 2/3 innings, but opponents tagged him for four runs on eight hits and four walks. He set down eight of his 30 opponents on strikes (26.7%), but he didn’t pitch his way into the team’s Opening Day plans. Atlanta’s bullpen has had plenty of issues this year, but Farmer came out of the gates in Gwinnett with five runs (four earned) on seven hits and four walks in 4 2/3 innings (7.71 ERA).

Although the early stages of the 2025 season haven’t gone as hoped, Farmer has a lengthy big league track record and should latch on elsewhere. He’s collected nearly eight seasons of big league service since his 2014 debut, and since moving from a starting role to the bullpen in 2018, Farmer carries a 4.03 ERA in 386 2/3 MLB frames.

Astros Acquire Patrick Halligan As PTBNL In Rafael Montero Trade

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The Astros traded right-hander Rafael Montero and $7.7MM to the Braves earlier this week for a player to be named later or cash. The Astros announced today that the PTBNL in that deal is minor league righty Patrick Halligan.

Halligan, 25, was selected by the Royals in the 13th round of the draft back in 2021. He made the occasional start but mostly worked in relief. Over 2021 and 2022, he tossed 85 2/3 innings in the minors with a 5.36 earned run average and was released prior to the 2023 season.

Atlanta signed him to a minor league deal and the change of scenery seemed to helped him. He has since logged 123 1/3 innings with a 3.72 ERA. His 10.6% walk rate is a bit high but he has also struck out 27.6% of batters faced. Last year, he logged 50 2/3 innings, mostly at Double-A but also with some Triple-A work. For the whole year, he had a 3.02 ERA, 31.6% strikeout rate and 11.8% walk rate. Last month, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs listed the top prospects in Atlanta’s system and gave Halligan an honorable mention, highlighting his splitter as his key to success.

With the Montero deal, the Astros were probably happy just to shed a few million bucks. His contract had quickly gone underwater and they had been trying to trade him for quite a while. On top of saving roughly $3MM, they will take a flier on Halligan and see if he can work his way into their big league bullpen.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

Poll: Should The Braves Extend Spencer Schwellenbach?

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He has only made two starts this season, but it’s impossible not to be impressed. Spencer Schwellenbach has thrown 14 innings without giving up a run. Indeed, he hasn’t thrown so much as a single pitch with a runner in scoring position. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 14 to one. His groundball rate is 60%. He has allowed 30 batted balls and not one of them has been barreled. According to Baseball Savant, the righty has thrown six distinct pitches at least 10% of the time, and five of them have a positive run value. All told, his +9 pitching run value is the best in the sport. Two starts make for a tiny sample size, but like I said, it’s impossible not to be impressed by what Schwellenbach has done.

Of course, the 24-year-old is used to being impressive. Before the 2025 season began, he was mowing down opponents in the Grapefruit League, striking out 28 batters in 21 innings while pitching to a 3.00 ERA. Before that, he was a breakout stud in his rookie season, putting up a 3.35 ERA, 3.42 SIERA, and 2.6 FanGraphs WAR over 21 starts. Before that, he was a consensus top-five prospect in Atlanta’s system. Across 24 minor league starts at Single-A, High-A, and Double-A from 2023-24, he threw 110 innings with a 2.21 ERA and 3.01 FIP. He skipped Triple-A to make his big league debut last May and never looked back.

With less than one season of service time under his belt, Schwellenbach already finds himself a key member of the Braves’ rotation. Spencer Strider is still working his way back from elbow surgery. Reynaldo López will miss most of the season. Chris Sale remains the ace of the staff, but he’s 36 years old, injury-prone, and has looked unusually mortal to start the year. It remains unclear how much Atlanta will be able to count on top prospects AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep, former All-Star Bryce Elder, and 2024 breakout arm Grant Holmes. Having Schwellenbach to rely on every fifth game will be critical as the Braves look to make up ground in the NL East following a 2-8 start to the season.

As Schwellenbach continues to impress – and as Atlanta continues to be reminded of the importance of reliable, top-end starting pitching – perhaps it’s time for president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos to start thinking about extending the right-hander. It might seem early to be talking about an extension for Schwellenbach. Then again, the Braves extended Strider shortly after his rookie season in 2022. At that time, he had 20 big league starts and 134 innings under his belt. Schwellenbach doesn’t have quite as much MLB service time as Strider did when he signed his extension, but he has now thrown more innings (137 2/3). Meanwhile, Michael Harris II was just 71 games into his big league career when he signed an extension with Atlanta in August 2022. As a position player, Harris is not quite as strong of a comp for Schwellenbach. Regardless, the key point is that this front office doesn’t have any qualms about extending players with limited big league service time. In fact, that’s part of the appeal for the Braves, who also extended Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies quite early on in their careers. The point of these extensions is to offer talented young players immediate financial security in exchange for additional years of team control down the line. If Schwellenbach keeps pitching this way, his asking price is only going to climb, and the chances that he would be willing to give up any of his future free agent years will diminish.

With that said, the Braves have awarded far fewer long-term extensions to pitchers than to position players. For instance, they notably did not extend two-time All-Star Max Fried, who left for the Yankees in free agency this past offseason. Dating back to the 2006 season, the Braves have only given out three guaranteed multi-year extensions to starting pitchers: Strider’s six-year, $75MM deal in 2022; Julio Teheran’s six-year, $32.4MM deal in 2014; and Tim Hudson’s three-year, $28MM deal in 2009. What’s more, the Strider extension has not exactly gone according to plan thus far. While he won 20 games and earned Cy Young votes in 2023, he has made just two starts since the beginning of the 2024 season after damaging his UCL. It’s also worth noting that the Braves have seen many young pitchers get off to promising starts only to fizzle out soon after, whether due to injury or underperformance. That includes arms like Ian Anderson, Michael Soroka, Kyle Wright, and Elder. Perhaps all that will make them a bit more cautious when it comes to Schwellenbach.

As for what a Schwellenbach extension might look like, we can turn to several recent comps. Since Strider inked his deal in October 2022, four more starters with fewer than two years of service time have signed multi-year extensions. Schwellenbach can almost surely ask for more than Cristopher Sánchez’s four-year, $22.5MM guarantee, though he is unlikely to command as much as Strider. The other three extensions – for Hunter Greene, Brayan Bello, and Brandon Pfaadt – were all for somewhere between $45MM and $55MM in guaranteed money over five or six years (with at least one club option). Schwellenbach has arguably had more big league success than any of those pitchers did when they signed their extensions. However, he doesn’t have as much experience as Pfaadt or Bello, nor did he ever have the prospect pedigree of Greene. Still, the preseason ZiPS, Steamer, and PECOTA projections envisioned Schwellenbach to be roughly as valuable, if not more so, than all three of those arms. With that in mind, a six-year deal (that would buy out Schwellenbach’s first free agent season) with an AAV around $9MM and at least one club option would be a logical starting point for negotiations.

Do MLBTR readers think the Braves should offer Schwellenbach an extension? Perhaps you think Atlanta needs to act fast and extend him now before his star shoots any higher. Or perhaps you think the Braves would be smarter to wait until the young right-hander has proven himself over a larger sample of starts. Have your say in the poll below:

 

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

Braves Acquire Rafael Montero From Astros

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April 9: Houston is covering $7.7MM of Montero’s remaining salary, Charles Odum of the Associated Press reports. That’s on top of the $804K they’ve already paid him this year. In total, the Astros are paying about $8.5MM of Montero’s $11.5MM salary, leaving Atlanta on the hook for just a hair under $3MM. Montero joined the team today, per a club announcement, with Thompson optioned to open an active roster spot.

April 8: The Astros announced a trade sending reliever Rafael Montero and an undisclosed amount of cash to the Braves for a player to be named later. Houston recalled lefty reliever Bennett Sousa to take the vacated bullpen spot. Atlanta has not announced any corresponding moves. They had an opening on their 40-man roster after waiving Chadwick Tromp and do not need to make an active roster transaction until Montero reports to the team.

Montero, 34, is in the final season of a three-year free agent deal. He’s playing on an $11.5MM salary. The Astros are surely paying down the majority of that contract, though specifics on the cash have not been reported. Owner Jim Crane struck early in the 2022-23 offseason to re-sign Montero on a $34.5MM investment. That was in between the dismissal of former general manager James Click and the hiring of current GM Dana Brown. It did not work out.

The veteran right-hander was rocked for a 5.08 earned run average over 67 1/3 innings in the first season. He posted a 4.70 ERA while walking nearly as many hitters as he struck out last year. The Astros designated him for assignment around the trade deadline. That seemed like it would officially end his tenure in the organization. Montero had more than enough service time to elect free agency while collecting the rest of his contract.

Montero instead accepted an assignment to Triple-A after clearing waivers. He tossed 16 1/3 frames of four-run ball there to finish the season. Houston didn’t call him up last season but brought him back to Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. Montero allowed six runs (five earned) with 10 strikeouts and seven walks across 8 2/3 innings to earn his way back onto the MLB roster. He has made three regular season appearances, working four frames of two-run ball with five punchouts.

The 11-year big league veteran sits in the 95-96 MPH range with his four-seam fastball. He tweaked his pitch mix this year, according to Statcast. Montero added a mid-80s splitter while scrapping his low-90s changeup. That’s now his top offspeed pitch against lefty hitters. It’s too early to glean much from the results, but opponents have whiffed on five of 12 swings against it.

Atlanta evaluators were intrigued enough by Montero’s form to plug him into the middle innings. Daysbel Hernández and long man Zach Thompson each have options remaining. Lefty José Suarez is out of options but has a pedestrian 5:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio through his first four appearances. Montero figures to displace someone from that group — most likely Thompson — once he joins the team.

It’s purely a salary dump for Houston. They were never going to be able to shed the majority of Montero’s contract. Getting out from under even a small portion of the deal should give them more flexibility for deadline acquisitions. They’re within a few million dollars of the $241MM luxury tax threshold, which they seem disinclined to surpass. Whatever portion of Montero’s salary that the Braves assume will come off the Astros’ tax bill.

Image courtesy of Erik Williams, Imagn Images.

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