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Braves Interested In Nathan Eovaldi

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The offseason is getting ramped up and Atlanta seems to be focused on adding to its rotation. Per Mark Bowman of MLB.com, right-hander Nathan Eovaldi ranks near the top of the club’s offseason wish list.

Eovaldi, 35 in February, just declined his player option with the Rangers. He could have stayed in Texas for 2025 and made a $20MM salary but decided to head to the open market and assess his options. MLBTR recently predicted the veteran could land a guarantee of $44MM on a two-year deal as part of our annual Top 50 Free Agents list.

The righty is arguably the poster child for career success after a second Tommy John surgery. After returning from that operation, he struggled a bit in 2019 but has been quite consistent over the past five years. He has a 3.75 earned run average over those campaigns, striking out 24% of batters faced, limiting walks to a 5.6% rate and getting grounders at a 46.9% clip. His ERA finished between 3.63 and 3.87 in all five of those seasons with his other rate stats holding quite steady as well.

For Atlanta, starting pitching is a sensible target area. They just lost both Max Fried and Charlie Morton to free agency, opening two holes in the starting pitching mix. That leaves them with a core of Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach but with question marks behind that threesome.

Spencer Strider will eventually be in the mix but will likely miss at least part of the season after undergoing internal brace surgery in April of last year. Griffin Canning was just acquired in the Jorge Soler deal but he is coming off a rough season in which he posted a 5.19 earned run average and his strikeout rate fell to 17.6% after being at 25.9% the year prior.

Ian Anderson is on the roster but hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022 due to poor performance and Tommy John surgery. The club also has guys like Huascar Ynoa, AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, Bryce Elder and a few others, though no one in that group did much to impress in 2024.

Given that rotation picture, pursuing external additions makes plenty of sense, though the budget with naturally be a consideration. RosterResource projects the club for a $215MM payroll next year, just $20MM shy of 2024’s spending.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos has said the payroll will rise but it’s unclear by how much and there have been some recent signs that money could be tight. The aforementioned Soler deal did bring back Canning but was seen mostly as a salary dump. A few days ago, the club reworked the contracts of both López and lefty Aaron Bummer, in both cases shifting a few million bucks from the 2025 ledger to 2026. The club turned down a club option on Travis d’Arnaud even though Anthopoulos had previously suggested they would be picking that up to bring the catcher back for 2025.

The long-term books have plenty on them as well, thanks to the club’s penchant for signing incumbent players to extensions. Each of Strider, López, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Ronald Acuña Jr., Sean Murphy, Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies are likely to be on the books through 2027, either due to guaranteed contracts or club options.

In addition to the club’s finances, there is also the track record to consider. Though they have been connected to some prominent free agents over the years, that hasn’t been their modus operandi. Per MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, the largest guarantee they’ve even given a free agent is the $75.3MM they gave to Melvin Upton Jr. way back in 2012. Ozuna’s $65MM deal is their top free agent deal from more recent seasons. Their largest deal for a free agent starting pitcher was $60MM for Derek Lowe back in 2009 while $18MM for Cole Hamels is the biggest of the past five years.

Taking all that into consideration, Eovaldi is a logical target for the club. He’s been quite effective on the mound but his age and injury history will put a natural cap on his earning power. While pitchers like Fried, Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Jack Flaherty could require nine-figure commitments, Eovaldi will be in a different tier of free agency. Though Atlanta seems to have targeted Eovaldi, free agent starters who could command similar contracts include Yusei Kikuchi, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, Nick Martinez, Nick Pivetta, Matthew Boyd, Andrew Heaney, Frankie Montas and others.

Braves Hire Pete Putila As Assistant GM

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The Braves hired Pete Putila in an assistant general manger role, as initially reported by ESPN’s Jorge Castillo (X link).  Putila will be focusing on operating Atlanta’s international scouting department, and he’ll join Jason Pare (whose purview is research & development) and Ben Sestanovich (player development) as the third AGM under president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos.

Putila spent the previous two seasons as the Giants’ GM, working as the chief lieutenant in the baseball ops department under PBO Farhan Zaidi.  However, Zaidi was fired at season’s end, and new president of baseball operations Buster Posey announced that Putila would be replaced as general manager and given a new role in the organization.  It perhaps isn’t surprising that Putila was looking for a fresh start himself in the wake of the Giants’ front office overhaul, thus leading to this new role in Atlanta.

Beginning his baseball career as an intern in Houston’s front office in 2011, Putila spent 12 seasons with the Astros, rising up the ranks to an eventual assistant GM title in 2019.  Even after the Astros shook up their front office in the wake of the sign-stealing scandal, Putila remained in his role under new general manager James Click, and stayed in Houston until the Giants came calling in October 2022.  It wasn’t the first time Putila had drawn interest from other teams, as the Pirates and the Giants themselves had previously considered Putila as a candidate for past front office vacancies.

Joe Jimenez To Miss 8-12 Months After Knee Surgery

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Braves right-hander Joe Jimenez underwent a left knee surgery last week to fix cartilage damage, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Justin Toscano reports (X link).  The procedure comes with a recovery period of 8-12 months, so Jimenez is now in danger of missing the entire 2025 season.

There hadn’t been any indication that Jimenez was dealing with knee problems, as the reliever hasn’t been on the injured list for any reason since the very end of the 2022 campaign, when Jimenez was still pitching with the Tigers.  In a follow-up post on X, Toscano notes that Jimenez hurt his knee during the season but pitched through the discomfort, and the extent of the injury wasn’t known until the surgery took place.

Atlanta acquired Jimenez for a two-prospect package (which included Justyn-Henry Malloy) in December 2022, and the righty has been nothing short of stellar in his two seasons in a Braves uniform.  Jimenez had a 3.04 ERA over 56 1/3 innings in 2023, and then did even better in delivering a 2.62 ERA in 68 2/3 frames this past season.  His strikeout rates have been elite across both seasons, but Jimenez drastically improved his hard-contact numbers from 2023 to 2024 — he jumped into the 91st percentile of all pitchers in both barrel rate and hard-hit ball rate, after not even making the tenth percentile in either category in 2023.

It was almost exactly one year ago that the Braves signed Jimenez to a three-year, $26MM contract extension just shortly before Jimenez was about to hit the free agent market.  Jimenez earned $8MM in 2024 and is slated for $9MM in both 2025 and 2026, though that salary could end up being largely a sunk cost for the 2025 campaign depending on how much time he misses.

A return after the All-Star break would represent the best-case scenario for Jimenez, though the four-month range of his timeline creates a lot of gray area.  In theory, Jimenez could miss most of the regular season and still be ready to participate in a playoff run, though the more time Jimenez misses, the trickier decision the Braves may face in deciding whether or not to activate a potentially rusty pitcher for critical postseason games.

The Braves had one of the league’s best bullpens in 2024, but A.J. Minter, Jesse Chavez, and Luke Jackson are all free agents, and now Jimenez will miss at least half of the season.  Griffin Canning has already been brought into the rotation mix and, spending on any other starters acquired, Atlanta could dip into its young starting depth to reinforce the pen during the course of the 2025 season.  Odds are that president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos was already planning to add a reliever or two to the mix anyway this winter, but Jimenez’s injury now might make the Braves a little more aggressive in shopping in this market.

13 Players Receive Qualifying Offers

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Today is the deadline for teams to decide whether or not to issue qualifying offers to eligible players. Per Jeff Passan of ESPN on X, 13 players have received the QO and they are:

As a recap, the qualifying offer system was created in the name of competitive balance, allowing clubs to receive compensation if key players depart via free agency. The value changes from year to year as it is the average of the salaries of the 125 highest-paid players in the league. This year’s QO is valued at $21.05MM.

If the player rejects the QO and signs elsewhere, his previous team receives draft compensation while his new club is subject to draft pick forfeiture and sometimes international bonus penalties as well. MLBTR has previously covered what each team’s compensation and penalties would be.

Players have until 3pm Central on November 19 to decide whether to accept or not. In that time, they are free to negotiate with other clubs just like all other free agents, assessing their options before making a decision.

Most of the players on this list are not surprising. Many of them have enough earning power where it was obvious that they would receive a QO and they have an easy decision to reject it while going on to pursue larger guarantees on multi-year deals. Some of the decisions were a bit more borderline and MLBTR took closer looks at those in separate posts, including Martinez, Pivetta and Severino/Manaea.

There were also some notable players who were candidates to receive a QO but ultimately didn’t. MLBTR recently took a look at the pitchers and position players with a chance at receiving a QO. Michael Wacha was listed as a possibility but that came off the table when he and the Royals agreed to a new deal yesterday. Shane Bieber of the Guardians, Jeff Hoffman of the Phillies, Paul Goldschmidt of the Cardinals, Tyler O’Neill of the Red Sox, Gleyber Torres of the Yankees, as well as Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar of the Padres were all identified as long shots to receive a QO and ultimately none of them did.

Clubs generally don’t want to lose draft picks or be subject to the other associated penalties. As such, receiving a QO can sometimes have a negative impact on a player’s prospects in free agency, though it won’t be a significant factor for the top guys.

Braves Decline Club Option On Travis d’Arnaud

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The Braves announced that they have declined their club options on catcher Travis d’Arnaud and right-hander Luke Jackson while picking up their option on designated hitter Marcell Ozuna. Jeff Passan of ESPN relayed the d’Arnaud news on X prior to the official announcement. The d’Arnaud option was for $8MM and came with no buyout and he will now enter the open market. Jackson will head to free agency as well, collecting a $2MM buyout instead of a $7MM salary next year. Ozuna’s option had a $1MM buyout but the club will bring him back with a $16MM salary instead.

The news on d’Arnaud is the most surprising development. Just one month ago, president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said in his end-of-season press conference that the club was planning to pick up options on each of d’Arnaud, Ozuna and left-hander Aaron Bummer. They did indeed pick up Ozuna’s option while Bummer agreed to a reworked deal yesterday that saw the club essentially trigger Bummer’s two club options for 2025 and 2026, though with Bummer sacrificing a small amount of total earnings in exchange for more money to be locked in upfront.

The new deal for Bummer and also one for Reynaldo López saw Atlanta kick some money from their 2025 payroll ahead to 2026, indicating that payroll flexibility in the coming season is an ongoing issue for them. That’s likely a factor for the d’Arnaud call also, as the club can keep some powder dry for their offseason pursuits and perhaps circle back to d’Arnaud later in the winter.

Per RosterResource, Atlanta is projected for a payroll of $215MM next year, just $20MM shy of this year’s figure. They have plenty to do this winter, as they are set to lose Max Fried and Charlie Morton to free agency, opening up two rotation holes. It’s also possible that they could pursue upgrades over Orlando Arcia at shortstop, tweaks to the bullpen or other moves. Triggering d’Arnaud’s option would have locked in another $8MM today but it seems the club would rather hold onto that bit of spending capacity at least for now.

Atlanta clearly likes d’Arnaud, as they have a relationship that goes back a ways. He just finished his fifth season with the club, having signed multiple deals to stay in town. They signed him to a two-year, $16MM deal going into 2020. Late in 2021, as that deal was winding down, the two sides agreed to extend the relationship by another two years and with another $16MM. Midway through 2023, they agreed to another extension, locking in an $8MM salary for 2024 and the club option which has been turned down today.

During that time, d’Arnaud has hit .251/.312/.443 for a 106 wRC+. His framing and blocking have generally been well regarded and FanGraphs has considered him to have been worth 9.3 wins above replacement over his 384 games with Atlanta.

The club has clearly viewed him as worth $8MM per year in the past but isn’t locking him in at that price point now, despite Anthopoulos suggesting a month ago they likely would. He’ll now head to free agency and be one of the better backstops available. Guys like Danny Jansen, Kyle Higashioka and Carson Kelly are the best catchers in free agency this winter but d’Arnaud shouldn’t be too far behind that group.

With the shenanigans to move the López and Bummer money around and now d’Arnaud’s option being declined, perhaps the money is a bit tight for Atlanta at the moment. Given the way Anthopoulos operates, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them get creative on the trade market and move some contracts around, but the pursestrings might be a bit clenched for now.

As for Jackson, he’s had some good seasons in the past but has been up-and-down lately. Tommy John surgery wiped out his 2022 season, just as he was headed into free agency. He signed a two-year, $11.5MM deal with the Giants going into 2023, with the aforementioned option for 2025. He was able to make 33 appearances last year with a 2.97 earned run average but his 2024 was more challenging. He missed time due to a lower back strain and eventually posted a 5.09 ERA on the year, getting traded back to Atlanta midseason. His 25.1% strikeout rate and 50.7% ground ball rate were solid but his 11.1% walk rate was on the high side.

Jackson has had some success in the past and got a solid deal even after missing a full season due to surgery. Spending $5MM on such a pitcher wouldn’t have been outrageous but it’s also not shocking to see the club move on when considering his poor 2024 campaign and their apparent budgetary concerns.

Braves Sign Reynaldo López, Aaron Bummer To New Contracts

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The Braves announced today that they have signed both right-hander Reynaldo López and left-hander Aaron Bummer to new contracts. They also selected right-hander Domingo Gonzalez to the roster.

López will make $30MM over the next three years: $8MM in 2025, $14MM in 2026 and $8MM in 2027. On his previous deal, he was set to make $11MM in ’25 and ’26 with an $8MM club option and $4MM buyout for ’27. This deal effectively guarantees that club option ahead of time while allowing Atlanta to move some of his money from the ’25 ledger to the ’26 ledger.

Bummer’s deal had two club options for ’25 and ’26, both valued at $7.25MM with $1.25MM buyouts. Per today’s announcement, he is now guaranteed $13MM over the next two years: $3.5MM in ’25 and $9.5MM in ’26. That’s slightly less than the $14.5MM he could have made if both options were eventually picked up but he gets the security of having it locked in now, staving off any chance of an injury or a decline in performance hurting his future earning power. In this instance as well, the club moves some money from ’25 to ’26.

Before the offseason has really even begun in earnest, Atlanta’s payroll and competitive balance tax situation have already been a clear focus. Almost as soon as trades were allowed to happen, outfielder/designated hitter Jorge Soler was flipped to the Angels, essentially as a salary dump. Atlanta got right-hander Griffin Canning in return but it seems their primary motivation was to get rid of the two years and $26MM left on Soler’s deal. Now, a couple of days later, they announced these reworked deals. In both cases, the goal was seemingly to give Atlanta a bit more spending power in the upcoming offseason.

According to RosterResource, Atlanta is currently slated to have a payroll of $191MM and a CBT number of $210MM. The latter is higher because it’s calculated based on a contract’s average annual value rather than what the club is set to actually pay in 2025. The club has signed some backloaded extensions, which leads some players to have a higher CBT hit than their current salary.

The club finished 2024 with a payroll of $232MM and $277MM. Looking ahead to 2025, there’s some breathing room relative to last year’s numbers, but triggering options on Marcell Ozuna ($16MM), Travis d’Arnaud ($8MM) and Luke Jackson ($7MM) will eat up some of that. The club also has plenty on its offseason to-do list, with Max Fried and Charlie Morton now free agents, opening up two holes in the rotation. The club might consider upgrading on Orlando Arcia at shortstop, Sean Murphy at catcher or Jarred Kelenic in the outfield.

In the case of López, his new deal won’t impact his CBT hit. He signed a three-year, $30MM deal with Atlanta last winter, a deal that came with a $10MM luxury tax calculation. This new deal also has him slated to make $30MM over the next three years, keeping the CBT hit the same.

In terms of pure dollars, he is now guaranteed $4MM extra than previously, with that club option locked in. If he should suffer an injury or a decline in performance between now and then, he has prevented the club from going with the buyout. In exchange, the club gets a small increase in spending power this winter by moving $3MM of his salary ahead by a year. His return to a starting role was a big success this year as he posted a 1.99 earned run average in 135 2/3 innings.

With Bummer, the club clearly wanted to keep him around but worked out some details that they liked better than those options. This will actually increase his CBT hit relative to 2024, but by a bit less than if they had just picked up the option.

Atlanta acquired Bummer a year ago when he still had one guaranteed season left on his deal with the White Sox. Per the rules of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players union, a player’s CBT hit is recalculated at the time of a trade. Bummer was set to make a $5.5MM salary in 2024 and $1.25MM buyout on the option, so his CBT hit was $6.75MM in 2024. He had a strong season, posting a 3.58 ERA out of Atlanta’s bullpen this year.

If Atlanta had picked up the ’25 option, his CBT hit would have jumped to $8.5MM, when factoring in the $7.25MM salary and the $1.25MM buyout on the ’26 option. Instead, Atlanta has locked him in at $13MM for the next two years, reducing his CBT hit to $6.5MM. They also backloaded the salary so that they have more money to spend on the ’25 club. For him, he’s potentially leaving a small amount of money on the table, as he could have eventually made $14.5MM if both options were triggered. But he now has more guaranteed up front, so he’s protected against a big surgery or some other unfortunate developments cropping up between now and his second option decision.

Perhaps Atlanta expects to have a bit less of a payroll crunch a year from now. Ozuna’s contract will be done after 2025, as will that of Raisel Iglesias. They have ’26 club options for players like Chris Sale, Pierce Johnson, Ozzie Albies, David Fletcher and Arcia that they could walk away from, depending on each player’s health and performance between now and then. RR currently pegs Atlanta for a $137MM payroll and $136MM for CBT purposes in 2026. However, those numbers will eventually climb based on the options and players who qualify for arbitration, as well as with any multi-year deals the club gives out this winter.

Gonzalez, 25, was originally signed by the Pirates but Atlanta nabbed him in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 draft. Players who have played parts of seven years in the minors, including the cancelled 2020 season, can qualify for minor league free agency. That was about to be the case for Gonzalez but Atlanta wanted to keep him around, so they’ve added him to the roster today.

He was in a swingman role when in the Pirates’ system but Atlanta has had him working primarily in relief since they grabbed him. He has posted huge strikeout totals but also given out a high number of walks. He spent all of last year in Double-A, posting a 4.19 ERA in 53 2/3 innings. He struck out 30.5% of batters faced while giving out free passes at a 13.3% rate. This year, he split his time between Double-A and Triple-A. He had a 2.91 ERA in 52 2/3 innings, increasing his strikeout rate to 38.8% while decreasing the walks to 10.3%. Those strong results will get him onto a major league roster for the first time and he should compete for a role in Atlanta’s bullpen next year.

Braves Claim Royber Salinas

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The Braves announced that they have claimed right-hander Royber Salinas off waivers from the Athletics. The A’s evidently tried to clear a roster spot by passing him through waivers but Atlanta swooped in to grab him.

Salinas, 24 in April, now returns to his original organization. An international signing of Atlanta out of Venezuela, he posted some intriguing results in the lower levels of the club’s system before getting flipped to the A’s as part of the December 2022 trade that sent catcher Sean Murphy to Atlanta.

At the time of that deal, Salinas had just wrapped up a 2022 season that he finished with 109 minor league innings between Single-A and High-A, allowing 3.55 earned runs per nine. His 37.6% strikeout rate was quite strong but he also gave out walks at a high rate of 13.5%.

In 2023, he threw 71 2/3 innings on the farm with a 5.40 ERA. His walk rate improved to 10.2% but his strikeout rate fell to 30.2%. There was surely a bit of bad luck in there, as his 59.7% strand rate was on the unfortunate side and his 4.19 FIP was far better than his ERA.

He was added to the 40-man roster a year ago to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He made ten starts this year between Double-A and Triple-A with a 4.60 ERA and 25.3% strikeout rate but a big walk rate of 17.2%.

His last start of the year was at the end of May. In July, Martín Gallegos of MLB.com relayed on X that Salinas had undergone season-ending shoulder surgery.

It’s unclear how long it will take the righty to get healthy in the wake of that procedure but Atlanta gets to reunite with a prospect they once signed and are plenty familiar with. Whenever he gets back on the mound, he’ll give the club some optionable rotation depth.

For the A’s, the Murphy trade continues to look like a big whiff for them. Of the five players they received in return, they have already parted ways with Salinas, Freddy Tarnok and Manny Piña. They still have Kyle Muller and Esteury Ruiz but neither inspires much confidence at the moment. Muller is out of options and has a 5.90 ERA while Ruiz is a threat on the bases but has subpar offense thus far.

Cavan Biggio Elects Free Agency

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Braves infielder/outfielder Cavan Biggio elected free agency this morning, per David O’Brien of The Athletic (X link). He’d been on Atlanta’s 40-man roster, so presumably Biggio cleared waivers before rejecting an outright assignment. He’ll now head to the open market in search of a new opportunity.

This was always the expected outcome for Biggio, whom Atlanta acquired in a September swap to help patch over an injury-plagued infield mix. He would’ve been arbitration-eligible with Atlanta and was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $4.3MM salary. The Braves were never going to put forth that type of commitment to someone acquired in a late-season cash swap after he’d previously been with three different organizations.

Biggio spent his entire career with the Blue Jays prior to this past June, when he was designated for assignment and traded to the Dodgers. He appeared in 30 games for the Dodgers but fared no better in L.A. than he did in Toronto prior to being cut loose. He was designated for assignment a second time and released in early August. The Giants quickly added him on a minor league contract and then shipped him to Atlanta for cash — a post-deadline deal that was permissible because Biggio was on a minor league deal (and not a major league contract that had been outrighted off the roster) in San Francisco.

Overall, Biggio’s 2024 season resulted in a dreary .197/.314/.303 batting line. He still walked at a strong clip, drawing a free pass in 10.7% of his trips to the plate, but Biggio’s typically patient approach has become almost passive in the box. Among the 365 hitters who drew at least 200 plate appearances this season, Biggio’s 55% swing rate on pitches in the strike zone (per Statcast) ranked as the game’s 12th-lowest. He took more called strikes than he has at any point in his career, and this season’s 32.1% strikeout rate was unsurprisingly a career-worst.

Biggio debuted to considerable fanfare in 2019 and, for his first two seasons, looked like a building block alongside fellow second-generation Jays signees Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. From 2019-20, Biggio turned in a .240/.368/.430 batting line with 24 homers and 20 steals through his first 159 big league games. He walked at a ridiculous 16.1% clip, which helped offset a higher-than-average 26.5% strikeout rate.

It’s been a downward trajectory since that impressive showing, however. Biggio did manage a roughly league-average batting line in 111 games in 2023, but his overall body of work since that strong two-year start to his career is decidedly lackluster. In 1159 plate appearances dating back to Opening Day 2021, Biggio is a .216/.325/.349 hitter. He’s played all over the diamond, with 500-plus innings at each of second base, first base, third base and right field. Biggio draws solid grades for his glovework at second and in right field but isn’t a plus defender at either spot.

Any player who’s designated for assignment and released multiple times over the course of a given season appears likely to land a minor league deal in free agency the following offseason. That’s true of Biggio as well. It’s possible a team will give him a guaranteed roster spot on an incentive-laden deal, but a non-guaranteed pact and an invitation to spring training in 2025 feels far likelier. Given his age (30 in April), pedigree, plate discipline and early success in the majors, he ought to have several clubs interested in such an arrangement.

Braves, Angels Swap Jorge Soler For Griffin Canning

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The Angels and Braves wasted little time hammering out the first significant trade of the offseason, as the teams announced Thursday that they’ve agreed on a swap sending designated hitter Jorge Soler to Anaheim in exchange for righty Griffin Canning. There’s reportedly no money changing hands in the deal. The Angels will take on the entirety of the remaining two years and $26MM on Soler’s contract. Atlanta, meanwhile, will be on the hook for Canning’s salary in his final season of arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects a $5.1MM salary for Canning, who’ll be a free agent next winter.

Soler stood as one of the most obvious trade candidates in all of baseball this offseason, given his defensive limitations and the presence of Marcell Ozuna in Atlanta. The Braves acquired him as something of a desperation move at the deadline, needing help for an injury-ravaged lineup. The plan always seemed to be stomaching Soler in the outfield for a couple of months and pursuing a trade in the offseason (hence Soler ranking prominently on our list of the top 35 trade candidates of the 2024-25 offseason).

The 32-year-old Soler (33 in February) will add a thunderous bat and defensively limited skill set to the Angels’ roster. He inked a three-year, $42MM deal with the Giants last winter on the heels of a 36-homer campaign in Miami and has now been traded twice in the first year of the contract. That isn’t for lack of production, however. To the contrary, Soler enjoyed a solid season at the plate, slashing .241/.338/.442 in 142 games. He was particularly productive from June onward, catching fire with a .263/.366/.489 batting line and clubbing 15 of his 21 homers in that span of 386 plate appearances.

Soler simply wasn’t a good long-term fit on Atlanta’s roster with Ozuna a lock to be retained on a $16MM club option. Both players offer huge power but bottom-of-the-scale defense in the outfield corners. The Braves, as a luxury tax payor, would’ve been on the hook for overage penalties in addition to the $13MM annually owed to Soler.

With the Angels, it’s a more straightforward match. He’ll slot in as the everyday designated hitter on a Halos club that used journeyman Willie Calhoun as its primary option at the DH position in 2024. Eighteen players saw time at DH for the Angels last year, and their collective output (.222/.299/.328) was the fifth-worst in the sport, by measure of wRC+ (80). Even if Soler doesn’t bounce all the way back to his standout 2023 production, his 2024 output represents a monumental upgrade over what the Angels received out of last year’s committee approach to the DH spot in their lineup.

Soler is now one of five Angels under a guaranteed contract for the 2025 season, joining Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Tyler Anderson and Robert Stephenson. Add in an arbitration class that could cost upwards of $31-32MM before any potential non-tenders (via Swartz’s previously referenced projections), and the Halos are looking at a projected payroll around $168MM (via RosterResource) with the entire offseason ahead of them. They’re presently about $58MM beneath the first luxury tax threshold.

For the Braves, the trade subtracts an onerous contract while adding another competitor to their rotation competition behind Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez, Spencer Schwellenbach (and, once healthy, Spencer Strider). Canning, a former second-round pick and top prospect, has shown promise with the Angels at times — 2020 and 2023, in particular — but has yet to solidify himself as a viable big leagues starter. He’s coming off a season that saw him soak up a career-high 171 2/3 innings but do so with a lackluster 5.19 earned run average. His 17.6% strikeout rate, 8.9% walk rate, 40.7% ground-ball rate and 1.63 HR/9 mark are all worse than the league average.

As recently as ’23, however, Canning logged 127 innings with a 4.32 ERA and much more promising strikeout and walk rates of 25.9% and 6.7%, respectively. A dip in both command and fastball velocity (94.7 mph in 2023, 93.4 mph in 2024) contributed to a downturn on the mound. That said, Canning entered the 2024 season with career-long strikeout and walk rates that were better than league average and a decent bit of post-hype prospect pedigree. He won’t be guaranteed a rotation spot in Atlanta, but if he’s tendered a contract — not a sure thing — he’d compete with AJ Smith-Shawver, Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder and Hurston Waldrep for a spot at the back of the starting staff.

Canning has more than five years of service time and thus cannot be optioned to the minors without his consent. That lack of options leaves open the possibility that the Braves could attempt to sign him to a one-year deal that checks in well shy of his projected arbitration salary and, if unsuccessful, decline to tender him a contract. That’d render the Soler trade a straight-up salary dump, but that’s still not an entirely bad outcome for the Braves. If Canning is indeed tendered a contract, he could also be used as a swingman or long reliever.

The Braves paid the luxury tax in both 2023 and 2024. They’re overwhelmingly likely to do so again in 2025, based on the state of their books. Paying Soler $13MM would’ve come with at least a 50% luxury tax — possibly more, depending on the extent of their remaining offseason spending. For a club with holes to fill in the rotation and quite likely at shortstop, that was an untenable setup. In effect, Atlanta is buying low on a rotation flier and creating greater financial flexibility to address other offseason needs. The Angels, meanwhile, move a potential fifth starter/non-tender candidate to provide a substantial upgrade to a lackluster offense. The Angels’ roster is still littered with holes, so this should be just the first of many additions if the team is intent on trying to compete next season. It’s a fine start as long as it’s merely the first domino in a broader sequence.

Mike Rodriguez first reported Soler was being traded to the Angels. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Canning was headed back to Atlanta. David O’Brien of The Athletic reported that no money was changing hands in the trade.

Joey Jay Passes Away

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Former All-Star pitcher Joey Jay passed away last month at age 89, according to an obituary from a Florida funeral home. A 6’4″ right-hander, he pitched 13 seasons in the big leagues.

A native of Middletown, Connecticut, Jay signed with the Milwaukee Braves for a $20K bonus in 1953. Under the so-called “bonus baby” rules of the time, a player who signed for more than $4K could not be assigned to the minor leagues. Jay therefore jumped right to the majors as a 17-year-old for the 1953 season. He remarkably tossed 10 scoreless innings in an abbreviated stint. He only made 15 appearances the following year, struggling to a 6.50 ERA across 18 innings in his age-18 season.

After two seasons in the majors, Milwaukee was able to assign Jay to the minors. He wouldn’t make a permanent return to the big leagues until 1958, his age-22 campaign. Jay pitched well in a swing role over the next three years. His career really took off when he was dealt to the Reds as part of a package for Gold Glove shortstop Roy McMillan during the 1960-61 offseason.

Cincinnati plugged Jay into the rotation. He seized on his first permanent rotation spot, working to a 3.53 ERA over 247 1/3 innings covering 34 starts. He led the National League with 21 wins and four shutouts among his 14 complete games. Jay was selected to both All-Star teams in 1961 — MLB had multiple All-Star games for a few years during that time — and finished fifth in NL MVP balloting. Three of the four players above him (Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Vada Pinson and Roberto Clemente) went onto Hall of Fame careers.

The Reds finished 93-61 that season to secure the NL pennant before the introduction of the Championship Series. Cincinnati met the Yankees in the World Series. Jay got the ball in Game 2 and tossed a two-run complete game to get the victory. That’d be the Reds’ only win of the set. Jay was hit hard in the Game 5 clincher, as the Yanks tagged him for four runs without allowing him to escape the first inning.

That season was the highlight of Jay’s career, but he had another productive season in 1962. He again won 21 games with a 3.76 ERA through a personal-high 273 innings. While his production tailed off from there, he remained a fixture of the Cincinnati rotation through ’65. The Reds dealt him back to the Braves, who were playing in Atlanta by that point, midway through 1966. He finished his career with nine appearances there before being released.

Jay ended his playing days with 3.77 ERA in more than 1500 innings. He fell one win shy of the century mark and was one strikeout away from reaching 1000. Jay’s obituary notes that he went on to run companies in West Virginia and Florida during his post-playing days. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, friends and loved ones.

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