The Braves bullpen still isn't settled, but the needed changes are clear

Several key members of the Atlanta bullpen have gotten pretty lucky with their batted ball results so far in 2025

Heading into this season, the easy area of concern for this version of the roster was the bullpen.

With AJ Minter departing for the New York Mets and Joe Jiménez expected to miss most of the season after knee surgery, there was an obvious need in the backend for a high-leverage reliever.

While the Braves got down the path with several, including negotiating contract terms with Jeff Hoffman and a reported pursuit of Tanner Scott, no major signings were made.

Instead, the team went for a quantity over a quality approach, adding a ton of relievers on minor league deals, via trades, or on Rule 5 claims this winter. Most of them didn’t work out.

Here’s a list of just the ones that are no longer in the majors with Atlanta, along with where they went. *deep breath*

Wander Suero - in Gwinnett
Enoli Paredes - Rule 5; returned to Marlins
Amos Willingham - released; re-signed minor league deal and placed on IL
Angel Perdomo - traded to Angels, claimed off of waivers by Athletics and outrighted to AAA Las Vegas
Chasen Shreve- released by Gwinnett; currently a free agent
Jake Diekman - released in spring training; currently a free agent
Buck Farmer - released by Gwinnett; currently a free agent
Jordan Weems - in Gwinnett
Hector Néris - DFA’d and elected free agency; signed by Angels to a minor league deal and just blew a game for them over the weekend

And for the folks who did make the roster, we’ve seen a mix of performances so far. A lot of that comes down to…suboptimal usage patterns.

Let’s talk about it.

More additions in season

The Braves have had the most roster movement out of their bullpen, by far, of any position group on the roster. That’s not that unusual over the course of a full season, but the pace of Atlanta’s moves this early in the season have been surprising.

Outside of the core five relievers - Raisel Iglesias (closer), Daysbel Hernández, Dylan Lee, Aaron Bummer, and Pierce Johnson - the Braves have used ten additional relievers and have called a few more up but haven’t gotten them into games.

Enyel De Los Santos has by far the most usage out of the group of ten, getting into nineteen games and pitching twenty innings. He’s the only one from this list to stick on the roster the entire season to date, as well.

Outside of that, José Suarez (now starting in Gwinnett) has 7.1 innings in the majors, while Rafael Montero has twelve innings, followed by 11.1 from trade acquisition Scott Blewett and five innings or less from Zach Thompson, Jesse Chavez, Michael Peterson, since DFA-d Hector Néris, Nathan Wiles, and Davis Daniel (since returned to Gwinnett, where’s he’s resuming being a starter).

But whether it’s the holdover veterans or these new pieces, the team isn’t using them correctly.

Atlanta’s too rigid with its usage patterns

Part of being a successful major league hitter, especially in the ‘Stuff’ era, is detailed advanced work so you’re prepared for what a team will be throwing your way in any given game.

And the Braves aren’t always great at disguising what they are going to do.

The Braves essentially have four groupings of their relievers. As always, these aren’t 100% set in stone and unbreakable, but they’re pretty accurate for the usage of the staff.

Lock down a win: Daysbel Hernandez for the 8th, Raisel Iglesias as the closer
’A’ squad setup: Dylan Lee and Pierce Johnson, who doubles as the tertiary closer
’B’ squad setup: Aaron Bummer, Enyel De Los Santos, and Rafael Montero (if needed)
Long/extra innings: Scott Blewett plus whoever else is temporarily here from Triple-A

And while there’s a bit of “yeah that makes sense” that comes with the concept of “use your best relievers to close down a game”, we saw over the last week what happens when a team is too rigid on what everyone’s role is.

On Wednesday versus the Nationals, Atlanta blew a 4-1 lead after the pairing of Aaron Bummer and Enyel De Lo Santos allowed four runs (two earned) over the 7th and 8th innings, dropping the game 5-4.

Pierce Johnson and Dylan Lee had both pitched the day before, but Atlanta could have used Daysbel Hernández (who pitched Saturday and Monday) or Johnson on a back-to-back, but that wasn’t the proscribed platoon on the pitching plan.

We saw this play out again on Saturday versus the Red Sox, when Atlata once again went to the Bummer-De Los Santos-Montero grouping after Grant Holmes left the game. They collectively allowed four runs, allowing Boston to tie the game and forcing Pierce Johnson (who was being held for the 9th) to enter early and clear the jam. He gave up a walkoff homer to leadoff the 9th.

Manager Brian Snitker said after the game that they were trying to “stay away” from several guys that were unavailable in Iglesias, Hernández, and Lee, forcing them to work with the 2nd tier of back-end relievers.

The issue in that 2nd tier group stems mostly from the duo of Aaron Bummer and Rafael Montero, for wildly different reasons. Let’s look at it.

As always, the defense is letting Bummer down

Aaron Bummer’s a perpetual underperformer based on his inputs, since he’s so reliant on the defense to make his extreme groundball profile work to maximum effectiveness.

This season’s no different. His actual ERA sits at 4.00, while his FIP is 2.21 and his xERA is 2.29. The 1.71 difference between his actual and expected ERAs is the highest mark on the entire team and one of the worst marks in baseball for a qualified reliever that doesn’t have an ERA over 9.00.

(Believe it or not, there are seventeen relievers that have qualified based on usage and have allowed more than one run per inning pitched, last I looked, with Arizona’s Joe Mantiply carrying the torch at a 15.96.)

A majority of Bummer’s underperformance is on extra-base hits - his xSLG is .293 but the actual is .391. As always, he’s one of the league leaders in not allowing barrels (2.0%, 98th percentile) and inducing groundballs (58.8%, 94th percentile) but of his eighteen hits allowed on the year, eight are extra-base hits due to either defensive lapses or bad luck. Anthony Santander doubled and Corbin Carroll tripled on balls in the right field corner, while Manny Machado and Tyler Heineman both shot grounders past Austin Riley at third and all the way to the corner, ending up on second with doubles.

In a similar vein, Scott Blewett’s also been pretty good at preventing barrels (3.8%, 92rd percentile) and inducing ground balls (56.6%, 91th percentile) but is also suffering from poor underperformance. His actual ERA is 2.66 but his expected is just 2.22, although he does allow harder contact than Bummer so the difference isn’t as pronounced.

If only the Braves would allow him to pitch in situations closer than either a six-run lead or extra innings after they’ve used everyone else.

Rafael Montero has just been bad

While Bummer’s been unlucky and Blewett’s been underused, Montero just flat out hasn’t been good. With the Braves, his actual stats across twelve innings and fourteen appearances are a 5.25 ERA and eleven walks to thirteen strikeouts. (He’s allowed no homers, thankfully.)

While his expected ERA (3.89) and FIP (3.68) paint the picture of a guy that has been let down by his defense, he’s also refused to help himself. His walk rate of 17.8% is the 1st percentile in all of baseball. He is getting a lot of swings and misses, a 96th percentile mark of 36.6%, but it’s not translating to punchouts with just a 24.7% strikeout rate.

Digging into the numbers, what’s propping up his entire profile is an unusually high rate of first pitch strikes. He’s throwing 63.9% of his first pitches in the zone, but still getting great results on those pitches - none of the thirteen hits he’s given up this year have come on the first pitch. He’s going heavy on the four-seam fastball early, too, throwing it over 62% of the time for the first pitch. While the heater hasn’t been bad for him this year, with just a .217 average and .304 slug overall, it’s a wonder that more hitters aren’t ambushing the first pitch and looking to do damage.

With the fastball due for some regression - the expected stats are a .275 average and .556 slug - it’s a sign that he’s due to see a decline, especially if opposing hitters start reading Braves Today and decide to sit on a first pitch heater.

Daysbel’s been great, but is a bit lucky

Speaking of being lucky…

Daysbel Hernandez’s ascension to 8th inning duties was a long time coming for the Braves, but he’s looked so comfortable in the role because he’s also gotten a bit of good luck on his batted balls. The difference between his actual ERA (1.80) and his expected (3.11) is over a full run, fueled by some hard-hit balls that have been caught for outs. His actual slug is just .200, over 100 points better than the expected mark of .305, which still isn’t bad.

(For context on how bad a .200 slug is, this weekend’s analyst on the broadcast, Tom Glavine, had a career .210 slug across his 22-year career. And because they competed at everything, Greg Maddux had a .205 and John Smoltz had a .207)

I’m confident that Daysbel can manage this, however, because of his raw stuff. While both he and Montero throw a lot of balls and run higher walk rates, Daysbel’s still a few percent better than Montero and with better fastball quality behind it to both get back in counts and get strikeouts of the subsequent batters.

What needs to happen here?

Similar to the Braves jettisoning Eddie Rosario, the Braves need to do the same with Rafael Montero if for no other reason than to save Brian Snitker from himself.

Going into the 8th inning on Saturday, the real correct call would have been either to throw one of the “we’re trying to avoid this guy” options in Dylan Lee to lock down a win or to use Scott Blewett instead of Montero.

I talk a lot about not judging decisions based on the results, but rather the info you have at the time you made it. But looking at the two pitchers, the decision is clear to me: Blewett’s legitimately been good this season, while Montero’s constantly gotten himself into some jams and used some batted ball luck to escape with only moderate damage.

Let’s not overthink this - Craig Kimbrel has handled back-to-backs in Gwinnett and has been able to maintain his 95 mph fastball velocity in the 2nd outing. If you need someone new on the ‘B’ team for back-end relief, you can do a lot worse than Killa Craig.

While I’m hesitant to trust Kimbrel with the ninth inning just yet, it’s clear that Rafael Montero can’t be trusted at all.