Weekly news roundup: Braves add three players as pitchers and catchers report
The Atlanta Braves grabbed some interesting-ish players on minor league deals as pitchers and catchers were reporting to North Port
The boys are back.
Pitchers and catchers have officially reported to North Port for the start of Braves spring training. Almost the entire roster’s already there, actually - most of the position players came to town early and have been working in the cages and agility fields for the last few days.
The front office was busy, too - Atlanta’s added three MLB veterans on minor league deals since Tuesday. Let’s break down those three adds and whatever else you might have missed in this week’s news roundup.
Atlanta adds two more relief options
The Braves inked lefty Jake Diekman and righty Dylan Covey to minor league deals this week. Both are former major leaguers with some sort of egregious flaw that kept them from getting a guaranteed deal this winter.
For Diekman, it’s his walk rate. Giving out free passes at a 16.6% rate last year, it was somehow the worst walk rate of a career filled with double-digit walk rates.
The flip side to this is Diekman’s been a reliable reliever despite the walks somewhat recently - in 2023 with the Tampa Bay Rays, Diekman went 0-1 with a 2.18 ERA across 50 games and 45.1 innings, striking out 53 (but walking 25 in the process).
It’s an extreme East-West profile of a four-seamer, sweeper, and changeup, one that could generate a lot of ground balls when it’s on. With 19 career saves (including four last season with the New York Mets), he can be an experienced low and medium-leverage add as long as he can keep the walk rate somewhat under control.
Dylan Covey’s flaw is health. After a solid 2023 with Philly where he put up a 3.69 ERA across 39 innings, a shoulder strain suffered prior to Opening Day kept him on the injured list until late August, when he was outrighted to the minors upon being activated. While his minor league time was moderately successful - a 1.20 ERA in fifteen innings for AAA Lehigh Valley - he elected free agency at the end of the season and briefly signed with New York before being released last week.
Covey feels like the type of player that Atlanta might stash in the minors and try to convert back to a starter - 46 of his 100 career games have been starts and he features a six-pitch mix, although he mostly sticks to the core sinker/cutter/slider arsenal outside of certain handedness situations.1
If I were a betting man, Diekman’s the underdog, along with Chasen Shreve, for Angel Perdomo’s role as the third lefty in the pen. Covey feels destined for Gwinnett and an eventual call-up as a swingman.
(We broke down these final bullpen spots at length on Thursday’s podcast)
Any chance Jake Marisnick makes the Opening Day roster?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Marisnick, who signed a minor league deal with the team on Thursday, is a glove-first option on a team that has the excellent Michael Harris II in centerfield and Eli White as a glove-first outfielder on the 40-man option who happens to be out of options. The odds are he’s part of the team’s first cuts in spring.
He’s played for nine different teams in the majors and another three organizations in the minors2 but has never seemed to do enough with the bat to be more than a 3rd or 4th outfielder at best. In Salt Lake last season (AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels), he hit .283 with 12 homers across 54 games…which seems impressive until you realize it’s the extremely offensive-slanted Pacific Coast League and there were entire teams with higher batting averages.3
He’ll join Conner Capel and Carlos Rodriguez in Gwinnett once the minor league season starts as a depth outfielder, likely plan E or F were injuries to decimate the major league roster again.
A few number changes
Two notable changes.
Ian Anderson is going from number 36, which he wore starting in 2021, to his rookie season number of 48. Haven’t seen any quotes from him explicitly addressing why he did it, but it could be to harness his old self. Talking to reporters in North Port on Thursday, he mentioned having a healthy offseason for the first time in three years and trying to “get that self-confidence back of trusting what I’m doing” after the torn UCL took two major league seasons away from him.
Of note, his regular season stats with the two numbers are significantly different.4
#48: 6 GS, 3-2, 1.95 ERA with 41 strikeouts in 32.1 innings
#36: 46 GS, 19-11, 4.24 ERA with 221 strikeouts in 240 innings
Of course, the real discussion point with Ian Anderson is the playoff record. In eight career playoff starts, all in 2020 and 2021, he’s 4-0 with a 1.26 ERA and 40 strikeouts (to seventeen walks) in 35.2 innings.5
The other notable number change is prospect Hurston Waldrep, who went from #30 to #64. Why is that significant?
Because *tinfoil hat* if the Braves were planning on adding David Robertson to their bullpen this weekend, freeing up his preferred number just a day or two before could be a pretty easy way to grease those wheels on the signing just a bit.6
This week’s content
Another busy week of content for us. Here’s a rundown of what we discussed either in this newsletter or on the podcast.
(The Braves Today show can be found on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts)
Monday: Projections for the top of Atlanta’s rotation (podcast), a 2027 roster projection (newsletter)
Tuesday: Back of rotation projections (podcast), “State of the Braves rotation” update (newsletter)
Wednesday: Back end of the bullpen projections (podcast)
Thursday: Final three bullpen spots (podcast)
Friday: Justin Toscano joins from North Port (podcast), weekly news roundup (newsletter)
Enjoy your weekend, folks. Go watch some college baseball, yeah?
In 2023, 83% of his sweepers were thrown to righties and all of his changeups were thrown to lefties
Including a seventeen-game stint with the Stripers in 2022 where he hit .235
The Reno Aces as a team hit .287 with a .839 OPS in 2024
Yes, I know this isn’t actually how this works but I went to the trouble of pulling it so…
Of course I have this too: He had a 0.96 ERA in four 2020 playoff starts with #48 and a 1.59 ERA in four 2021 playoff starts with #36.
I did not pull Robertson’s career stats for each jersey number, but I really should have if I was willing to make the joke.