Why the Braves protected Rolddy Munoz from the Rule 5 Draft

The Atlanta Braves just don't have a lot of runway to add back-end starters or possible utility guys to their major league roster, but Muñoz is special

Today was the deadline to protect your eligible prospects from the upcoming Rule 5 draft by adding them to your 40-man roster, and the Braves made only one add: reliever Rolddy Muñoz, a 24-year-old international free agent that they acquired a few seasons ago in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft.

(Atlanta added Domingo Gonzalez last week, but that was to prevent him from hitting minor league free agency.)

What’s so special about Muñoz, and why did no one else get added to the roster when there were open spots?

Photo credit: Mississippi Braves

What makes Rolddy Muñoz so special?

GAS.

Muñoz is what my prospect-focused friends and I like to call a “velo daddy” - he sports an upper-90s fastball that can run into the triple digits, sitting around 98 and has been clocked as high as 101.

It’s exceptionally hard to teach that, obviously. I would be comfortable saying that he’s the hardest-throwing reliever in the organization, sitting just ahead of Daysbel Hernández.¹

Muñoz’s fastball is not a finished product, however - he’s prone to some dead zone shape owing to poor movement and his control is rough: A career 4.3 BB/9 doesn’t encapsulate how much he can struggle at times to find the zone. He walked 21 in 207 relief plate appearances last season, which comes out to just 10.14%², but it’s still something to overcome.

He reminds me of Hernández in that regard - Daysbel has a career 4.8 BB/9 in the minors and has 13 walks in just 21.2 MLB innings.

Muñoz adds in a hard slider, sitting in the upper-80s, that Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs called one of the better ones in the minors last summer. The lack of a consistent third pitch leaves him a bit vulnerable to lefties (a .253 BA and .468 Slug allowed in 2024, as compared to a .191 BA and .218 Slug to righties), but there’s a lot to like here. With some work on the control to keep that walk rate from ticking up as he heads to Gwinnett for the first time, Muñoz could be knocking on the door of an MLB call-up in the second half of the 2025 season.

Notables among who WASN’T protected

There’s a laundry list of folks who could have been protected and weren’t, so I’ve grabbed a few notable names here and there in different categories to look at why they’re available.

If you want this in audio form, I covered this as the second half of Tuesday’s Braves Today podcast.

PITCHING

The most prominent pitcher to not be protected was Luis De Avila, the lefthander that is on some public Braves prospects lists in the twenties (Baseball America has him at #20, while MLB Pipeline has him at #30 as of publication.)

The simple answer here: He won’t start in Atlanta.

The details: De Avila’s a sinker/changeup guy who lives off of weak contact. He forced a groundball rate over 50% in 2023 that was not only tops in the system, but 21st-best for all minor leaguers with at least 100 innings thrown.

And then he repeated AA in 2024, with worse results.

De Avila’s ERA ticked up almost a full half run from 3.26 to 3.74³ and while his groundball rate went up 4.2%, his strikeout rate plummeted from 24% to 18%.

The sinker’s just not that consistent - it sits 90 to 91 and touches 93 at times, but it’s not really missing bats. His changeup is too firm, sitting in the high 80s, and so it mostly induces weak contact versus actually missing bats. He has a breaking ball, but it changes shape between a slider and a curveball enough that I’m honestly not sure what exactly it is.

Look, here’s the deal here: He has value to Major League Baseball teams if he makes it there. But Atlanta’s (rightfully) shooting higher, looking for swing and miss and better stuff than what De Avila has. You saw that in the 2024 promotions between levels; even with guys like Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver missing time with injuries, De Avila never got a chance to move up to Gwinnett and get in that rotation.

That’s not a guy you protect from the Rule 5 draft, and it’s not a guy you lament if he gets taken. There’s potentially MLB value to be had, but it’s marginal, with him maybe being able to stick as a long man out of a pen or a spot starter at best.

CATCHER

The two big names here are Tyler Tolve and Adam Zebrowski. College draftees in 2021, they’ve flashed some power but are both too inconsistent offensively nor not excellent enough defensively to project as major leaguers at this point. While there’s potential there with both of them still, it’s not enough to protect them with a 40-man spot.

INFIELD

It’s a debate between Cal Conley and Luke Waddell for me here. While Waddell’s spent his most recent time in Gwinnett and Conley’s been in Mississippi, I think Conley has the higher ceiling. Neither’s really hit all that much, but Conley’s defense has improved to the point where he feels like he could be close to average at the MLB level at shortstop if called upon. Waddell still feels like a utility glove at best, sticking at the back of a roster with the chops for second and being able to stretch to short and third if needed.

OUTFIELD

The two big names here are Cody Milligan and Jesse Franklin. Milligan’s similar in my eyes to Eli White, as he’s a good outfield defender that can flex in to second base if needed. There’s some speed to be mined there, as well, with 61 stolen bases across the last two AA campaigns.

Franklin’s still an unknown, which is wild to say about a guy drafted in 2020, but injuries have played a big part of that. He got only 15 games in 2022 before going down for Tommy John surgery, and then missed all of 2024 with a shoulder issue.⁴

While the injuries have sapped his arm strength, leaving him stretched in right and probably only playable in left, there’s still plenty of power potential here to wonder about. He does have collegiate experience at first, as well, so maybe a future as a LF/1B depth outfielder is possible. But with the lack of playing time both in his career (only 210 minor league games) and last season in particular, it’s extremely unlikely that any team will take him in December and stick him on the MLB roster.

1. The hardest throwing starter, given the questions about Spencer Strider’s return, is probably AJ Smith-Shawver right now.

2. MLB average for all pitching was 8.2% last season, while relievers were at 8.9%.

3. And that’s with his FIP going down, from 4.05 to 3.46.

4. He also missed the entire 2020 season at Michigan after breaking his collarbone.