The Atlanta Braves have signed RHP Chris Martin to a two-year major league contract.
The Atlanta Braves have selected the contracts of OF Cristian Pache, C William Contreras, RHP Jasseel De La Cruz, and LHPs Tucker Davidson and Phil Pfeifer.
The Braves continue to be by far the most active team early in free agency, signing righty Chris Martin back to the team with a 2 year, $14 million contract. The deal will net Martin $7 million each season.
Just as in the Will Smith signing from last week, news of this major free agent signing broke by the Braves simply announcing the signing. Once again, the Braves front office is showing to be one of the tightest ships in the industry.
Atlanta also got a head start on the November 20 deadline to add minor leaguers to the 40-man roster or risk losing them in the Rule 5 draft in December. Cristian Pache and William Contreras are Top 10 consensus prospects, while Jasseel De La Cruz and Tucker Davidson are either at the end of the Top 10 or just outside of it. Listeners of this week’s OFR Farm Report Podcast would not be surprised at Phil Pfeifer’s addition either.
The Players
Chris Martin, RP
Age: 33 | Throws: R
2019: 3.40 ERA | 3.25 FIP | 58 G, 0 GS | 55.2 IP | 0.81 BB/9 | 10.51 K/9 | 1.0 fWAR
Career: 4.51 ERA | 3.46 FIP | 144 G, 0 GS | 133.2 IP | 2.06 BB/9 | 9.02 K/9 | 1.9 fWAR
The Braves got a two-month preview of Chris Martin after acquiring him at the deadline in exchange for former 1st-round pick Kolby Allard. Martin pitched to a 4.08 ERA in 20 appearances for Atlanta and made the postseason roster. Martin sustained an oblique injury while warming up on the mound in Game 1 of the NLDS and was replaced by Julio Teheran; several team officials pointed this disruption of the bullpen plans as one of the reasons for the Braves’ early departure from the playoff bracket.
A native of Arlington, Texas, Martin was drafted in 2005 by the Colorado Rockies out of a Texas JUCO. Martin, dissatisfied with the bonus offer, elected to return to college and suffered what he thought at the time was a career-ending torn labrum. At that point the idea that he would one day sign a $14 million major league free agent contract would have seemed ludicrous; his long and winding road back to the game and to the major leagues was chronicled by Tim Tucker for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is worth the read.
Like so many recent Braves pitching acquisitions, Martin is an extreme ground ball pitcher, getting batters to kill worms at a 48.8% clip in his career and 52.2% in his brief time with Atlanta to date. His 31.9% strikeout rate in 2019 was also a career high, and he is extremely stingy with walks, only handing out 5 free passes all year. Pitching to contact and being around the plate so much does have a drawback however, and when Martin makes a mistake he is prone to giving up the long ball, and he has averaged 1.13 home runs per nine innings in his career.
Martin has an a five-pitch mix, an unusually high number of options for a reliever. His primary pitch is a four-seam fastball that sits in the mid-90s that is relatively straight that he can spot pretty much anywhere he wants at will.
His 2-seam sinking fastball comes in generally 5 mph slower than the 4-seamer. One of Martin’s best attributes is his ability to get left-handers out, and for that he uses a cutter with a strong horizontal break to generate swing-and-miss. Used less often but are effective when employed are a fading change-up and a sweeping slider that has has better than average depth.
Christian Pache, OF
Age: 21 | Bats: R
2019: .277/.340/.462 | 12 HR | 8 SB | 8.0 BB% | 22.7 K% | 126 wRC+ (AA/AAA)
Pache is widely considered the top prospect in the Braves system, and the team gave him a 21st birthday present on Tuesday with the announcement that he’s been added to the 40-man roster. Pache has been steadily progressing at the plate and 2019 was his best season to date, but from Day 1 Pache has been one of the most gifted defensive outfielders in the minor leagues. Now part of the 40-man roster, Pache would seem to be in a good position to make his major league debut at some point in 2020.
William Contreras, C
Age: 22 | Bats: R
2019: .255/.315/.354 | 6 HR | 0 SB | 55.2 IP | 7.0 BB% | 20.7 K% | 98 wRC+ (A+/AA)
One of the top catching prospects in the minors, Contreras had a sub-par season at the plate, but his focus was refining his defensive game. Possessing all of the physical tools to be a strong factor both behind and at the plate, Contreras still has work in bringing it all together, but he would be an easy selection for a rebuilding club if left unprotected.
Jasseel De La Cruz, SP
Age: 22 | Throws: R
2019: 3.25 ERA | 3.55 FIP | 25 G, 24 GS | 133 IP | 3.32 BB/9 | 8.19 K/9 (A/A+/AA)
Long considered one of the most intriguing arms in the Braves system, De La Cruz stayed healthy all season and rocketed up the organizational ladder in 2019. De La Cruz dominated the A and A+ levels (including throwing the first complete game no-hitter in Florida Fire Frogs history) before settling in at AA Mississippi for the final four months of the season.
Tucker Davidson, SP
Age: 23 | Throws: R
2019: 2.15 ERA | 3.17 FIP | 25 G, 25 GS | 129.2 IP | 3.75 BB/9 | 9.30 K/9 (AA/AAA)
A 19th-round pick in 2016, Davidson’s stuff turned heads in Rome the following season and he was moved to a rotation role. Last season was the best of his career to date, earning a Southern League ERA title for AA Mississippi and getting a late-season promotion to AAA. Davidson could be a rotation or bullpen candidate for Atlanta as soon as Opening Day 2020.
Phil Pfeifer, SP/RP
Age: 27 | Throws: L
2019: 2.97 ERA | 2.93 FIP | 30 G, 18 GS | 113.1 IP | 2.84 BB/9 | 10.73 K/9 (A+/AA/AAA)
Acquired in the Bud Norris trade from 2016, Pfeifer has bounced between AA and AAA for Atlanta for years showing good stuff but increasingly erratic control. At the start of 2019, Pfeifer found himself back in the AA Mississippi bullpen, again putting up uneven performances. When he was sent back to high-A Florida and inserted into the Fire Frogs rotation, it seemed like an act of desperation. It may have been, but the move revitalized Pfeifer’s career, as detailed in Pfeifer’s recent OFR Top 50 Braves Prospects write-up, where he shows at #37.
As my co-host Matt Chrietzberg and I speculated on this week’s OFR Farm Report Podcast, Pfeifer would likely have been a Rule 5 target for several teams.
The Big Picture
In last week’s analysis of the Will Smith signing I speculated that for budgetary reasons the Braves could be seeking to trade Mark Melancon and/or Shane Greene to keep the mitigate the outlay of payroll to the bullpen. Instead, the Braves have doubled-down on the bullpen, adding $7 million to the 2020 payroll.
This leads me to two conclusions for now, lacking other data:
- The Braves payroll has been bumped, and perhaps significantly.
- The Braves are serious about moving at least some of their young pitchers, whom they no longer have to rely on to fill bullpen spots either on Opening Day or as depth.
As for the five players protected by the Braves, I believe those are the four that certainly would have been taken by other teams in the Rule 5 draft. For the players left off and are now available, the two seem most likely to be taken are left-handed relievers Corbin Clouse and Thomas Burrows (rated at #33 and #40 on the most recent Top 50 Prospects list). Clouse recently had an unspecified surgery, which may actually increase his chances of being selected, since he could be stashed on a team’s 60-day injured list with minimal roster disruption, a tactic that the Braves used during the rebuild with Dan Winkler.
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