The Braves this week made a move to add to their starting pitching depth, added a top prospect to the 40-man roster to protect him from next month’s Rule 5 draft, added some infield depth, picked up a minor league pitcher, and lost a top member of their front office.
Drew Smyly Signs Biggest Free Agent Deal of Off-season (So Far)
The Braves addressed one of their top-four offseason priorities on Monday, signing former Giant, Philly, Ranger, Ray, and Tiger Drew Smyly to a one-year, $11 million deal.
Smyly has a career 4.13 ERA in 9 major league seasons, including the 2017-18 seasons that he missed while recovering from TJS. In 26 innings for San Francisco last season he pitched to a 3.42 ERA and posted the highest strikeout rates of his career, albeit in small sample. A mechanical tweak gave his four-seam fastball an extra 2 mph on average over the prior year and gave his curveball a sharper break.
Smyly’s signing continues trends often seen with Braves in free agency:
- They don’t mind paying a little extra on one-year deals.
- They put a lot of faith in the most recent statistical trends on a player.
- They like to pounce early in free agency to get clarity before the Winter Meetings in December.
The Braves have made hay with signing veterans to one-year deals in recent years, with Anibal Sanchez, Josh Tomlin, Josh Donaldson, and Marcell Ozuna as notable successes. Last season’s signing of Cole Hamels was the notable failure, thanks to injuries that kept Hamels to only throwing 3 innings for Atlanta.
Kyle Muller Muscles His Way to 40-Man Roster
The Braves made a big addition to their 40-man roster when they selected the contract of left-hander Kyle Muller on Thursday. Literally, Muller is a big man, 6′-7″ and 250 pounds. Currently the #13 OFR Prospect (spoiler alert: he will be higher on the next iteration of the list, coming later this winter), Muller has reportedly hit 100 mph in workouts this summer at the alternate training site while also taking steps forward with his secondary pitches and command.
The move protects Muller from being selected in the Rule 5 draft on December 10 (make sure you ask for time off work in advance).
Barring another starting pitching acquisition, Muller will go into spring training battling with the likes of Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint, Tucker Davidson, and Jasseel De La Cruz for the fifth starter spot behind Max Fried, Mike Soroka, Ian Anderson, and Drew Smyly.
Mayfield May Play Infield
Atlanta picked up infielder Jack Mayfield on Friday off waivers from the Houston Astros, a move that adds some infield depth and versatility.
Mayfield can capably play all three infield skill positions. Offensively, he has shown some power at the AAA level, hitting .287/.350/.566 with 26 home runs for AAA Round Rock of the Pacific Coast League in 2019. Mayfield hasn’t had nearly that kind of success at the major league level however, slashing only .170/.198/.283 with 2 home runs in only 112 plate appearances with Houston. The 30-year-old will go into camp trying to play his way onto the Atlanta bench. Mayfield has options remaining, so can be sent down to AAA Gwinnett if necessary.
Movin’ On Up: Perry Minasian
Now former Braves Assistant General Manager Perry Minasian is in Los Angeles as the Angels’ new general manager. A true baseball lifer, even at just the age of 40, Minasian started in the game as a batboy, then went into scouting, and then the front office.
Minasian’s work in Toronto brought him under the aegis of Alex Anthopoulos, and the two developed an easy rapport. After Anthopoulos left the Blue Jays, Minasian took a job with Atlanta in September 2017, not knowing that the organization was about to get rocked by a scandal that would ultimately cause GM John Coppolella to be banned from baseball and President of Baseball Operations John Hart to retire in disgrace. Fortunately for him, the Braves would hire his old boss, Anthopoulos, and the two would continue their fruitful professional relationship.
Minasian has been a part of nearly every front office decision over the last three seasons, and Outfield Fly Rule wishes him all the best with his new team and responsibilities.
Braves Pick Up Former Padres Prospect
The Braves made a minor league free agent transaction this week, picking up former Padres farmhand Emmanuel Ramirez. An amateur international free agent signing by San Diego, Ramirez has been in the Padres system since 2013, making his way up to AAA in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Ramirez has a lifetime 4.46 ERA in affiliated ball in 587 innings, working fairly evenly as a starter and a reliever.
Ramirez is likely to work as a swingman for the AAA Gwinnett Stripers in 2021, a vital role on a AAA team when the day’s scheduled starter could be called up at short notice. Ramirez works a fairly typical low-90s fastball and an above average curveball that is his bread-and-butter pitch.
Six Minor Leaguers Released
With Major League Baseball moving to eliminate the advanced-rookie minor league level from the affiliated baseball organizational ladder, the level that included the Braves’ former Appalachian League team in Danville, teams will be releasing a score of ballplayers that would have filled out rosters. For Atlanta this week, that included the following:
RHP Walner Polanco
RHP Albinson Volquez
RHP Deyvis Julian
LHP Filyer Sanchez
C Enmanuel Guitian
SS Juan Morales
Perhaps the most notable of this group is Morales, who commanded a $450,000 signing bonus in the 2015 amateur signing period, the third highest bonus paid out by the Braves behind Derian Cruz‘s $2 million and top prospect Cristian Pache‘s $1.4 million. It was this class that an investigation by MLB determined had gone over Atlanta’s international bonus pool limit thanks to under-the-table “bundling” of prospects. This retroactively limited the Braves 2016 bonus pool, and caused MLB to emancipate 13 players that had signed with Atlanta as well as place harsh penalties on the Braves future international signings, sanctions that are still in place.
Injuries prompted Cruz to retire from baseball in 2019 at the age of 20.
Former Braves Farmhands Find New Homes
Two long-time OFR favorites, former Braves prospects Ray-Patrick Didder and Izzy Wilson, were signed to minor league contracts by the aforementioned Perry Minasian’s Los Angeles Angels.
Didder was a key member of the 2016 SAL champion Rome Braves squad. Didder has positional flexibility, able to play a strong outfield and a capable infield, but has yet to demonstrate an ability to hit consistently in the upper minors. Didder played this summer in the Italian League, hitting .413/.516/.600 for Unipol Bologna.
Wilson is an athletic outfielder, signed by the Braves out of Saint Martin. Wilson was released by the Braves mid-season 2019 due to an outfield crunch and poor performance at high-A Florida. Wilson was quickly signed by the Tampa Bay organization, and he finished the 2019 season with the high-A Charlotte Stone Crabs, hitting .270/.378/.429 in 20 games. Wilson is still only 22 years old, and the Angels will try to unlock better pitch recognition.
Pete Kozma, who spent the summer of 2020 at the alternate training site in Gwinnett after recovering from COVID-19, signed a minor league deal with the Oakland A’s and will be expected to provide depth at AAA, essentially the role the Braves anticipated from him last season. Kozma is a 7-year major league veteran, most famous (or perhaps infamous) for being the infielder who did not field a ball hit by Andrelton Simmons into left field in the pivotal 8th inning of the 2013 wild-card play-in game between Atlanta and the St. Louis Cardinals, as immortalized in the name and banner of this very website.
Three former Braves secured minor league deals with the New York Mets. Former Braves closer Arodys Vizcaino, who is attempting a comeback from surgery to repair a torn labrum in 2019, and speedy outfielder Mallex Smith will be in Mets camp in 2021. They will be joined by former Braves top prospect infielder Jose Peraza. Peraza has played in six major league seasons, most recently with the Boston Red Sox in 2020, since being traded by Atlanta to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the ill-fated Hector Olivera trade.
Outfielder Rafael Ortega, who hit a memorable grand slam in 2019 off Dodgers rookie Dustin May, signed a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs.
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