The Atlanta Braves Have Been Planning Wednesday's Moves For a While

Trading for Mauricio Dubón and re-signing Raisel Iglesias are both pursuits that date back to the summer for Atlanta's front office

The Atlanta Braves executed a flurry of moves on Wednesday, trading for two-time Gold Glove utilityman Mauricio Dubón from the Houston Astros and re-signing veteran closer Raisel Iglesias to a one-year deal for the 2026 season.

Here’s what President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos told the media about the two moves last night.

Dubón can “play everywhere”

When you first see the underlying statcast cards for Dubón and Nick Allen, who was the return for Houston in the deal, there’s not a lot of separation between the two.

Anthopoulos clarified that the appeal of Dubón is his versatility. “ He’s a true Swiss army knife. He can play everywhere. He protects you at a lot of spots and he’s a good defender at almost every spot.”

The trade compensation going back to Houston being last season’s shortstop in Allen naturally caused many to assume that Dubón was being brought in to be the new everyday starter at shortstop, but that’s not something the team has decided yet.

“ I told him, I said, ‘I don’t know what your role’s gonna be yet’. Walt (Weiss, new Braves manager) talked to him as well, but the fact that we have the flexibility to do all kinds of things with him. He could play all over the infield, play all three outfield spots. So we’ll just see how the rest of the offseason goes.”

That’s not to say that the Braves are unwilling to play the 31-year-old at short. Anthopoulos clarified that the team would have no hesitation in doing that if they needed. “ We feel comfortable with him at shortstop. I asked him tonight, ‘how comfortable are you there?’ And our underlying data on him at shortstop is is good and strong.”

The publicly available data on Dubón’s defense, which usually lags a generation behind what MLB teams have access to, confirms that Anthopoulos wasn’t trying to sell a trade to us. Statcast has Dubón at +40 Fielding Run Value for his career, including a +8 Outs Above Average mark at shortstop in 2025, accumulated in just 206 innings. He had 99th percentile range in 2025 and a 87th percentile arm strength figure this last season, grading positively in all four defensive directions (towards third, towards first, in, and back).

But again, the Braves didn’t make this trade to anoint Dubón as the shortstop on November 19th. “His role will be determined on what else we do this winter, and even in spring. I told him the same thing, I said ‘I have no idea what the roster’s gonna look like come spring training. I have no idea what it’ll look like in spring training or coming out of spring training or during the season.’ But the fact that he has to ability to literally play every position…” Anthopoulos even alluded to the fact that he’s never played catcher but speculated that he could probably get it done if needed before elaborating on the flexibility that the addition of Dubón brought to the roster. “Walt’s gonna get him in there regardless of what we do just because he fits in all kinds of places.”

In addition to the defensive flexibility, Anthopoulos singled out Dubón’s ability to run the bases well and hit lefthanders (career .283 batting average versus LHP) as additional areas in which he could bring value to the club.

Iglesias chose to come back

Shortly before the Dubón news broke, Atlanta announced they had re-signed closer Raisel Iglesias to a one-year, $16M deal for what will be his fifth season with the franchise.

In a target-rich environment for closers this winter, the Braves offered Iglesias a deal because he was a known quantity. “We needed to address closer one way or the other, and who better than someone we know? We know he fits in the clubhouse, we know the health, we know the makeup, we know the ability. He’s such a great fit for us. And look, he wanted to be here.”

While Anthopoulos, as always, did not confirm any specifics, that last comment seemed to be a reference to a report from reporter Francys Romero that Iglesias had equivalent offers from the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays but turned them both down to come back to the Braves.

“I don’t want to speak for him,” Anthopoulos said, “but I think his goal and first choice was to be back in Atlanta. We’re glad we were able to get it done and he is just a great fit for us.”

Both deals have been in the works since this summer

Anthopoulos confirmed that while both deals made it across the finish line on the same day, they’ve been working on these since midseason.

For Iglesias, the Braves knew that they wanted to re-sign him for 2026 since July and were seemingly okay with the fact he didn’t move at the trade deadline. “We always had intentions to bring him back. We didn’t know when it would get done, how long it would take. I think staying with the same team makes it easier for that to happen; sometimes when you cut the cord and people move to other places, there’s hard feelings, things like that and all that kind of stuff.”

He explained that when they noticed the offers for Iglesias at the trade deadline were mostly to clear money off the books, it made the decision easy. “Those deals were more salary dump deals, just giving the guy away and saving salary. If the net return is just a non-prospect or a guy that we don’t think is going to impact us… and then also what we felt would’ve impacted our ability to sign him back.” Anthopoulos did confirm that a one-year deal was what they were discussing with Iglesias the entire time, not the rumored multi-deal deal that several expected him to receive.

With Dubón, the Braves began their pursuit of him over the summer. “We probably touched base with the Astros in various forms a little bit last summer. We checked in a little bit and then (again) early in the offseason and today it came together.” Anthopoulos explained that with all Dubón brings to the table, even outside the Gold Glove-caliber defense, it wasn’t easy for Houston to get to the point of being willing to deal him. “He’s got some speed, and he’s got contact skills. He’s a good teammate - you know, good energy in the clubhouse and all that stuff. […] The Astros weren’t in a position to move him, but we did spend time on him last summer, beginning of the offseason had some conversations, (but) there wasn’t anything there. And then finally today, it came together.”

Does this change the offseason for Atlanta?

Because of Dubón’s versatility, no.

“Just know(ing) you’re protected. The fact that you’re protected at premium positions, right? You’re protected in center, you’re protected at short, you’ve got all these other areas that he can play as well.”

“If we could still do something at shortstop, we’re very open there. If we could still do things at starter, we’re very open there. Bullpen, we’re still very, very open there. We’re going to need to do something for sure in the bullpen.”

The impression that I got from this conversation is that the Braves feel like they have flexibility now - they’re not boxed into doing something because they must do something, but rather can look for the right move. If nothing materializes, they have an option, but they’re not stopping right now with what they have. “At short, we’d like to do something. We do like Dubon. We think (Vidal) Brujan’s got some upside. I think Brett Wisely’s a solid player out of options. Those guys will come in and compete for jobs in camp, but we’re still in that (shortstop) market. We’re still very open to it.”

Other news and notes

Here’s some of the other news to come out of this media availability.

On the injuries to Reynaldo López and Grant Holmes

Good news, on both fronts.

López is expected back for spring training with no restrictions, with Anthopoulos pointing out he was throwing before the season ended.

On Holmes, AA is pleasantly surprised with how well he’s doing:

“ He’s thrown, been up/down, velocity’s great. I mean look, we’ll find out when he gets into competitive games in spring, but you know, (non-surgical rehab) could not have gone better. Right now, everything is pointing in a very optimistic way that he’s gonna get through this. Obviously, we’re a long ways off of spring training games, all that kind of stuff, but, we’re really, really encouraged.”

On a timetable for Joe Jiménez

Not as good news here.

 “Joe got a knee cleanup and we’re gonna know more as we get later in the winter here, so I don’t have anything yet. I was actually talking to our staff today and it’s just too early to tell in terms of a timeline, right? So we’re still pretty far from spring training, but I think by the time we get to end of December, another month from now (into) January, we’ll have a much better sense of, ‘okay, is he starting spring training on time? How is he doing, how’s he feeling?’ All that kind of stuff. So we’ll know more in about a month or two.”

On instituting a six-man rotation

Don’t hold your breath here. It’s something that Anthopoulos has wanted to do for the last five or so years, but MLB’s roster rules limiting you to thirteen pitchers and only five moves to the minor leagues per year make it practically impossible.

 “You’re gonna have to go (with a) seven man bullpen, and if you can pull it off where you’re gonna get six starters that give you at least five (innings), you know, six (innings) and so on. The problem with it is you get a two-inning start, a one-inning start, two and a third, and you’re playing 18 (games) in a row, 20 in a row, whatever it is. You’re cooked at that point, right?”

Instead of a true six-man rotation, Atlanta’s tried to recreate it in the aggregate.

“ I do think there’s real value to it, and you guys saw it in 2024 when we led all of MLB and ERA. We used the off days, we moved guys back. We really protected guys and it worked well for us.”

But for all of that success they had with it, there were consequences on both a depth perspective and a front office workload perspective. “ It was challenging because we were shuttling guys in and out and putting spot starters in. And from a ‘roster gymnastics’ standpoint, that’s what we call it, it was tough. You could only option guys five times a year. Once you option them, they’re down for two weeks.  You’d have to have enough” depth to not only call someone else, but it be a player of enough quality to not “feel like you’re throwing the game away.”

Ultimately, there may be stretches where the team can manipulate things to recreate a six-man rotation temporarily, but it’s not sustainable over the course of 162 games.  “I’d love to be able to do it, (but) I just don’t know how realistic it is to be able to do it for over the course of a season. […] The alternative is to try to put in spot starters and that’s been our best attempt to do it and still be able to maintain a roster.”

On the cash considerations trade for Ryan Rollison

 “He has options. The numbers at the big league level, obviously they weren’t good. I’m stating the obvious there. The numbers in the minor leagues, in a tough league in the Pacific Coast League, were pretty good. There’s swing and miss (and he’s a ) former top pick.”

The team plans to use him as depth, either for a long stretch without an off-day or as someone who can step in if a short start decimates the bullpen. “ Sometimes you have a doubleheader or you used your long guy and he’s down for three days and you need protection. If your starter goes shorter, he gets hit in the ankle in the first inning.”

But AA also referenced a fan favorite reliever in Dylan Lee to explain why he’s always willing to shell out the cash consideration amounts for DFA’d pitchers.

 “So having guys with options that have some upside and some stuff. You take a shot at those guys, especially in a cash considerations deal. So you can wait till they go on outright waivers and see if you get the claim, or you can jump the line and do a cash deal if a team’s willing to do that and ensure you get the player.”

“So we’re aggressive with that. You do a hundred of these, you get one Dylan Lee outta these deals, it’s a no-brainer, right? Dylan Lee was released out of minor league spring training from the Marlins at the end of camp. And obviously he’s been a really successful reliever for us and a great success story.”

“There’s plenty of examples across the board of guys that have jumped around and bounced around. You call it churn and so on. It’s worth it. Again, you could have so many of these and you hit on one guy, it pays for itself a lot of times over.”

We were about 650 words into a “how to fix Ryan Rollison” article when the Dubón news broke, so expect that bit of pitching nerdery in the coming days.