The Atlanta Braves Keep Exacerbating Their 40-Man Roster Problem

The Atlanta Braves are grabbing waived players to audition them for the 2026 roster, but it's making a mess of an already congested 2025 roster

The Atlanta Braves claimed infielder Brett Wisely off of waivers from the San Francisco Giants on Thursday afternoon, optioning him to Triple-A Gwinnett.

It’s about time the Atlanta Braves got more magnificent beards in the organization © Eakin Howard-Imagn Images

On the whole, it is not that impactful of a move - Wisely, 26, has hit .217/.263/.324 in his three-year MLB career, playing mostly second base, shortstop, and center field. Barring an unexpected leap in the potency of his bat, his highest and best use is likely as a utilityman at the back of your major league roster, capable of stepping in for an injured player to finish a game off for you.¹

But Wisely’s addition as a waiver claim represents a trend for the Braves - it’s the second such waiver claim in the last two days and the fourth of the month. What are they trying to do here, and how much more complicated has this made the upcoming offseason? Let’s talk about it.

The offseason’s already started for the front office

Echoing comments that President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos made at the trade deadline, the Braves front office is looking forward to 2026. As AA told us at the time, “I viewed it (the trade deadline) as our offseason started now, and that's really the approach that we took. We don't need to wait for November free agency to start, for us to start our offseason.”

That’s exactly what these moves are. The Braves have claimed eight players, traded for another, and debuted two prospects since the trade deadline, intending to use the remainder of the 2025 season as an audition for the 2026 roster. Here’s the full list of additions since the start of August, in chronological order:

Reliever Tyler Kinley (trade acquisition)
Utility Vidal Bruján (waiver claim, Baltimore Orioles)
Reliever Connor Seabold (waiver claim, Tampa Bay Rays)
Outfielder Jake Fraley (waiver claim, Cincinnati Reds - currently on injured list)
Starter Cal Quantrill (waiver claim, Miami Marloins - since released)
Shortstop Ha-Seong Kim (waiver claim, Tampa Bay Rays)
Reliever Rolddy Muñoz (prospect promotion, since optioned back to Gwinnett)
Reliever Hayden Harris (prospect promotion, since optioned back to Gwinnett)
Reliever Alexis Díaz (waiver claim, Los Angeles Dodgers)
Starter Carson Ragsdale (waiver claim, Baltimore Orioles)
Utilityman Brett Wisely (waiver claim, San Francisco Giants)

Ten of those eleven players are both still with the organization and still on the 40-man roster, even if they’re not on the Major League roster. Several of the earlier names on the list got a roster spot of someone who was DFA’d - Seabold got the spot of Domingo Gonzalez, since claimed by the Seattle Mariners, for instance.

But several of the recent moves have come without the organization losing a player thanks to an intended quirk² of the roster rules: A player on the 60-day injured list does not count against your 40-man roster limit.

And with the postseason all but officially off the table, the Braves are aggressively moving anyone who might be injured over to the 60-day to take advantage of that rule.

Counting the full 40-man roster and the team’s 60-man IL players, which total nine, the team technically has 49 players on the 40-man roster.

Here’s the list of Braves on the 60-day injured list, along with what’s ailing them:

3/24: Reliever Joe Jimènez (knee surgery)
3/29: Starter Reynaldo López (shoulder surgery)
5/30: Starter AJ Smith-Shawver (Tommy John surgery)
6/29: Starter Spencer Schwellenbach (fractured elbow)
7/27: Starter Grant Holmes (“Elbow inflammation” - it’s a partially torn UCL)
8/04: Third baseman Austin Riley (Core muscle surgery)
8/24: Reliever Aaron Bummer (shoulder inflammation)
9/07: Catcher Sean Murphy (torn hip labrum)
9/09: Reliever Daysbel Hernández (shoulder inflammation)

But here’s the issue - players don’t stay on the 60-day injured list over the offseason. They’ll need to be returned to the 40-man roster, so every single one of those players that the Braves intend to keep needs a roster spot. What does Atlanta do?

They’ll be moving on from a LOT of guys

Well, “a lot” is relative. For the Braves, a team full of long-term deals that typically only have a few open spots to turn over from year-to-year, it’ll be a lot.

Some expiring contracts will help there.

Both closer Raisel Iglesias and designated hitter Marcell Ozuna are set to become unrestricted free agents after the season. That takes the count from 49 to 47 right there.

Four other players have 2026 contract options, each with varying degrees of getting picked up. Starter Chris Sale and second baseman Ozzie Albies are both on club options that are virtual certainties to get picked up for next season, Sale because of his exemplary performance (2.35 ERA and 4.0 bWAR this year), Albies because the difference in the option amount ($7M) and the buyout Atlanta must pay if they decline that option ($4M) is so small that it’d be asinine to not bring back the team’s longest tenured player.

Reliever Tyler Kinley’s also likely, although not guaranteed, to return. Acquired from the Colorado Rockies at the trade deadline, he’s shown that getting out of the elevation of Coors Field and Atlanta pushing him to spam the slider has been a worthwhile adjustment: His ERA with Colorado was 5.66, but he’s put up an exemplary 0.45 ERA in 20 innings with Atlanta since being acquired. His $5.5M option for 2026 is likely to be picked up, as well.³

Shortstop Ha-Seong Kim’s option isn’t something Atlanta has any control over; it’s a player option, something that the Braves don’t give out to their free agents but they inherited when they claimed the infielder off of waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays. He has to decide by the fifth day after the World Series concludes if he wants to earn $16M from the Braves to play for them in 2026 or to enter free agency and see if he can beat that on the open market.

So, likely one spot at best will open up there, and the hope is that it’s zero (as there aren’t many other options at shortstop if Kim heads to free agency).

That means the Braves will need to find seven spots. And that’s the minimum just to bring everyone back off the injured list - it doesn’t even count any offseason additions, whether they were to come via free agency or trade.

That date also comes before MLB’s non-tender deadline, the last day to offer players in pre-arbitration and arbitration a contract for 2025. While teams usually wait to the non-tender deadline to finalize those offers - you never know who will get hit by a bus between now and then - the Braves won’t be able to wait on some of these decisions.

Thankfully, some of these 40-man players have made the non-tender decision an easy one for the Braves. Outfielder Jarred Kelenic followed up 2024’s .231/.286/.393 campaign by hitting just .167/.231/.300 in 24 games this season before they sent him to Gwinnett.

And believe it or not, he wasn’t much better for the Stripers. In 95 games entering Thursday, Kelenic hit .213/.286/.309 with a paltry four homers against 110 strikeouts. Among qualified hitters in the AAA International League, which consists of 85 players, Kelenic’s OPS of .595 is tied for dead last with Nick Pratto of the Omaha Storm Chasers (Royals affiliate) and his .213 average is sixth-worst.

After securing a $2.3M contract in his first year of arbitration, it’s virtually a guarantee that Kelenic won’t receive another from Atlanta.

The rest of the decisions aren’t as easy to make, however. We’ll cover all of the 2025 stretch run additions in a separate article, grading their Braves auditions, but let’s briefly look at the different positions and how many options Atlanta has to decide from there, excluding the likely Major League starters.

Infield

Shortstop Nick Allen
Utility Vidal Bruján
Utility Luke Williams
Utility Brett Wisely
Utility Jonathan Ornelas

All five of these players will be out of minor league options in 2026.

Outfield

Jake Fraley
Eli White
Carlos Rodríguez

Both Fraley and White are out of options, while Rodríguez will have two remaining.

Catcher

N/A - Veteran Sandy León will be a free agent after the season and both Triple-A catchers, Jason Delay and Chandler Seagle, are not currently on the 40-man roster

Starting Pitcher

(Note: We are excluding obvious 40-man guys like prospect Didier Fuentes here. Just non-prospects)

Joey Wentz
Connor Seabold
Dane Dunning
José Surez
Carson Ragsdale

None of the first four have any remaining options, although Ragsdale should have two remaining. They have all worked in relief in their careers, but I’m sticking with the “highest and best use” placement here.

Relief Pitcher

Alexis Díaz
Austin Cox
Hunter Stratton
Nathan Wiles

In what feels like a rarity for Braves relievers, all of these guys should have at least one option year remaining.

Lots of decisions are coming for Atlanta. And after they make these, they aren’t done with the roster spot shuffling. The Braves will need to figure out free agency, and then they have some prospects to protect at the Rule 5 deadline in late November…but that’s another newsletter.

In a follow-up piece next week, we’ll break down all of the 2026 additions and grade their auditions as well as discuss the financial implications here, as several of these guys (White, Fraley, Dunning, Suarez, Díaz) are already in arbitration.

1. Or pitching in a blowout, something he’s done once in his major league career.

2. I’m not calling this a loophole, because the rule was written intentionally, but it’s still a quirk - how else do you describe “a hurt player on your 40-man roster doesn’t count as being on your 40-man roster if he’s really hurt”?

3. The option was $5M when he was acquired from the Rockies, but he has a $500k escalator that kicks in at 20 games finished and increases by $500k every five games - he finished his 20th game earlier this week.