The Braves Are Surprisingly Willing to Open the Pocketbook for Relievers

The Atlanta Braves aren't afraid to shell out the dollars for their bullpen, but are they getting the results their spending indicates they should be?

Based on my time covering the Atlanta Braves, I’ve learned they have some core tenets when it comes to spending money.

• They don’t want to commit more than $22M a year on any one player

• They don’t offer deferrals, no-trade clauses, or player options/opt-outs…but a club option is A-ok in their book.

• They’re surprisingly willing to spend on relievers.

Wait, what?

It’s true - the Braves frequently pay guaranteed dollars for relievers, usually via acquiring the player via trade and extending them (Joe Jiménez, Pierce Johnson, Aaron Bummer), although they’re not opposed to a pure salary dump (Raisel Iglesias). They’ve even done it via free agency, like when they popped a qualifying offer on lefty Will Smith in the winter of 2019 and rode his four-seam/slider combo to a World Series title in 2021.

They’re typically likely to be near the top of the league in salary devoted to the bullpen, as well, coming in 5th this year, 1st in 2024, 4th in both 2023 and 2022, and 7th in 2021.

But has the spending matched the production? Are these good deals, or are the Braves overpaying for one of the highest-variance positions in baseball? Let’s talk about it.

You’d be surprised how eager Atlanta is to spend on relievers

Quick, guess: During the tenure of Alex Anthopoulos, has he signed more relievers or starters to a contract of $10M or more?

It’s actually even.

When you count both free agent signings and extensions, Atlanta has paid seven different starters and seven different relievers a contract worth a total of $10M or more:

Starters:
Spencer Strider (Extension)
Reynaldo López (Free Agency)
Charlie Morton (Free Agency, originally)
Cole Hamels (Free Agency)
Dallas Keuchel (Free Agency)
Drew Smyly (Free Agency)
Chris Sale (Extension)

Courtesy of MLB Trade Rumors’ Contract Database, filtered for the Alex Anthopoulos tenure in Atlanta

Relievers:
Will Smith (Free Agency)
Joe Jiménez (Extension)
Kenley Jansen (Free Agency)
Pierce Johnson (Extension)
Chris Martin (Free Agency)
Aaron Bummer (Extension)
Collin McHugh (FA Signing)

We’re clearly taking out López here, as he was signed as a starter

When you look at total additions with guaranteed dollars involved, there have actually been fourteen relievers and just eight starters sign deals with Atlanta.

But have the Braves gotten the value from those reliever dollars? If we look at these deals based on the commonly accepted non-superstar figure of $8M/WAR, not all of these deals made sense from that perspective. Let’s take them in order of total value.

(All WAR calculation courtesy of FanGraphs.)

Will Smith - 3/$40M ($13.3M AAV)

This was a free agency deal, signed on 11/14/2019. Smith declined a qualifying offer from San Francisco and Atlanta forfeited their 2nd round selection in the 2020 MLB Draft to bring the reliever into the fold.

Would you believe that despite winning the 2021 World Series behind Smith, the Braves technically got negative value from this contract?

2020: 2-2, 0 saves, 4.50 ERA = -0.6 WAR
2021: 3-7, 37 saves, 3.44 ERA = 0.4 WAR
2022: 0-1, 5 saves, 4.38 ERA = -0.5 WAR

The math comes out to a 4.46 ERA in Atlanta with 60 saves, good for a -0.7 fWAR.

Buuuut, Smith was also a perfect 6-6 in save situations in October of 2021, allowing just five hits and three walks opposite eight strikeouts and no runs en route to a championship for the Braves.

It’s hard for me to say that his regular season isn’t outweighed by the absolute guarantee that he was in the 2021 postseason. Flags fly forever, so despite the negative WAR, we’re calling this a win for Alex Anthopoulos.

Joe Jiménez - 3/$26M

Your first instinct, on account of the lost 2025 season due to injury, might be to call this a loss for Alex Anthopoulos.

Not so fast my friend.

Let’s look at the two seasons he’s actually played for the Braves:

2023: 0-3, 0 saves, 3.04 ERA = 0.5 WAR
2024: 1-5, 3 saves, 2.62 ERA = 1.8 WAR

And here’s the thing: the 2023 season was technically on an arbitration deal of $2.765M - he signed the above extension after the 2023 season.

So he’s been paid $19.765M for the three seasons he’s spent in Atlanta, recording 2.3 WAR in that stretch. At $8M/WAR, that’s technically $18.4M in value. It’s close enough where I’m going to call this one a push, solely because of the injury.

Kenley Jansen - 1/$16M

Outside of the desire to collect the Curaçao Infinity Stones¹, Jansen joined the Braves to give them another option in the 9th other than the roller coaster that was the Will Smith Experience.²

Jansen did his part, going 5-2 with 41 saves and a 3.38 ERA, resulting in 1.1 WAR on the campaign. The math doesn’t work out, with $8.9M in value opposite an actual cash payroll amount of $16M. A lot of this may be due to his seven blown saves and two losses on the campaign, although I’m starting to suspect there’s a flaw in the conventional wisdom of $8M/WAR when it comes to relievers.

Chris Martin - 2/$14M

Martin picked up a grand total of two saves and four wins in his three seasons and 85 games for Atlanta, and yet his combined WAR of 1.6 means that he produced $12.8M in value over his three seasons. We’re going to call this a push.

The current arms

Pierce Johnson - 2/$14.3M
Aaron Bummer - 2/$11.8M

Johnson has been worth 0.9 WAR across the two seasons of this extension, signed in October of 2023, while Bummer was worth 1.5 WAR so far.

Running the numbers here, that’s 7.2M in value for Johnson and 12M for Bummer.

This doesn’t feel right, though, does it? I’ve long advocated for Bummer to get more leverage opportunities, but I’m also cognisant of the fact that his contract goes up to $9.5M next season while his stuff has been declining - his average fastball velocity of 91.0 mph is just 10th percentile in the sport and is down over 2 mph from last year’s mark of 93.2 mph.

Doesn’t feel like he’s been a positive contributor, but according to the WAR calculator, he’s been more than worth the contract.

Johnson, on the other hand, has felt like one of the more reliable options for Atlanta (save situations in Oracle Park not withstanding) in a season where they’ve cycled through 44 different total pitchers. By comparison, it was only 30 last season, counting two different position players in mop-up duty, while 2023 used 31 plus a position player.

I’m going to pull rank here and call Johnson a win and Bummer a push.

Collin McHugh - 2/$10M

1.7 WAR across two seasons, although most of that (1.4 WAR) came in his inaugural 2022 season with the club. He was magnificent in his first season after coming over from Tampa, pitching to a 2.60 ERA and picking up three saves in a nice sample size, 69.1 innings. While he struggled in 2023 (4.30 ERA) as he worked around injury, he still was positive on the year thanks to his length (58.2 innings in 41 games) and ability to minimize hard contact (only five homers).

What can we learn from this?

That spending on relievers is worth it…when they’re back-end guys.

The Braves have the league’s 5th-most expensive bullpen this year at a collective $49.98M, while their ERA is 21st at 4.35.

But in a more normal season from an injury perspective, like 2024, Atlanta’s 1st place investment of $53.68M paid off in the league’s third-best ERA at 3.32.

I’m not sure what conclusion to draw here, honestly. The Braves are clearly willing to pay for relief arms, and this season has shown the danger of going with a ‘quantity over quality’ approach. But at the same time, the individual valuation approach of attributing $8M per WAR in free agency is flawed when it comes to relievers.

And besides, the Braves don’t acquire a lot of their most expensive relievers via free agency anyway. From the above list, only Smith, Jansen, Martin, and Mchugh were signed off the open market. Most of the rest were acquired via trade, either in a salary dump (Iglesias) or with the intention of extending/re-signing them (Johnson, Jiménez, Bummer).

I’m beginning to think that it’s more likely the Braves try and acquire an arm off the FA market this winter, knowing how Alex Anthopoulos works. And when it comes to the open closing role, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Iglesias given the first shot at filling that role on some sort of discounted deal. Given the looming lockout in the 2026 offseason, I’d imagine either a two-year deal or a one year plus a club option is likely for Iglesias if he agrees to come back.

1. When looking at the most valuable players from Curaçao as measured by WAR, seven of the top eight have played for the Braves. The only exception here is former infielder Jonathan Schoop, who is currently hitting .280/.333/.467 for Union Laguna in Mexico in his age-33 season.

2. Ride was closed for maintenance in October of 2021