Braves Seek To Aid Battered Bullpen By Promoting Kimbrel

Once in a blue moon, an established star whose best days are behind him agrees to play in the minor leagues with the hope of a last hurrah in the majors.

That is the case with Craig Kimbrel, National League Rookie of the Year with the Atlanta Braves in 2011 and owner of 440 career saves, fifth on the lifetime list.

At age 37, Kimbrel had no takers when he tried free agency last fall until his old team agreed to give him one last try.

Now that Atlanta’s bullpen is in desperate straits, Kimbrel got called up Thursday – almost immediately after struggling closer Raisel Iglesias yielded ninth-running runs to suffer his fifth loss of the season. Those runs capped a seven-run, ninth-inning uprising that turned a 10-4 laugher into an 11-10 setback.

Kimbrel, once referred to as a right-handed version of 2025 Hall of Fame electee Billy Wagner, is a compact pitcher known for his big wingspan. When he peers at the catcher for his sign, he resembles a human DeLorean.

At 37, he doesn’t have the velocity of his youth but he does have the determination.

Success at Gwinnett

At Triple-A Gwinnett, Atlanta’s top farm club, he carved a 2.00 earned run average over 18 innings after starting with no spring training.

Should manager Brian Snitker decide to deploy Kimbrel as closer, the veteran right-hander could inch toward 500 saves and a virtually certain ticket to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He’ll just need to be more stingy with walks and home runs than he was before. Last year, he had a strong first half with the Baltimore Orioles but was beat up so badly in the second that the Birds released him after signing him as a free agent.

A nine-time All-Star, Kimbrel began his career by beating Freddie Freeman in the race for NL Rookie of the Year. That was the first of his five 40-save seasons, including 50 in 2013, when he finished fourth in the voting for the National League’s Cy Young Award. In his first five seasons, all with the Braves, he had a 1.43 ERA.

Other Clubs

In his 15-year career, which also includes stops in San Diego, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago (Cubs and White Sox) plus Philadelphia, he has averaged 14.1 strikeouts per nine innings. At the same time, he’s allowed nearly four walks per nine frames pitched.

Even without his erstwhile power-pitching ability, Kimbrel hopes to compensate with experience. He certainly can’t do much worse than Iglesias, who begins this weekend with an ERA of 6.75 and seven home runs allowed – after giving up four in all of 2024.

In addition to the Iglesias issue, Atlanta has lost a myriad of one-run games because fellow relievers Rafael Montero, Scott Blewett, Dylan Lee, and Daysbel Hernandez have been erratic at best.

The Braves start a series in San Francisco tonight mired in fourth place in the National League East with a 27-34 record, 11 games behind the high-flying New York Mets, their arch-rival.

Offense Also Struggles

Atlanta has been victimized by a struggling offense – even after the return of former league MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr. just weeks ago. When the Braves break through with an offensive burst, as they did in their three-homer game Thursday, their bullpen blows the lead. When they get great pitching, such as the one-run, 10-strikeout effort by Chris Sale Wednesday, they don’t generate enough support.

Even with AJ Smith-Shawver sidelined with elbow issues, Reynaldo Lopez also likely out for the season, and Spencer Strider still rusty after recovering from his own, the rotation of Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, Grant Holmes, and Bryce Elder has been respectable.

In the bullpen, however, health has not been the issue. Performance has.

Enter Kimbrel, albeit without his old 98 mph fastball. He did fan 33 per cent of rival hitters at Gwinnett but they were not major-leaguers.

He and lefty Dylan Lee were promoted from Triple-A for the West Coast trip with the walk-prone Hernandez (numbness in his finger) sent to the injured list.

Kimbrel will be paid a pro-rated version of $2 million, the amount to which he agreed if his minor-league work merited promotion to the majors. His peak previous salary was $16,000,000 with the Chicago Cubs and White Sox from 2020-22.

“We’re going to mix and match, and guys are going to get a lot more opportunities,” Snitker said of his bullpen after the Thursday fiasco in Atlanta. “We’re going to have to make it work, because it’s what we got.”

The Braves went 1-5 on their just-completed homestand against two other struggling clubs, the Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks. The bullpen was a bigger culprit than the offense.

In fact, the pen’s performance was offensive to Atlanta fans who booed their team off the field after the ninth inning at Truist Park Thursday.

The Braves had entered this season as favorites to win the NL East title and reach the playoffs for their seventh consecutive seasons.

No team has done that after opening a season with seven straight losses, however. Atlanta went 0-7 on its opening road trip to San Diego and Los Angeles.