Fan Favorite Braves Reliever Could Be At Risk of Losing Roster Spot

The Atlanta Braves have seen injuries roil the roster this season, affecting every position group. And while the position player injuries seem to get the most attention, there is another group that's been hard-hit by injury absences: the bullpen.

A.J. Minter is in the midst of his second injured list stint of the season, both for a hip issue that will requires surgery and has the potential to keep him out for the rest of the regular season. With Minter heading to free agency, it's entirely possible that he has thrown his last pitch as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Tyler Matzek already has, as well - after returning from 2022 Tommy John surgery, Matzek hit the injured list with a forearm issue and was subsequently traded to the San Francisco Giants at the deadline. Other arms have been unavailable at times this year, including Pierce Johnson (elbow), Jimmy Herget (shoulder), and Dylan Lee (briefly optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett).

But it is not just injuries or an ill-timed minor league option that could take someone out of the bullpen mix - Father Time could do it, too.

40-year-old Jesse Chavez was the subject of an All-Star campaign in the weeks leading up to the Midsummer Classic, with the entire roster campaigning for the retiring veteran to get his first career All-Star selection. And it would have been earned, too: Chavez had a 1.32 ERA at the end of June, going 1-1 and allowing just five earned runs in his 34 innings. He was used in almost every single conceivable scenario, from coming in mid-inning to clean up a situation to long relief outings after a starter left early.

Alas, it was not meant to be - Chavez was passed over for the All-Star Team in favor of some more traditional relief options: Ryan Helsley of the St. Louis Cardinals, Jeff Hoffman of the Philadlephia Phillies, Kyle Finnegan of the Washington Nationals, and Robert Suarez of the San Diego Padres.

But Chavez seemed to be putting together one of his best years in his last ride before retirement.

Father Time had other ideas

After the All-Star snub, however, Chavez seemed to struggle. He's taken the ball ten times since the break, allowing multiple runs in four of those outings. (For contrast, in his 29 first half outings, he only allowed more than one run twice.) Since the start of June, Chavez has pitched to a 5.49 ERA, going 0-1 with a blown save on his ledger.

So, what's changed?

It's not the velocity. Chavez's average velocities for his cutter and sinker have been in the same range - 88.9 to 90.2 - all season.

But locations? That's a different story.

The bread-and-butter pitch for Chavez is his cutter. But in August, he's struggled to place both it and the sinker where he wants to. Early in the year, when he was at his best, he was leaving the pitch on the edges of the zone.

The detailed zone chart from MLB Statcast for his May is the best example of this: his three most used locations were in the "shadow zone" on both sides of the plate - straddling the line between a ball and strike. Over 20% of all of his pitches were on the edges, meaning it's going to be hard to both pull the trigger on a swing and also get quality contact on the ball.

While there were some pitches leaking gloveside, it wasn't a ton. And he wasn't leaving the ball up, either - just 10.2% of his cutters and sinkers ended up at the upper third of the strikezone or higher.

Chavez had a 1.46 ERA in May, his second straight month of a sub-2.00 ERA. (June was even better, with a 0.87 ERA, but he pitched only eight times so I went with a month that had more total appearances for sample size reasons.)

Let's compare that to the chart for August, where Chavez has a 6.14 ERA:

He's throwing more pitches up in the zone (15.2%) and a LOT more over the heart of the plate, with middle-middle's 8.6% tying for the 2nd most frequently-used zone behind the gloveside shadow. He's also missing a lot more gloveside and although he hasn't logged a HBP yet, he has a season-high four walks in the month already.

(Also, his fourth-most commonly landed zone is solidly over the plate and gloveside at 6.6%, tripling from just 2.2% in May).

What does Atlanta do about it?

I don't know.

It's a small sample size on that location chart, representing just 7.1 August innings, so it might normalize with some more innings.

At the same time, it's not that small of a sample size: Both July and August have seen ERAs over 5.00 and the combined 5.49 for those months constitutes 19.2 innings. It's not one significant blowup that is skewing the ERA, either - as we said earlier, he has more multi-run outings after the break than he did in all of the first half.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that Atlanta would move on from Jesse Chavez - with as important as he is in the bullpen and the clubhouse, he is not going to be designated for assignment.

But might the team talk to him about giving in to the soreness and fatigue that he is undoutedly feeling and go on the injured list? Replacing Chavez with a Statcast profile that looks like THIS might provide a bullpen without Minter and Matzek some high-quality reinforcements:

That's reliever Daysbel Hernández , who is currently sitting in Triple-A Gwinnett.

He's one of the hardest throwers in the organization, with an average fastball velocity of 97.5 mph that's 95th percentile in all of MLB. He's gotten just eleven MLB innings this season, logging ten strikeouts and putting up a 0.82 ERA.

(And just for giggles, his seldomly-used sinker is even harder than the four-seamer, coming in at 98.1 mph.)

The back end of the bulpen is pretty set already - Pierce Johnson in the 7th, Joe Jiménez in the 8th, and Raisel Iglesias in the 9th. Fun fact about those three, courtesy of the Braves comms team: They've pitched those three innings in that order nine times this season, and the team is 9-0 in those games.

But you always need more high-leverage relievers, both in case someone is unavailable and in case a starter runs into trouble earlier than the end of the game.

Jesse Chavez has not been reliable in those situations since the All-Star Break. Daysbel Hernàndez has the stuff and potential to be, however. Does Atlanta make the switch?