Acquired midseason, the journeyman siderarmer pitched solidly, but it didn’t help him stick with the organization through the end of the year
The nature of a journeyman reliever that bounces around from organization to organization is that, thanks to the wonders of sample size, sometimes you’ll see a nice season. That’s what happened to Jimmy Herget, who fell out of favor with Anaheim, bounced back with the Braves… and then was sent packing anyway.
How acquired
On May 2, 2024, the Braves swung a deal to acquire Herget from the Angels for cash considerations. Herget had failed to make Anaheim’s roster out of Spring Training and spent April pitching for the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees; his trade could probably be listed in one of those Dorling Kindersley illustrated dictionaries under “change of scenery.”
What were the expectations?
Even before the trade, Herget was essentially the consummate journeyman reliever — the fact that he throws sidearm is a bonus, but an apt one. He had pitched for three different MLB organizations since his big league debut in 2018, with three horrible big league seasons, a good one in a small sample, and a dominant, nearly-full-season effort in 2022. Unfortunately, after posting 1.6 fWAR in 69 big league innings that year, Herget’s 2023 was really bad (-0.2 fWAR) and he struggled just as much in the minors as he did in the majors. Hence, him not making the club out of Spring Training, and getting blasted across ten appearances for the Bees prior to the trade.
Given that, and the fact that the Braves acquired him for basically free, it was safe to expect that he wouldn’t contribute much — but 2022 was just two seasons away, so there was some upside there. The general idea was “decent reliever with recent struggles,” which is more than can be said for a lot of guys who flit around the waiver wire.
2024 Results
Herget had an up-and-down time with the Braves. He was recalled after spending about three weeks at Gwinnett, made a couple of appearances, got sent down, got recalled the next day, made three more appearances, hit the Injured List with a shoulder ailment, came back for a single outing, got optioned, was recalled for a couple of outings, got sent down yet again, and then was eventually claimed on waivers by the Cubs. Phew. (His transaction-filled year wasn’t quite done, either, as the Rockies claimed him via waivers in early November.)
All in all, though, he acquitted himself very well for a guy who had to change organizations, ride the Quad-A shuttle, and work through shoulder inflammation: he finished with 0.1 fWAR in 12 1⁄3 innings, with a 105 ERA-, 90 FIP-, and 93 xFIP-. Those are solid numbers for a guy acquired for essentially nothing.
What went right?
Herget is an odd duck. He’s a right-handed sidearmer whose primary pitch is a slow curve. Due to his release angle, said curve works basically like a sweeper, his (slow) four-seamer works like a sinker, and his sinker and changeup have exaggerated drop. Hitters have few issues keying on in his unimposing “hard” stuff, but the curve tends towards the baffling; it elicited a .182 xwOBA and whiff rate approaching 40 percent in 2024. Suffice to say, given the angle and its tendency to skitter away from the bat, the curve helped Herget dominate righties to the tune of a 2.69 FIP and 2.07 xFIP.
There’s not a lot of room for ROOGYs in baseball these days (and even when there was, LOOGYs were much more common), but Herget took his skill set and applied it to the opportunity he got, and things went pretty well. He also pitched pretty well at Triple-A after leaving the Bees.
Understandably, the Braves never actually gave Herget any work that mattered; the highest leverage index upon entering the game for any of his eight appearances was 0.50, that is, half as important as the average situation. As a result, even Herget’s most impactful outing of the season barely registered — he threw two scoreless frames in a 3-1 loss to the Nationals, somehow doing so without a strikeout, in part thanks to this very routine double play:
Though not really meaningful, Herget also may have gotten a small measure of consolation from his final big league outing of the season, where he struck out five Angels in two innings while mopping up a blow-out win, earning a negative FIP and xFIP in the outing for his trouble.
What went wrong?
On a performance level, Herget’s two fastballs continued to be somewhere between useless and actively detrimental to the whole pitching thing. But the more disappointing thing, perhaps for him, overall, was that he was jettisoned from the organization as soon as they needed his roster spot. On September 11, Herget was designated for assignment because the Braves needed to make room for Cavan Biggio (who ended up playing less down the stretch than Herget had played for Atlanta to date); the Cubs claimed him on waivers, didn’t roster him and sent him to their Triple-A club for four games, and then ultimately DFAed him as well — he’s now with the Rockies.
Herget also had one meltdown as a Brave, which came in that strange Chris Sale blowup game against the Athletics of all teams. Herget came on to work the fifth and got three outs in the air; as he sat in the dugout, his teammates rallied for five runs to knot the game at eight apiece. Herget then came back and elicited three grounders… unfortunately two went for infield singles and he departed just in time for Brent Rooker to triple off Pierce Johnson, saddling Herget with the losing runs because the way box scores account for runs is inane. So, to be clear: the only time Herget pitched in any semblance of leverage, he got killed by infield hits and the guy coming in to pitch after him. Wonderful.
2025 Outlook
Well, if your New Year’s resolution is to spend more time in the majors in 2025, getting claimed by the Rockies can only help. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Herget will actually stick with Colorado through the offseason and Spring Training, but he should definitely be in the mix for a spot if he does. On the flip side, I’m not exactly sure what Coors Field is going to do to a sidearmer who relies on a sweeping curve to get outs, but that’s something for his new club to figure out.
In any case, Herget still projects as somewhere between a mop-up guy and a fine middle reliever, especially if used mainly against righties. 2024 worked well for him in a small sample; he might get a chance to show what he can do in a larger sample in 2025.