So far this off-season, Atlanta has added organizational depth, which will be critical in 2025.
This past Sunday morning, as the sun began to illuminate the ice-covered trees in the miles around Truist Park like a thousand crystal chandeliers, Robert Murray reported that the Atlanta Braves signed Garrett Cooper to a minor league contract with an invitation to Spring Training.
Cooper is 34 years-old and was an All-Star for the Miami Marlins in 2022. But he has struggled in the last two season and is likely ticketed for Gwinnett – or maybe on the end of Atlanta’s bench – with the hope that he doesn’t have to see much duty for Atlanta during 2025.
Cooper, who can play first base and the outfield, isn’t the only guy of his ilk Atlanta has brought in since the conclusion of the 2024 season. They’ve also inked outfielders Conner Capel, Bryan de la Cruz and Carlos D. Rodriguez as well as infielders Eddy Alverez, Jose Devers, Charles Leblanc and a host of pitchers to minor league contracts or non-guaranteed major league contacts. They also selected two players in the Rule 5 draft and traded for infielder Nick Allen and starter Davis Daniel in December.
Are any of those players going to replace Travis d’Arnaud, Max Fried, Charlie Morton, Jorge Soler, Jesse Chavez or even Gio Urshela and Luke Jackson? No, probably not, but that’s not to say that from February through October, some of those players could find themselves playing meaningful role for Atlanta.
In 2024, the Braves had 55 players – 28 pitchers and 27 position players – appear in a game for Atlanta. As a matter of fact, each season since 2021, the Braves have had 50 or more players appear in a game for the big league squad.
Let’s go back to 2024 again. The Braves had 13 different pitchers start a game and seven of those players started seven or more games. In the outfield, the team rolled out 12 different players with seven of those players appearing in 30 or more games.
Yes, Atlanta had significant injury issues last year, but the volume of players used wasn’t too different in 2023. That year, the team had 16 different pitchers start a game and seven pitchers start seven or more games. And 2022? They used 12 starting pitchers, seven of whom started nine or more games.
With questions in the 2025 outfield – in part due to Ronald Acuńa, Jr.’s recovery from knee surgery likely to see him miss some time early in the season and Jarred Kelenic questionable even as a platoon player, it is easy to see why the team has added organizational depth in the outfield. The infield was an injury minefield in 2024, and the team hopes that won’t repeat in 2025, but the organization has added depth there where only Luke Williams and Nacho Alvarez, Jr. returned as reserve options from 2024.
And everyone knows a team can never have enough pitching.
The running assumption is that the Braves are going to add more significant players before the regular season starts – if not prior to Spring Training, which begins about one month from now.
As unexciting the names of the players brought into the organization by the front office may be, it doesn’t belie the importance some of those players may have as the Braves look to make the post-season for the eighth-straight season.