The bullpen composition remains a work in progress
The 2025 Atlanta Braves bullpen has been in a state of flux pretty much since Opening Day, when Hector Neris was asked to work high leverage and blew it in spectacular fashion. At the time, Neris’ departure from the roster in short order seemed preordained given his combination of A) likely replacement-level performance and B) “other qualities” that made him likely to see high leverage use anyway.
Now that we’re about a month into the season, though, things aren’t exactly more settled. The Braves’ bullpen ranks 26th in fWAR, and is one of seven relief units that has been below replacement in aggregate. In some ways, that’s misleading: they’re 16th in xFIP-, with a lot of that value loss driven by HR/FB stuff; further, those numbers are dragged down quite a bit by the now-departed Neris and Jose Suarez. The bullpen has also been a top ten unit by fWAR over the last week, so it’s not like it’s been perpetual failure, either.
Anyway, there’s no reason to assume the bullpen composition won’t keep changing, in part because there’s little reason to stick with some of the guys the Braves have long-term. They’ll also probably want to promote Craig Kimbrel at some point, which is going to require a roster spot. As of right now, the bullpen looks like this, in qualitative assessment:
As you can see, there aren’t a lot of clear-cut choices — except Aaron Bummer, who is now in his second season of apparently being the Rodney Dangerfield of this unit. Of the other three relievers still projected to be good at this point, none have a good xFIP (though it’s unclear how much that matters in a sample this small anyway).
Anyway, the call on answering the title question is up to you.
Daily Notes
Record: 10-14
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .355 / .347 (Season rank: 14th | 7th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .265 / .298 (Season rank: 22nd | 22nd)
Yesterday’s homers: 1
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 0
Record when out-xwOBAing: 7-6 (League: 269-91)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 3-8 (League: 87-261)
Record when out-wOBAing: 10-2 (League: 309-52)
Record when out-wOBAed: 0-12 (League: 52-309)
Record when outhomering: 6-3 (League: 191-51)
Record when outhomered: 0-7 (League: 51-191)