Reliever roulette
While Kenley Jansen and Scott Barlow signed for “real money” with other teams earlier this week, the Braves continued to swell their ranks of non-roster invitees with uninspiring recent performances by adding Jake Dieman and Dylan Covey to the array of folks nominally competing for a roster spot out of Spring Training.
Diekman has a number of good seasons under his belt and has a fine, if not exciting, middle relief profile as his aggregate line, but was horrendous last year due to a HR/FB rate near 30 percent. That’s not his only problem, though, as he’s had an xFIP- above 100 in each of the past three seasons, and might not be a viable option anymore given his age. Covey looks like a true Quad-A journeyman, having appeared in parts of five MLB seasons to this point, but not in 2021, 2022, or 2024. He’s been a starter, he’s been a reliever, he hasn’t really been exciting either way.
And then, there’s a bunch of other non-roster invitees. You can see them here.
My question is simple: which player not currently on the 40-man roster will make the team out of Spring Training? Technically, you could go wild and pick Nick Pivetta or something, which seems maybe slightly riskier than picking whoever Enoli Paredes is, but it’s up to you, I’m not your mother.