Nathan Wiles goes back down to Triple-A for some reason
The fun never ends.
The #Braves today reported LHP Joey Wentz to Atlanta. The club also recalled INF Nacho Alvarez Jr. to Atlanta, placed INF Austin Riley on the 10-day injured list with a strained right abdomen, and optioned RHP Nathan Wiles to Triple-A Gwinnett following yesterday’s game.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 12, 2025
Austin Riley departed last night’s win over the Cardinals with “ab tightness,” which has now become a strain that’s shelved him. He was having a bit of an off his season for his standards (113 wRC+), but was still on pace for about 3 fWAR before the injury. His .345 xwOBA is his lowest since the short 2020 campaign, but people are probably more mad about his presence in the WPA vortex again.
Joey Wentz will presumably carry some bulk load in this afternoon’s game in St. Louis. Traded for Shane Greene years ago, Wentz had a nice seven starts for Detroit in 2022 on the back of a low HR/FB, but that didn’t last, and he’s been horrible while bouncing around the majors since. He’s been working as a reliever over the last two seasons, and not doing a great job at it — a career 139/120/116 line is what the Braves are getting.
Nacho Alvarez Jr. has consistently hit well in the minors, but there remain concerns about his ability to do a basic MLB batter thing of hitting a fastball with authority. Presumably, he’ll get a bunch of run in the majors right now, though last we heard, he was dealing with his own oblique issue in Gwinnett, so I don’t quite know what’s going on there. It will be almost impossible for him to not improve on his -25 (yes that’s a minus sign) wRC+ that he tallied in 32 PAs in the majors last year.
One weird part of this set of moves is that Nathan Wiles has been sent back to Gwinnett. Wiles was called up, presumably to provide some bulk given the blatant holes in Atlanta’s pitching staff, but is now going back down despite the bullpen covering six innings of work with a tightrope act last night.