The Braves are making some changes in the ninth inning, as manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including MLB.com’s Mark Bowman) yesterday. While incumbent closer Raisel Iglesias “may close games” going forward, he won’t “necessarily” be the team’s primary closing option moving forward. Snitker did not name a new primary closer, leaving the door open to a committee approach to the ninth inning.
It would have been unthinkable just a few months ago that Iglesias could be anything other than the surefire closer in Atlanta. The right-hander put together a season for the ages in 2024, when he pitched to a 1.95 ERA in 69 1/3 innings of work while striking out 26.3% of his opponents and walking just 5.0%. It was an elite season even by the standards of the veteran righty, who had fashioned himself into one of the league’s most reliable relief arms since the start of the decade with a 2.44 ERA and 2.71 FIP in 278 appearances from 2020-24.
That’s all come crashing down this year, however, as Iglesias simply hasn’t looked like himself in his age-35 campaign. In 24 innings of work this year, Iglesias has surrendered a 6.75 ERA with a 5.65 FIP. While his 23.1% strikeout rate and 5.6% walk rate are more or less in line with last year’s numbers, he’s watched an eye-popping seven home runs leave the yard already this year. That’s already tied his high-water mark in a Braves uniform. At least some of his struggles can be attributed to poor luck; 21.9% of Iglesias’s fly balls have left the yard, and that’s simply not a sustainable rate even with an inflated 14.5% barrel rate. Even as his fastball velocity has lost a tick this year, the veteran’s 3.26 SIERA remains strong. It’s not at all difficult to imagine the talented righty turning things around moving forward.
Even so, the fact that the Braves felt a change was needed shows what dire straits the club finds itself in. Atlanta started off with a brutal 0-7 start to the season but actually managed to fight its way back over .500 and into the NL Wild Card conversation last month. Unfortunately, since that return to relevance the club has lost its first six games of June. That losing streak is part of a larger stretch where the Braves have won just 3 of their last 16 contests. It’s left them with a brutal 27-36 record that puts the team nine games back in the Wild Card race and 12.5 games out of the NL East. That’s the sort of deficit that can be difficult to bounce back from, even for an organization that is as talented (at least on paper) as Atlanta.
As the club tries to work its way back into relevance for the second time this year, they’ve decided to pull the plug on Iglesias in their effort to find a spark. If moving out of the ninth inning for a while can help Iglesias recapture his dominant form from previous years, that could help the Braves even if they don’t end up returning to contention as Iglesias (alongside DH Marcell Ozuna) is one of the team’s few pending free agents. If the club ends up selling at the deadline, they’ll surely want Iglesias looking as good as possible in the weeks leading up to a deal to maximize his trade value.
If there’s a silver lining for Iglesias’s odds of recapturing the closer role at some point this year, it’s that no one else seems primed to step up and take it for themselves so far. In the two games Atlanta has played since Snitker’s announcement, Pierce Johnson was the final pitcher to take the mound for the club. He was tagged with the loss in both outings, including a blown save opportunity earlier this evening. Johnson still has a decent 3.86 ERA in 26 appearances this year with 16 career saves (including one this season) under his belt, but he hardly seems especially close to locking down the ninth inning. Johnson and perhaps Iglesias can continue to get opportunities, while southpaws Dylan Lee and Aaron Bummer could also get turns in the ninth inning given their solid results this year and late-inning experience.