The Braves announced that right-hander Jesse Chavez has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list, with left-hander Lucas Luetge designated for assignment in a corresponding move.
Chavez, who turned 40 while on the IL, has been out of action since mid-June after being hit by a comebacker on his left leg. The club announced at the time that X-rays did not reveal a fracture, but it nonetheless took him over three months to rejoin the team.
The veteran signed a minor league deal with Atlanta in the offseason and cracked the Opening Day roster. He made 31 appearances prior to his injury with an earned run average of 1.55 in that time. He was helped out a bit by an 85.4% strand rate but still had excellent peripherals with a 30.8% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 48.5% ground ball rate. If he can get back into that form now that he’s healthy, he will strengthen the club’s bullpen just in time for the playoffs.
Luetge, 36, was acquired from the Yankees in an offseason trade and has bounced on and off the Atlanta roster this year. He was selected just yesterday and was entered into last night’s game with the club down 7-1 to the Phillies. He threw two scoreless innings to finish the contest and has now been quickly cut from the roster for a fresh arm, his third time being designated for assignment this year.
The lefty has more than three years of major league service time, which means he can reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency. But since he has less than five years of service, doing so would mean forfeiting the remainder of his $1.55MM salary. Twice already this year, he has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment, which could perhaps come to pass again in the coming days. Around those transactions, he’s posted a 7.24 ERA in 13 2/3 innings at the big league level, along with an ERA of 3.91 in 23 Triple-A innings.
Jesse Chavez is becoming baseball’s Keith Richards. Love it.
Thank God
Should have been Tonkin…smh
Lucas: Go on, take the money and run. Woohoo!
Tonkin, who outside of a bad week and one bad game when he was hurt has been absolutely outstanding all season. As opposed to Luetge,who has sucked massively all year and got mad for being taken out of a game and snapped at the manager on the mound. Smh
The Braves responded to leutges antics by leaving him on the mound for 50 pitches when he was absolutely lost, I believe a day after he just pitched, and then dfa’d him the same night. Yea, they don’t care about Lucas. He’s there as a backup to the backups. Why do you think the Yankees gave him away for nothing? There is behind the scenes stuff here in all likelihood. That said there is no reason to let him throw 50 pitches in less than an inning when he clearly can’t throw a strike.
“There is no reason” — sure there is. Eat up IPs while sparing the arms their trying to conserve and will make the postseason roster. Same reason they trotted Dereck Rodriguez in MIA to get beat around. They’re punting a few games to recuperate. If these were must-win games, Kyle Wright wouldn’t be making his start, as last night’s start essentially was a rehab start (vs. last year’s NLCS-winners), while being a testament to whether or not he should be on the postseason roster. They secured HF advantage through divisional series even by losing, now they need to secure HF advantage thru WS (better record than BAL/TB/LAD). No conspiracy theories needed.
Well as I said I think he had just pitched and threw about 50 pitches to get like 1 out. He wasn’t gonna eat any innings that day, clearly. Why would a pitcher wanna sign with them when they don’t seem to care about one of their players health (because he’s a backup). He was looking to the dugout clearly thinking “I can’t pitch anymore, take me out!”. It’s a business, I get it.
They’resting all of them, especially pitchers.
Time for a couple of strategic phantom ailments to arise for the everyday players as well.
I betcha when they face a team with no playoff possibility in the next couple of weeks, Austin Riley will have a hang nail and Matt Olson be beset by a case of chapped lips.
Luetge to the Marlins? They just claimed Matt Moore so why not.
No. The players you mention pride themselves on playing every day. They want to look on their stat page and see 162. They have nearly all stated this. Look at the NL leaders in games played and you’ll see the Braves players. They have had a massive lead all season and haven’t taken off days so what is the difference? There is no need to fake an injury to take some days off anyway. Rosters are expanding too making it double pointless. Freeman (also Swanson) was very instrumental in the play all 162 mentality of these players. He was the vet when they came up and many of them bought in. Plus Olson is going for 55+ homers. He probably wants to play even more because of that. Lastly, they are getting off days with the first round bi anyway.