Veteran reliever Héctor Neris elected free agency, according to the MLB.com transaction log. He’d been designated for assignment by the Braves on Monday.
Neris broke camp with Atlanta after signing a minor league contract in early March. He didn’t have much of a leash, though, as they moved on after two appearances. Opposing hitters went 5-7 with a walk, a home run, and a strikeout. Neris had made all of three appearances during Spring Training, so it was a very brief Braves tenure.
The 35-year-old righty has topped 50 innings in each of the last five full seasons. He’d been a productive setup man with the Phillies and Astros for most of that stretch. Neris fired 68 1/3 frames of 1.71 ERA ball as recently as 2023, but he had a shaky ’24 season. He signed a $9MM deal with the Cubs and operated as Chicago’s closer for a good portion of the year.
Neris went 17-22 in save opportunities while walking more than 13% of batters faced. The Cubs released him in August. He returned to Houston to close the season, and while he threw a lot more strikes, he gave up four home runs in 16 appearances. Neris finished the year with a combined 4.10 ERA through 59 1/3 innings. He fanned a little less than a quarter of opponents against a 10.8% walk percentage. Between that and his slow start to 2025, he’ll likely be limited to minor league offers.
Dunzo!
With the way relievers fluctuate year to year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he catches on with another team and has a very good year this season or next
Maybe the Brewers will be calling him soon. They seem to fix all guys on their last pitch.
He saw the Braves direction and was like nah I’m good anyways
Loves to throw at batters on purpose. Hope his career is toast
Apparently, he loves to throw at batter’s bats these days. Just sayin’.
Probably a torpedo-related issue with him, as he has given up a lot of rockets…
Remember turning on the tv randomly one night in 2017 and the game on was Phillies at Dodgers in the 9th, I proceeded to watch Neris give up 3 home runs in a row then a walk off from Adrian Gonzalez. Makes me think of that every time I see his name
🎶Memories like the corners of my mind,
misty water-colored memories…🎶
The “illusion” reliever—guys who relied on deception and sequencing rather than raw power—is being systematically phased out.
The dude looked awful and snit was treating him like he was one of our best bullpen arms. This is a funny situation where I’m glad we don’t have him and I’m sure he’s glad to get away from the dumpster fire happening in Atlanta…. Although he technically started the fire
We didn’t start the fire…