The Braves didn’t do much at the 2025 Trade Deadline, for good reason: their season had already gone off the rails by late July. One they did do, with an eye for 2026: trade for Rockies reliever Tyler
Kinley, whose services came with a $5.5 million option for the following season. Well, it turns out that whether Kinley returns to help the Braves in 2026 is more up in the air now than before:
On the surface, it’s bizarre or shocking or some other similar adjective. Before the trade, Kinley had a 118/96/113 line for the Rockies (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) — and remember, those numbers are park-adjusted. After the trade, his results were pretty neat, with a 17 ERA- and 68 FIP-. That seemed like giving up $5.5 million to pitch in relief in 2026 was close to a slam dunk…
…except…
He had a 106 xFIP-.
Is that why the Braves don’t want to commit that money to him? Or are they planning on signing him to a longer-term deal or something else? The answer to those questions will probably offer some insight into how the Braves are thinking about pitcher evaluation going forward.
Because, look: if you could be guaranteed a 17 ERA- or a 68 FIP- or something similar to his FIP as suggested by his xERA, you’d take that all day. That’s a fantastic relief option. But the xFIP suggests that no one was going to be guaranteed that, as Kinley’s strikeout rate actually fell (marginally) after the trade, and a lot of his effectiveness came from not walking anyone. The Braves also spent much of 2025 getting killed by HR/FB, especially late in games in crucial situations, and Kinley is a fly ball pitcher, so again, you can sort of taste the hesitancy into committing further resources in that direction.
Still, it adds another hole to the relief corps of the roster that they’ll need to work to fix, unless, as indicated, this is just a precursor to bringing Kinley back on some other kind of deal.
In other news, the Braves are also apparently making some internal promotions:
Schwartze was previously vice president of player personnel, and came over to the Braves last year from San Francisco, along with Pete Putila. Schwartze was previously known for serving as a direct link between players and the analysis portion of the Front Office; it’s not clear whether he’ll continue to do that post-promotion or whether this will free up his time to delegate those responsibilities to others. He has experience working as both an analyst and a scout across various MLB teams.
Sonabend was previously the President of operations for the club and has similarly gotten bumped up to a fancier title. “Operations” is generally a catchall for a bunch of day-to-day stuff like roster management and advance scouting, but also more targeted stuff like contract extensions, trades, and the like. Sonabend has been in the organization forever — I think this is like his ninth season with the club, so it’s a nice and perhaps overdue promotion for a guy that’s stuck around through a bunch of different regimes.
