I want Brebbia back, Brebbia back, Brebbia back pleeeeease. Preferably without barbecue sauce.
John Brebbia holds a special place in my heart, which probably seems weird in regard to a fiery-ish red-bearded reliever. I started in a sim league back in 2018, and in a nice turn of fate, my team was becoming good. I needed bullpen help, though, so I took John Brebbia on the draft in the midst of a solid season for him. He was a solid reliever for a few seasons, but he never became the dominant reliever I (for
whatever reason) thought he might become.
How acquired
After signing with the Detroit Tigers in the offseason for $2.75 million, the right-hander was released toward the end of June, and the Braves signed him to a minor-league deal on June 24.
What were the expectations?
Pretty low. It was a minor-league deal, after all.
Brebbia has generally had solid K/BB numbers, generally running a strikeout rate at/above 25 percent and usually keeping the walk rate in the 7-8 percent range. The hiccup in all of this is that Brebbia is a fly ball pitcher with a career GB% right at 30 percent. In total, that gets you a guy whose performance is kind of generic for a reliever, but may cause more than its reasonable share of heartache because he doesn’t keep the ball on the ground. His career line coming into 2025 was 93/89/103 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-), which is fine for a decent reliever but really heavily leans into a low HR/FB to make it work.
You don’t get excited about a guy like this, but there’s a solid arm in there. You’re just hoping you’re on the happy side of the HR/FB variation spectrum. The Tigers apparently felt strongly enough that his 145/108/93 line from 2024 was an outlier that they gave him $2.5 million instead of a minor league deal; he was projected as somewhere between replacement level and a decent reliever.
The Braves had some experience with Brebbia, as they scooped him up late in 2024, where he threw 6 2/3 pretty good innings except for a 25 percent HR/FB rate. When they added him this time around, it was kind of the same thing as in 2024 — just adding him to eat innings — but they were eating innings a lot sooner than in 2024 given the way June really upended the Braves’ season overall.
Brebbia just turned 35 when they acquired him, so there was no real thought that he was anything but the shortest-term play.
2025 results
Gosh. It wasn’t good in Detroit, which is why he got released so early. He did miss a while with a forearm strain, but he was also having a challenging time even before then. He was at 24/91/133 before the injury, and 340/163/142 after. He had accrued -0.1 fWAR in 18 2/3 innings before he was shown the door from Detroit.
The strikeout rate dipped but was livable, but the walk rate spiked to a point where it was untenable for his profile — he walked nearly 12 percent of batters faced as a Tiger. Was it the forearm issue? Could be. Combine those walks with his usual fly ball profile and a career-low strand rate, and his ERA and ticket out of town are self-explanatory.
He sort of seemed to find himself a little in Gwinnett. The peripherals went back to normal, and while it was still Triple-A, it was encouraging. Brebbia got called up to the majors at the end of August, and made three appearances spanning 4 2/3 innings. The first two were pretty good, and then he got crushed by the Mariners to the tune of two homers in two innings; the Braves cut him two days after that. Those two homers resulted in a 182/181/93 line as a Brave in 2025, earning him another -0.2 fWAR. The Red Sox signed him to a minor league deal, but he didn’t make it back to the majors in 2025.
What went right?
Well, he got his $2.5 million, and his peripherals in the tiny sample with the Braves were fine. His highest-WPA game of the season came with the Braves — for whatever reason, he came on with a one-run lead in the sixth and stranded the tying run with a strikeout, and then got two flyouts the next frame before giving way to Dylan Dodd to face Kyle Schwarber (who tripled, but was also stranded). He also nearly escaped an extra-inning walkoff situation by getting two outs, but then gave up the walkoff hit anyway. I guess that’s not really something going right, but it’s better than how most of his season went.
What went wrong?
HR/FB, strand rate, walk rate, you name it. Even the Braves didn’t want to retain him to eat innings after his blowup against the Mariners, and the Braves were all about having whomever they could find eat innings once the season was basically kneecapped. Oh, and this walkoff hit happened while he was pitching. It was almost a foul, but it wasn’t.
2026 outlook
I don’t know if anyone is going to give Brebbia $2.5 million again, but he’ll probably hang around somewhere to get at least a minor league deal. He’s going to be in his age-36 season and will be projected as a replacement-level arm. He’s more or less a soft-tosser at this point without great (or even good) pitch shape, and his living has been made on slider command. When that goes, like it did in 2025 and led to a bunch of walks, there’s not a lot that’s appealing for teams left, but he’ll probably get a chance to show that he can at least hit spots with it like he did in 2024.
