The Atlanta Braves had one of the more unfortunate seasons in recent memory, especially with regard to injuries to their rotation. In fact, there was a point where all five members of the Opening Day rotation were
on the Injured List at the same time. This resulted in quite a few roster moves to bring in pitchers to eat some innings, especially after it was pretty much a done deal that the season was effectively over. Erick Fedde was one of these moves, and worked out (or didn’t) just as much as you’d expect.
How acquired
On July 27, Grant Holmes was transferred to the 60-day IL. Holmes was the last man standing of the five Opening Day starters. Further, Holmes was actually the team’s nominal sixth starter, because Spencer Strider started the year on the shelf due to his continued recovery from his elbow woes.
So, with basically everyone down for the count, the Braves had to get creative. Except, by “creative,” what we mean is just finding boring, low-upside options that could hold down the fort until some arms came off the IL. This wasn’t a ploy to keep the team going and get somewhere when other arms get healthy, it was just a way to get through the season. Odds were slim to make the playoffs even if the rotation were healthy, and the rotation was definitely not healthy.
So, on that same July 27 day, the Braves acquired Fedde from the Cardinals for cash considerations, as well as a player to be named later or more cash considerations. The Braves would take on Fedde’s remaining salary for the “reward” of having Fedde around to eat innings.
What were the expectations?
Fedde spent parts of six seasons in the majors at the start of his MLB career, functioning as a barely-effective fifth starter, with a 129/121/108 line. He looked like he had made some improvements in 2021, but his 2022 was pretty horrible, so he went overseas to play in Korea.
Believe it or not, in 2023 Fedde won the KBO MVP award and the KBO Cy Young equivalent Choi Dong-won Award. That was all it took for him to grab a $15 million, two-year deal from the White Sox; they traded him to the Cardinals midseason after a highly effective four months in Chicago where he managed 2.6 fWAR in 21 starts and wasn’t even benefiting that much from a low HR/FB rate and what-have-you. He finished the year with 3.4 fWAR and an 82/93/101 line, and an xERA in line with his FIP. Sure, he got lucky ERA-wise, but he was actually pitching like a league-average starter for the season, even if he substantially regressed after the trade (his 107 xFIP- with the Cardinals was similar to his career 108 xFIP- before going overseas).
As a result, preseason projections had Fedde as basically a league-average innings eater, which is way better than a “basically replacement level innings eater” that he functioned as before his KBO season. But, then came 2025, and Fedde reverted to, well, Fedde. He made 20 starts for the Cardinals before the trade, with a 127/126/130 line that was somehow awful even relative to his career; moreover, he was profoundly unplayable in his last five starts (322/243/165), which is what led the Cardinals to dump him on the Braves.
All of this is to say that the Braves should not have had any expectations other than “this guy is alive and can pitch innings such that games still end eventually.” Maybe there was some hope he could rediscover whatever made him effective in Korea and Chicago, but the Braves weren’t banking on that.
2025 results
We already touched on his rough start to the season with the Cardinals. He was so bad that the Cardinals basically gave him away to save a little cash. Yet, somehow, he got even worse with the Braves. He made five appearances (four starts) for the Braves and racked up 23 1/3 innings. In those innings he had a 192/135/136 line, surrendering three homers, being on the hill for 30 hits, and walking as many hitters as he struck out (13).
The Braves released him in their most obvious move of the year since kicking Alex Verdugo to the curb. But the season wasn’t done with him yet. The Brewers picked him up and used him strictly in long relief. He made seven appearances for the Brew Crew, spanning 16 innings. His results were better, but his peripherals were still horrible, so the Brewers didn’t really fix him or anything. He put up an 81/125/128 line for Milwaukee. All in all, his 2025 finished at 132/127/130. That 130 xFIP- was the worst of his career; he was worth -0.2 fWAR, his third sub-replacement level season in his eight tries in MLB.
The Brewers also DFAed him, and given that his original contract with the White Sox has also now expired, he’s a free agent at this point.
What went right?
Well, his Brewers tenure, sort of. Only if you judge by ERA, though. Maybe that means he should be a reliever going forward, but it’s not like his peripherals were any better.
Pitch-wise, his sweeper was at least decent, with a .331 xwOBA-against that’s not good for a breaking pitch but is good for a Fedde pitch. It also had a whiff rate above 25 percent, which is kind of unusual for him, as only his pre-KBO curveball consistently ran those kinds of rates. He correspondingly threw a lot more sweepers this season, but it didn’t really help him.
As a Brave, all of his outings were miserable; he didn’t even find a way to throw one “dance through the raindrops” performance in there. The Braves actually won two of his five appearances, but those two were comeback wins where they had to battle back from the Fedde-sized hole in their win expectancy. The best thing that happened to him was this bit of bailout magic from his defense…
…but Fedde finished that game with a 5/3 K/BB ratio in four innings and left the game with his team trailing 4-1, anyway.
What went wrong?
Well, it was a pretty horrible season for a guy that managed a renaissance after returning from Asia in 2024. His walk rate spiked by over three percentage points from 2024. Combine that with a collapse in his strikeout rate of about eight percentage points, from an okay 21 percent to a horrid 13 percent, and yeah, that’s an unplayable season. None of this was new for Fedde, it was just sad. His peripherals were similarly awful in 2019-2020. He also managed at least decent contact management in 2024 for the first time ever, but his 2025 contact management went back to poor.
As a guy who lives on sinkers and cutters, experiencing an uptick of about .020 in xwOBA on one and about .060 on the other is a pretty terrible sign. The reason for the downturn is probably too complex to summarize here, but it has to do with changes in the shape of his cutter that were at odds with where he started throwing it in 2025, which seem to have made everything play down again. But, even that aside, sometimes he just had stuff like this happen, which… whoops:
2026 outlook
Fedde is in a bit of a weird place, free agency-wise. Imagine if he were a rookie or international free agent that made his stateside debut in 2024, put up the season he had, and then had his horrible 2025. Someone would probably take a chance on him with guaranteed money, since his track record would be one quite good season, and one terrible season. But, Fedde does have a more of a track record — as a pretty poor rotation option — which is what sent him to the KBO in the first place. Maybe some team thinks they can still get a fourth starter out of him, and he signs for a guaranteed money deal that isn’t a giant downgrade from his 2025 salary. But, his 2025 was so bad that it makes 2024 look suspect. That even the Brewers weren’t able to quickly salvage something productive out of him probably dampens interest in him further.
Stay tuned — but the Braves can’t afford to waste more time and innings on guys like Fedde at this point.
