Sometimes in baseball, you get a rare trade that’s a win-win for both clubs. Anthony Molina’s 2026 consisted, in large part, of appearing to be part of one of those trades, as the Atlanta Braves only got a few innings out of him before eventually shipping him off to San Francisco so that they could get Tyler Mahle at the Trade Deadline.
Now it’s time to figure out what the Giants saw in Molina during his time in Atlanta that convinced them to send Mahle down South.
How Acquired
The Braves claimed Molina off of waivers
back in December of 2025. They then outrighted him to Triple-A Gwinnett, which is where he started the season before eventually getting added to the big league roster to begin the month of May.
What were the expectations?
Simply stated: to provide a right-handed, low-leverage option out of the bullpen for a short period of time. Things didn’t go particularly well for Molina during his two-season stint with the Rockies (a combined -0.4 fWAR in a long relief role), so it wasn’t as if he was expected to come in and be lights out coming out of the ‘pen for Atlanta. As long as he could come in and eat an inning or two, everything would be A-OK for Molina and the Braves.
More broadly, Molina had two different-yet-similar seasons in Colorado before getting the boot. In 2024, he had a low strikeout rate, a not-so-good walk rate, but managed to avoid getting bricked by homers despite the whole Coors Field thing, leading to a bad-but-not-abominable 146 ERA-, 97 FIP-, and 110 xFIP-. In 2025, it looked like he made huge strides in avoiding walks… but it was really just because guy were blasting moonshots off him before he could walk them. His strikeout rate didn’t budge, and his pitching line was a 153 ERA-, 160 FIP-, and the same 110 xFIP-.
While there was the hope that the Braves could somehow fix him, there was little reason to expect him to serve as more than organizational depth.
2026 Results
Molina made a grand total of four (4) appearances for the Braves. He only made two appearances at Truist Park and one of those two appearances was actually a start — for the San Francisco Giants, after the Braves ended up trading him out West in order to acquire Tyler Mahle in what wound up being a very good trade for the Braves.
Anyways, the Giants figured out something with Molina (and the Braves did not) when it came to him being a starter as he actually finished the season having made a few really good starts for them, so this wound up being a bit of a win-win deal. Our old friend from McCovey Chronicles, Grant Brisbee, wrote a piece on how well Molina was doing for the Giants, in case you’re interested. It’s a gift link, so enjoy.
Anyways, as far as his stint in Atlanta went, it wasn’t exactly spectacular. He did pitch two scoreless innings against his old mates, the Rockies, on May 1, but he got dinged for two runs on three hits against both the Mets on June 14 and those very same Giants on June 16. Perhaps San Francisco saw something during that appearance that they liked because two weeks later, he was on the mound in Cobb County against the Braves.
All in all, Molina put together a 129 ERA-, 133 FIP-, and 97 xFIP- for the Braves in those three outings. Replacement level? Sure. But it was also better than the very low bar he’d set for himself in 2024-2025. The Braves had him substantially increase his curveball and changeup usage, and perhaps it helped a little.
The big thing, though, was that Molina went to the Giants and looked like a legitimate major leaguer. His fastball got tweaked, and he threw it a bunch more. He made five starts and one long relief appearance for the Giants, and four of those outings were fantastic. His line with his new team was a sparkling 91 ERA-, 64 FIP-, and 87 xFIP-, and he collected 0.9 fWAR in 29 innings. Wow.
Despite it being just 29 innings, Molina kind of had it all. He was throwing 96 mph as a starter, not walking guys, getting whiffs on his curveball, and even managing contact. It’s all certainly fascinating, and the Giants get to enjoy whatever Molina may turn into going forward, instead of Atlanta.
What went right?
Well, those two innings that Molina pitched in his Braves debut against his old friends from Colorado ended up being sneakily crucial, as Molina’s appearance bought the Braves some time and kept the deficit at 6-1 in the sixth inning and 6-2 in the seventh before the Braves turned it around late and ended up winning 8-6 in dramatic fashion. It’s the little things, sometimes.
Also, again, the Braves got Tyler Mahle for him in a trade, so that was cool for the Braves. And, Molina’s turnaround was very cool for him and the Giants.
What went wrong?
Molina ended up getting plenty of strikeouts for the Giants but that certainly wasn’t the case for Atlanta. Molina struck out two Mets batters during his appearance on June 14 and those wound up being the only two strikeouts that he would rack up during his time as a Braves pitcher. He was charged with more runs than he tallied strikeouts while a Brave, which isn’t exactly something that warms the heart.
His last outing with the Braves, which came against the Giants, was somewhat bizarre in that he somehow faced nine batters in two innings and avoided walking any of them while also not striking out any of them. He did get tagged for a homer by eventual teammate Willy Adames, so that probably wasn’t fun.
It’s possible to view the change of scenery as a sour grapes thing — why couldn’t the Braves have sent over someone but Molina, or figured out how to unlock Molina the way the Giants did — but we probably need to see him keep it up over longer than 29 frames before we can really get salty about it.
2027 outlook
While Molina pitched well down the stretch for San Francisco, he’s still going to be fighting for a rotation spot when (maybe if) Spring Training rolls around. It’ll be highly unlikely that the Braves get him back for a reunion, so that’s about it!
29 innings isn’t much, but he was so good that his early Steamer projection has bumped him into the generic “everyone’s a fourth-starter quality swingman until proven otherwise” tier. That’s quite a jump from organizational depth / replacement level arm, so hats off to him and the Giants. We’ll see if he can keep it up.
