We said we were going to cover every single person who suited up as a member of the Atlanta Braves in 2025 and we mean it. Nathan Wiles made one appearance and pitched all of one (1) inning for the Atlanta Braves in 2025. That’s one more inning than each and every one of us! Now it’s time to take a look at how the 2025 season went for Wiles — even if his appearance in Atlanta was a cameo at best.
How acquired
The Braves and Rays usually get a nice, long look at each other during Spring Training, given the proximity
between their homes-away-from-home. The Braves must’ve liked what they saw from Nathan Wiles, because they decided to make a deal with the Rays that brought Wiles over from Tampa’s camp to Atlanta’s camp in exchange for cash considerations while Grapefruit League action was still ongoing.
What were the expectations?
Based on how much they used Wiles in Triple-A compared to the cup of coffee that he received while he was in the bigs, it’s clear that the Braves did like Wiles, but they liked him strictly as organizational depth. The expectation for Wiles was that he’d be able to show up from time-to-time and be a reliable arm coming out of the bullpen. While Wiles had plenty of experience as a starter in the minors, it was clear that the Braves weren’t going to utilize him as such in the bigs — at least in 2025.
Up until he was traded to Atlanta, Wiles worked as a swingman in the Rays’ system. His most recent campaign was pretty underwhelming, with ERA estimators (and ERA) all above 5.00 across 87 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level. Given that it was his third (or second, if you discount a single start there in 2022) go-round at that level, it wasn’t exactly an encouraging 2024 season in his age-25 campaign.
2025 results
At Gwinnett, Wiles proceeded to put up a 3.04 ERA (67 ERA-) and a 4.15 FIP (92 FIP-) over 25 appearances (19 of which were starts), which are very solid numbers across 112 2/3 innings pitched. In fact, had Wiles reached the minimum number of innings pitched to be qualified, he would’ve won the International League’s ERA crown, so there’s that. He even recorded a save along the way, so there’s that as well! Unfortunately, his xFIP was a much less inspiring 4.55.
Wiles was a reliable arm at the Triple-A level all season but outside of a few call-ups to the bigs, he was unable to really crack the glass ceiling and stick around for any longer than a brief cup of coffee. The Braves actually called him up repeatedly: late April, early July, late August, and then a couple of times in September. But, that first call-up was the only one in which he got into a game.
What went right?
In his major league debut on April 22, Nathan Wiles didn’t have to wait too long before picking up his first career big league strikeout. There are thousands of pro baseball players out there and not too many get to make it to the big leagues, so picking up a strikeout at this level is commendable! That’s about it as far as his major league exploits in 2025 go. And hey, his career FIP- is 29 and his career xFIP- is 65 as a result of that outing, so not a terrible start.
As far as Triple-A goes, he did put up a 22 percent strikeout rate compared to a 7.2 percent walk rate, which is pretty solid and it’s worth mentioning since, again, he spent 99 percent of his time in Triple-A this past season.
What went wrong?
Well, his peripherals in his lone big league appearance to date were great, but… at the same time, events conspired to have the Cardinals break out and put up a really big number on the board. In the box score, he got tagged for three runs on four hits while facing seven batters. It’s hard to say that the Braves would’ve come back from a 7-4 deficit at that particular point in the season, but Wiles going out there and getting lit up certainly didn’t help matters. Of the four hits he allowed, only two were hard-hit, and three were in-betweeners that the defense didn’t do anything with. At least he ended on a high note with his strikeout of Willson Contreras.
2026 outlook
Wiles became a free agent after the Braves released him in early November. However, it didn’t take long after his release for Wiles to latch onto another organization — the Korean Baseball Organization, to be exact. Wiles signed a deal with the Kiwoom Heroes of the KBO League, so he’ll be going on an adventure to Asia for the 2026 season. I’d have to imagine that Wiles will be going over there to build up his reputation so that he can eventually latch on with another big league team in the future. Best of luck to him overseas and hopefully he’ll be able to blaze his own baseball trail, even if it didn’t work out for him as a member of the Braves.
