After yesterday’s mini-flurry of Braves moves, and ahead of Friday’s non-tender deadline, the Braves have squeezed in another bit of news:
Vidal Brujan was, up until this point, one of the Braves’ eight-remaining arbitration-eligible players most directly relevant to the non-tender deadline. (Jake Fraley was claimed on waivers, while Nick Allen and Mauricio Dubon swapped rosters while both being
arbitration-eligible.) Since Brujan is out of options, the split contract is essentially a workaround for that lack of ostensible roster flexibility: on a more generic contract, Brujan would have had little incentive to stick around upon being outrighted to the minors; this split contract presumably sweetens his pot a bit, but he forfeits the sweetener if he does reject an outright assignment in order to seek his fortune with another club.
So, the Braves gain a little flexibility with their position player depth, and Brujan gets a little more somethin’ somethin’ for his trouble.
In his career, Brujan has not really hit well nor defended well, but he had a nice run as a backup for the Braves in 47 PAs, putting up a .333 xwOBA and an above-average defensive tally (including positional adjustment). Though he was below replacement with the Cubs earlier in the season, his 0.2 fWAR for the Braves was enough to push his 2025 into above-replacement territory for the first time in his career. He’s still a guy that’s going to be entering his age-28 season with a 54 career wRC+ (and no xwOBA shenanigans) in 645 PAs, but the Braves clearly like him enough to bother with a split contract arrangement when they could’ve just non-tendered him and offered him a minor league deal to stick around.
