Ah, Joe Jimenez. The Braves have gone on a bit of a bullpen construction-slash-reconstruction spree so far this offseason, re-adding Raisel Iglesias and Tyler Kinley while committing big bucks to Robert Suarez. They also brought in Joel Payamps late last season and re-signed him for something notably above league minimum, and Ian Hamilton is hanging around as a guy on a non-guaranteed major league deal that seems like he might get some runway in middle relief given the other options. That’s a lot
of right-handed relief options, and we haven’t even talked about Jimenez yet.
So, let’s do so. Once upon a time, Jimenez was brought in to be relatively important. While Justyn-Henry Malloy’s MLB career hasn’t worked out to date, the Braves still traded him and all of his team control for one year of Jimenez. That first year for Jimenez ended up being kind of weird: he pitched okay, but the Braves didn’t really use him as a higher-leverage option for various reasons. That all changed in 2024, though, as Jimenez ended up with the second-highest average leverage-when-entering-a-game in the bullpen, behind only Iglesias. He was also the team’s best reliever by fWAR, with his 1.8 edging out Iglesias’ 1.6.
And then, the troubles began. Jimenez needed knee surgery after the 2024 season. His 2025 didn’t get off the ground, as a second, “cleanup” knee surgery made it a fully lost year for the right-hander. While we don’t know what 2026 holds in store, none of the news has been particularly positive, especially in contrast with the glowing reports about pitcher health that the team has bothered to make here and there in the offseason. The actions the Front Office has taken are worth even more: if the Braves were expecting Jimenez to return and contribute in the final year of the three-year deal he got two offseasons ago, would they have loaded up on the right-handed relief arms they did, especially with Grant Holmes and Reynaldo Lopez also lurking as potential key relief options?
So, leaving all questions of performance aside, how many innings do you think Joe Jimenez will contribute at the major league level this year? Zero seems like a real answer. Maybe 40ish seems safe if you figure he’s not going to have a lost season again. I think I’d go with like 35, myself, but really, who knows at this point?
