The Atlanta Braves set a single season record this past season by utilizing seventy-one different players. Because of this, there are quite a few players that saw limited action for the team. Brett Wisely was one of them, appearing in only four games for the Braves. He also played in 22 games for the Giants this season. Given that he was acquired so late in the year, he was a non-entity both in terms of his limited exposure and production, and the fact that he only appeared for the Braves when it didn’t
really matter.
How acquired
Wisely was claimed off of waivers from the Giants on September 18. He was not immediately brought up to the MLB squad at that time, getting optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett. He made his first MLB appearance for the Braves on September 23.
What were the expectations?
It is safe to say that the expectations are quite low for a player picked up from waivers near the end of the season, when there is no hope for making the playoffs. This was pretty much a depth move. If anything, him pulling three starts was a bit of a surprise, and even that came because Ozzie Albies missed most of the last week of the season with an injury. But hey, at least he got into some games with his new team.
Overall, Wisely hasn’t produced at the MLB level. Though he’s put up meaningful defensive numbers in a small sample, he hasn’t hit at all. In 2023, he had -0.4 fWAR, a 36 wRC+, and tallied 131 PAs. The next year, he improved to a 75 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR over 272 PAs — solid bench caliber play on the back of superb defense. He repeated that 75 wRC+ with the Giants in 2025, but couldn’t find much playing time (just 54 PAs) before they let him go.
2025 results
Wisely played for both the Giants and the Braves this past season and was not particularly successful with either squad. He ended his 2025 campaign with a slash line of .185/.279/.315. That line is good for a 71 wRC+ — 29 percent below league average. He once again played some reasonable-to-good middle infield defense.
For the Braves, he only had nine plate appearances in which he went hitless. However he did have three walks in that span resulting in an OBP of .333 in this small sample of work. He finished with -0.1 fWAR in 63 PAs.
What went right?
The one area that sticks out that could be considered going right is that Wisely had a decent walk rate of 11.1 percent, much higher than his previous two seasons. Combine his walk rate with his strikeout rate being a career low of 22.2 percent, and he posted a respectable BB/K ratio of 0.50. To put that in perspective, Matt Olson had a 0.52 ratio this season and has a career 0.50 ratio.
Like mentioned earlier, Wisely also graded average or better in most defensive metrics. Odds are that this was one of the reasons the Braves claimed him. The offensive upside seems really limited, though, unless you love walks and feel icky about strikeouts.
Something darkly funny about Wisely’s season is that his highest-WPA game of 2025 came during his time with the Braves… but not in the game he started. On September 24, he drew a leadoff walk in the seventh when down two runs, and ultimately made it to third on a wild pitch. But the next two batters struck out, stranding him and the tying run in scoring position, and the Braves ended up losing, what else, a one-run game.
What went wrong?
Outside of his BB/K ratio, not much went right with his bat. His hitting was not good enough for the Giants to keep him on the roster. He only had ten hits in sixty-three plate appearances, although half of them were extra base hits. He had more strikeouts than he did hits, and his strikeout rate was not bad in comparison to the rest of MLB.
He had a pretty terrible game on September 27 with the Braves, going to the plate three times and striking out all three times in a 3-1 loss to the Pirates, but at that point, the caring about game results was pretty much at an all-time low for this franchise.
2026 outlook
Wisely is still under team control for the Braves. He is not arbitration-eligible until 2027, but he is out of minor league option years, so if the Braves want to keep him on the 40-man roster then he will have to stay on the MLB roster or else be put on waivers. Odds lean towards Wisely not making the cut, but they liked him enough to give him a shot, so it could hinge on offseason additions or subtractions.
That said, it’s not likely Wisely really changed his outlook at all in 2025 — he’s an all-glove, no-bat replacement level guy, who needs to hit at least passably to be worth rostering on the bench to leverage his defense. He turns 27 next May, so he’s not exactly aging out of relevance, but he’s going to need to show something more if he wants to move beyond “hey this 15th round pick made the majors, that’s pretty great even if he does nothing else!” territory.
