Rolddy Muñoz rolled into town for a rollicking good time. A whole whopping three innings. The right-handed relief prospect has relish-worthy velocity on his fastball and rolls a lot of grounders, but he also walks too many.
How acquired
Muñoz signed during the 2019 international free agency period for a whole $20,000.
What were the expectations?
The 25 year-old righty throws the ever-loving you-know-what out of the ball, but he has no idea where is going most of the time.
Coming into the year, he had actually done well in Double-A at the end
of 2024, with a strikeout rate approaching a third of batters faced, and a walk rate just barely above 10 percent. The assumption was probably something like a nice, long look in Spring Training, and then Triple-A to start the year before getting called up after a few months. He wasn’t really projected to be more than a replacement-level reliever given his issues with walks, and no one was really projecting the Braves’ bullpen to require a lot of innings from him.
2025 results
Muñoz didn’t last long in Spring Training before being sent down to Double-A. He threw a couple innings with a couple strikeouts, but like I said, the expectation was more to get his feet wet than being him up and in the running for a roster spot.
The repeat assignment at Double-A proved to be a bit of a rough assignment, though. I wonder sometimes if it’s a struggle mentally to get sent back to a level you succeeded at when the next level was available. Either way, he couldn’t get his strikeout rate above 24 percent, and his walk rate spiked to above 15 percent. Basically, this is the kind of thing that happens to relief prospects from time to time, but that didn’t make his potential any more exciting or anything.
He was promoted to Triple-A in late May despite the struggles, but continuing to have control issues, he was sent back down a month and a half later despite not pitching particularly poorly all-in-all at the higher level. It … didn’t get any better … but … they brought him back up in late August to Triple-A anyway.
He made two walk-less appearances (somehow), and the Braves apparently decided “We’ve seen enough!” and promoted him, with his major-league debut coming on September 2nd. His debut was not the worst thing ever, walking two but not allowing anything else over two innings. His other two appearances … were not. He walked two of three batters in his next appearance before being metaphorically engulfed in flames over 1 1/3 innings, getting charged with five runs, including a homer, though he walked one and struck out a guy for three of his four outs.
In total, he finished with -0.2 fWAR and a gross 290/236/167 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-), but we’re talking 3 2/3 innings in the majors here. In the minors, he had a collective 4.48 FIP and 4.01 xFIP, which made his 2.85 ERA a lot less interesting. Those aren’t horrible numbers, but they’re not exactly what you want to see from a guy working in relief that you’re considering using in the majors.
What went right?
Muñoz clearly has a talented arm.
Muñoz did a couple of things that are very worth holding onto him for. One, he throws very hard, and while velocity is not the only thing, it’s something akin to the most important thing. Two, he gets a lot of groundballs, with over 50 percent of his balls in play going on the ground. What you want to do is miss bats — plenty of whiffs there — and keep it on the ground when they do make contact.
At 25 years old, he’s also already made his debut, and that’s a good indication. There’s time to iron out the control and command, assuming that’s even a possibility with him, but getting to the majors is the major hurdle. No matter some of the ups-and-downs, the organization is and should give him plenty of chances.
Plus, his debut, as weighed down with poor peripherals as it was, came in a way that was helpful for the team. He took over in a one-run game (Braves trailing) after the leadoff man reached, got out of that inning on four pitches with two grounders, and then worked another scoreless frame by issuing back-to-back two-out walks and coming back to strike out the next batter (his first career strikeout).
Also, he can do stuff like this, which is always nice:
That’s a 93 mph slider thing that can combine with his arm action to be a potential nightmare.
What went wrong?
The control/command can still get bad. Or be bad. Take a look through his game log sometime.
You just can’t have that at the major-league level, but he’ll frequently have blow up outings where he walks two-plus batters, or is forced to lay in there and give up a homer. The “arm talent” is decidedly there, but he has to throw enough strikes to get to it.
The nature of that wildness is probably why he was sent to Double-A to start the year and also why he never really stuck at a level.
After he managed to keep a one-run game close in his debut, the Braves asked him to keep another one-run game close four days later. He walked the first batter he faced on five pitches. Then a pitch got away and pushed the runner to second, as part of a second consecutive five-pitch walk. Then he got the strikeout above, but when you come into a close game and throw nine of your first ten out of the zone, it’s not great. (The second walk had a terrible blown strike call on the first pitch, which is all that saved it from a four-pitch walk.)
2026 outlook
Muñoz is potentially a bullpen core piece moving forward … It’s just hard to guess at when and if.
On one hand, he may just never be able to throw enough strikes, and he may just move up and down between MLB and Triple-A as a frustrating depth piece until he runs out of options. For 2026, I expect he’ll be sent to Triple-A to start the season, and he’ll get yo-yoed back and forth between Triple-A and MLB as the team fills in for injuries and hopes he’s turned a corner.
On the other hand, guys with this kind of velocity, etc. can sometimes just simplify things, focus on just getting it over, and let the talent do the work. Maybe he becomes a monster reliever in the Andres Muñoz mold. Or maybe he washes out and no one thinks him again after we do a player review series for him next year.
Guys like this are fun because the outcomes are so wildly different but possible.
