2008.
Breaking Bad’s debut; the ending of The Wire.
2008.
A couple of the top movies of the year were The Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire.
2008.
Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz and
Julian Tavares (?!) suited up for the Atlanta Braves. So did a rookie hurler for Atlanta, Charlie Morton. And in Pittsburgh, a 24-year-old right-hander named Jesse Chavez debuted, too.
Fast-forward to 2025. Chavez, already a late-career bullpen icon with the Braves, called it a career after four more games with the team that he’d spent most of his time with since 2001
How acquired
It would take 500 words just to run down the list of transaction that Chavez has been a part of during his career. Click the link to last year’s article to start a deeper dive into all things transactions-related. The summary is Chavez played with Atlanta briefly in 2010 and then came back as a free agent in 2021. There were a bunch of trades and some DFAs over the last four years and yet somehow, Chavez and Atlanta found each other over and over again, partly because he seemed to have a degree of success in Atlanta that he wasn’t able to find elsewhere.
That happened again, for the last time, in 2025.
After signing a minor league deal with a Spring Training invitation with the Texas Rangers in January, he was shown the door to the free agent market on March 21. On March 22, Chavez signed with Atlanta, in the least-surprising sequence of events of all time.
Four times between April 1 and July 17, Chavez was either designated for assignment or released by the Braves, and every time he re-signed with Atlanta… until that final time.
On July 24, he called it a career at age 41.
What were the expectations?
From 2021-2023, Chavez was a bizarrely successful late-career reliever: he put up 2.4 fWAR across 137 2/3 innings in that span, which includes a number of poor performances when he spent time with the Cubs and Angels in 2022. His success also wasn’t an extended mirage, as he had a 68/73/83 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) in that span. He didn’t throw hard and he didn’t consistently manage contact, nor did he bamboozle guys into high strikeout rates and low walk rates. But he did just enough of all of those things except throwing hard to provide consistent, above-average value in a relief role, on the back of near-pinpoint command and an all-too-rare-these-days ability to put seemingly any pitch in his arsenal into seemingly any spot that could befuddle a batter.
In 2024, Chavez’ fairy-tale late 30s came to, if not an end, a weird interlude, as he posted a 75/111/96 line, and -0.2 fWAR in 63 1/3 innings of work as a result of his elevated HR/FB rate. His command wavered more than it had in the past few years, his velocity tumbled towards the bottom of MLB, and the corresponding erosion in strikeouts (mostly because batters stopped chasing his stuff) made him more of a generic long guy than a surprisingly awesome relief option.
What did that mean for 2025? Hard to tell. He was probably, at worst, still a decent mop-up reliever that was beloved in the clubhouse. At best, there was no reason to think that the kind of success he had from 37-39 was now suddenly off the table because he was now 41. He was projected to be a replacement-level arm on the back of his age, but it wasn’t hard to squint and guesstimate an average-y reliever given that it would only take a slight bounceback in his peripherals and some HR/FB fortune to get him back to productive territories. Plus, after what he did in 2021-2023 as a Brave, would you doubt the bespectacled reliever?
2025 results
Well, maybe you should have. In the end, Chavez pitched in just four games for Atlanta, all on the road, in three different months. He tossed a single game in March and April and then two games in July. All total, he gave the team eight innings but was charged with eight runs, in part due to the four home runs he allowed. He finished with -0.3 fWAR on the back of a 213/232/146 line.
He also spent quite a while pitching in Gwinnett, with a decent line that you’d kind of expect from a wily veteran bamboozling the kids and career minor leaguers that hang out in the International League.
Would Chavez’ line have improved with additional tries in the majors? Perhaps. His 1-in-4 HR/FB rate would’ve probably gone down, and maybe he wouldn’t have posted his highest walk rate in a single season since 2011. In the end, it’s all academic, as Chavez called it a career just a few weeks after his final appearance.
What went right?
He came back. Again and again and again and again. While the 2025 season didn’t go — or end — the way anyone would have wanted for the 18-year big league veteran, his determination and perseverance is a reminder of how powerful those skills can be… not to mention his ability to make lemonade out of a completely out-of-vogue skillset in today’s bullpens.
What went wrong?
The home runs. The walks. Chavez allowed at least one earned run in each of his four outings and gave up four home runs. He also allowed five walks, which offset the eight strikeouts he collected.
The first three of those outings came in garbage time, as the Braves were down 5-0, up 8-1, and down 5-0 again in those games when Chavez entered. The fourth, though, was a real bummer, as Chavez came in with a 3-1 lead, combined with the defense to blow it, and then stuck around to allow a two-run homer that eventually resulted in a one-run loss to the Cardinals. The homer was definitely a low note, but here’s how the Cardinals tied the game.
Ouch.
2026 outlook
Retirement.
Uncle Jesse opted to ride off into retirement and might be joined by his teammate back in 2009 and again during his recent run in Atlanta, Uncle Charlie.
Chavez spent parts of six of his 18 seasons with Atlanta, appearing in 180 games while putting up the best overall numbers of any of the nine organizations for whom he appeared at the big league level. With 229 1/3 innings and a save to boot, Chavez’s contributions to Atlanta may not mean a lot to fans 50 years from now, but for this generation of Braves fans, Chavez will be part of the lore of the 2021 World Series Championship team and the years that followed.
Here’s one last tip of the cap to one of the most beloved non-superstar Braves players of this century.
