Aaron Bummer has truly had a fascinating career. If we’re judging solely by the eye test, he’s had the type of career that makes you wonder if he just walks under ladders, breaks mirrors and hangs out with black cats all the time because of his hilariously high BABIP-against numbers and the fact that he still remained productive regardless of the bad luck. Bummer made it through two seasons with the Braves while still being a pretty solid reliever — though 2024 was clearly better than his 2025.
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that being said, things finally hit the wall for Bummer in 2026, as he ended up not being too much of a positive factor for the Braves during his time here. It’s time to check out how things went for Bummer and the Braves in 2026.
How Acquired
The Braves initially picked up Bummer in a trade following the 2023 season that sent Riley Gowens, Nicky Lopez, Braden Shewmake, Jared Shuster and Michael Soroka. Following the 2024 season, the Braves restructured their deal with Bummer and he ended up making $3.5 million for 2025 and was set to make $9.5 million for 2026.
What were the expectations?
Based on the contract restructure, it was clear that the Braves figured that Bummer would play a key role in the bullpen and bounce back from what was a rocky (and injury-affected) season in 2025. Remember, Bummer ended up going down for the season with shoulder inflammation during August 2025, following a pretty strange year in which he was asked to do a lot of things he didn’t usually do, like pitch long outings and make starts that saw him stay in the game until he was falling apart. Did those things cause his shoulder injury? It’s hard to say. In any case, maybe the expectations should’ve been lower considering that that’s a pretty tough injury to come back from in a lot of cases. Still, Bummer made the Opening Day roster and was put in a position to take on some quality innings early on in the season.
Projections-wise, his outlook was basically a repeat of his 2025 (0.4 fWAR in 54 innings). That was actually substantially worse than his prior performance (1.1 fWAR in 55 innings as a Brave in 2024), but was probably a good gauge given the injury situation.
2026 Results
Bummer just never looked right during his time with the Braves, which only lasted through mid-May. In the occasion where he didn’t give up an earned run, he still looked shaky at best getting through an inning or he likely surrendered a run from the situation that he inherited. This wasn’t a case of bad luck affecting him like it had in the past — Bummer was just unable to get any type of good results while he was here. He only ended up throwing 15.1 innings the for Braves this season and finished with an ERA of 7.63 (182 ERA- and remember, 100 is league average) and a FIP of 8.64 (208 FIP-, again, 100 is league average). Nor was this a case of some sort bad-results-only thing, as his xFIP was 6.05 (144 xFIP-).
The nadir came on May 18, which is when the Braves sent him out there while down 6-0 just to hopefully eat an inning. He did eventually finish the inning but that was only after he walked five batters and gave up two homers and a single on his way to surrendering six runs across 11 batters faced. Bummer was released two days later, then the Cubs signed him to a minor-league deal on May 27. He opted out of that deal on July 17, signed with the Royals on July 20, which is where he made two appearances for Kansas City in early-August. He gave up three runs in each of those appearances and was promptly sent down to Triple-A following the second appearance. Bummer elected free agency on August 7 and that was the last time he’d been seen near a big league organization.
What went right?
He pitched a scoreless inning against the Dodgers on May 8, so that was cool. The Braves didn’t win that one but it was certainly an outing to be proud of, as he sat down Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman in order with three straight fly-outs. Though, given how Bummer succeeds, even that kind of tells you there was an issue, since giving up contact in the air really hasn’t been part of his game.
Bummer did manage to record two shutdowns (to five meltdowns) on the season, but just like the Dodgers outing, they didn’t feel right. His highest WPA outing of the year came back on April 10: Bryce Elder had given up the go-ahead run to the Guardians and departed with the bases loaded and two out. Bummer came in and got a pop to shortstop to end the game; the Braves then turned the game into a blowout in the next inning, hitting three homers in the span of eight batters.
To find an actual throwback Bummer outing, you have to go to April 24. The Braves had just turned a deficit into a two-run lead, and Bummer was asked to face Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. Both grounded out meekly to second: Schwarber after a 12-pitch battle and Harper on the first pitch. Then, there was an infield single before Brandon Marsh flew out. That was probably Bummer’s best outing-in-a-close game of the year.
What went wrong?
Other than that, this was a nightmare season for Bummer. His velocity continued to drop precipitously and that was likely due to the fact that he hadn’t fully recovered from his shoulder ailment in 2025. Baseball Savant’s metrics aren’t the be-all, end-all of player evaluation but if your page is looking about as blue as a Toronto Maple Leafs home game, that’s not great at all!
The only thing that went remotely well for Bummer is that he was still inducing ground balls at a pretty high rate but that doesn’t really mean much when the average exit velocity is still sitting around 92 mph. It was also a notable drop — from 60 percent in 2024 and 53 percent in 2025 to 45 percent in 2026. Bummer also gave up six home runs in 2026 — he did that in just under 16 innings pitched, while it took him 109 2/3 innings to give up five homers across the 2024 and 2025 seasons. His strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, his walk rate was his highest since 2023, and his HR/9 had absolutely skyrocketed. In a cruel twist of fate, his BABIP was as low as it had ever been but perhaps it was proof that there was nothing that Bummer could blame this on but himself and the injury issued that he tried to work his way through. It just didn’t work out for Aaron Bummer in 2026.
It’s hard to pick a low point in a few weeks full of them, but April 13 could do the trick. The Braves had just battled back from a three-run deficit to tie the game, and on came Bummer for the fifth. There were two groundball singles, and then Agustin Ramirez whacked a three-run homer and the game descended into a Marlins blowout. Bummer hadn’t been pitching well to that point, but he had actually managed to avoid getting charged with any runs… but that outing was kind of the dam starting to show some cracks and the deluge eventually washed him off the roster.
2027 Outlook
Aaron Bummer is a left-handed reliever, which means that someone out there is going to give him an opportunity to pitch for them if he even shows remote signs of returning to form. It’ll all depend on whether or not he can actually get over his shoulder injuries and get back to his style of success. If that happens, then it wouldn’t be particularly shocking to see him latch onto another organization at some point. If not, then this may have been the last we see of Bummer in the big leagues since his velocity and command had both dropped to a point where any major-league caliber hitter would be able to do some serious damage against him.
Either way, it speaks to how weird this Braves team was. Bummer figured to be an important part of this bullpen, only ended up throwing just under 16 innings and Atlanta’s bullpen ended up performing at a high level, regardless. Man plans while the baseball gods laugh. Hopefully Bummer will be able to make a comeback in the future — it just likely won’t be with the Braves.
While he’ll probably get a shot, he was so bad in 2026 that his outlook is pretty much “below average reliever” at this point… which is really just an average of “no longer playable” and “recovers from shoulder injuries and is back to his old self.” Sure, someone will take a flier with little financial commitment, but banking on a reliever coming off shoulder woes and an awful season is even riskier than banking on a reliever where neither of those things are true.
