The Braves pulled a huge whistle just before the deadline, and gained even closer Rizel Iglesias From Angels in exchange for a promotional possibility tucker davidson and right Jesse ChavezFanSided’s Robert Murray reports (Twitter link). Ken Rosenthal from The Athletic Tweets That Braves will pay for the remainder of Iglesias’ contract – a four-year, $58 million deal covering the 2022-25 seasons.
It’s a last-second surprise to bring one of the game’s most popular late-break sedatives to the already deep arena of Atlanta. Iglesias has fallen off since a great start to the season but still has a reasonable 4.04 ERA with an excellent strike rate of 32.9% and a walking rate of 6.2% so far this season. Dating back to 2017 – Iglesias’ first full-time game (and then with the Reds) – he hit a combined 2.99 ERA while beating 32% of his opponents for just 7.1% walking rate.
Iglesias’s 95.3-mph fastball averaged less than an hour during the 2021 season, and his 14.9% swing hit rate is the second-lowest mark he’s posted as a full-time savior. Both are at least minor red flags, especially when paired with their recent slump, but for most of the season Iglesias has seemed part of improving the quality of leverage, even if his numbers are a bit below his career best last year.
More is coming.
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