The Braves are among the clubs showing early interest in the free agent righty Walker BuehlerMLB Network’s Jon Morosi reports (video link).
Buehler, 30, hit free agency for the first time this winter and, despite his strong offseason, is often viewed as a rebounder after a rough 2024. This past season marked Buehler’s first year coming back from the second Tommy John surgery of his career, and some rust was evident.
After not pitching at all in 2023, Buehler threw 75 1/3 innings in the big leagues but posted a 5.38 ERA with career-worst strikeout and walk rates of 18.6% and 8.1%, respectively. His four homers, which averaged 96.5 mph from 2017-20, came in at an average of 95 mph, per Statcast. He entered 2024 with an 11.6% strikeout rate but posted an 8.2% strikeout rate in 2024 – ranked 190th out of 204 pitchers who pitched at least 70 innings.
The Padres rocked Buehler with six runs in five innings in his first postseason start, but he went out on a high note. Over the next 10 innings, he went scoreless, posting a 13-to-4 K/BB average in the process. That includes scoreless starts (four and five innings each), and what will go down as a shutout effort in the ninth inning of World Series Game 5, in which Buehler pitched the Yankees to win the LA championship just 48 hours after it ended. He started the 3rd game.
Atlanta’s need to strengthen the rotation is clear. See the Braves Fried Max again Charlie Morton they are free when the season ends. Spencer Strider he likely won’t be ready for Opening Day as he continues surgery from last year’s UCL surgery. The Braves’ rotation, as currently constructed, will be headlined by a Cy Young winner Chris Salemodified relief Reynaldo Lopez and 2024 rookie Spencer Schwellenbach. The fourth and fifth place options currently include Griffin Canning (found Jorge Soler), Ian Anderson, AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep again Bryce Elder.
Sale, of course, was the highlight of a 2024 season that has already earned him NL Comeback Player of the Year honors and is guaranteed to lead to his first career Cy Young Award. But as good as he was in ’24, the lefty will pitch next year at age 36 and have thrown a total of 151 innings over the four-year period before this renaissance for the Braves. It’s impossible (or shouldn’t) be assumed that he’s been good again in 29 to 33 starts a year. Similarly, Lopez was very good but missed time with an arm strain while breaking his recent career standards. The Braves are hoping both will be as effective in 2025 as they were in 2024 — and healthy or even healthy — but that’s far from a given.
Some kind of rotation addition is possible, and the Braves generally haven’t used the levels likely necessary to keep the Frieds — at least when it comes to free relievers. Most of their long-term deals are focused on players who come before arbitration or have not yet reached settlement. Those contracts all tend to start in a player’s mid or late 20s. Fried will be 31 next year. A reunion seems unlikely, especially with the Braves likely to pay the luxury tax for the third straight season and Fried likely to command an annual value north of $25MM. Atlanta will be taxed at least 50% of Fried’s annual value by 2025.
It is unclear what type of contract Buehler will command. At one point he was one of the game’s most promising aces, pitching 564 innings of 2.82 ERA ball with a 27.7% strikeout rate and a 6.1% walk rate from 2018-21. That version of Buehler hasn’t been seen in three years, though. It is possible that other clubs feel that there is enough impact to secure him for many years at this point. A two-year contract out sounds possible, and perhaps the club can put down a three-year offer with a modest AAV and hope for a return to form.
It’s worth noting, though, that the Dodgers are the team most familiar with Buehler, his medical history and what to expect from his performance going forward — and they chose not to extend the right-hander’s $21.05MM qualifying offer. On the one hand, that’s good news for his market and gives any club that signs him to a short-term deal a chance to recoup a draft pick compensation for their QO if Buehler performs well. On the other hand, a lack of QO can be interpreted as a red flag.
If Buehler agrees to a one-year contract, he fits the broad profile of what the Braves are targeting in free agent starting pitchers. Lopez’s three-year contract last season was the first time under Atlanta president of baseball Alex Anthopoulos that the team has signed a starter to a multi-year contract — though that would be considered an exception. The team expressed interest in trying to extend Lopez from the time of his signing, but there was always the possibility that he could return to a bullpen role if the tests didn’t work out. Anthopoulos was more willing to put down market average AAVs on relievers (in the $8-11MM range) than on regular starters. Anthopoulos also knows Buehler better than most free agents, given his previous role as vice president of baseball operations in the Dodger front office — a role he held while Buehler was being drafted and moving up through the Dodger system.
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