{"id":183983,"date":"2025-10-02T02:14:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T02:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/183983\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T02:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T02:14:06","slug":"braves-outright-five-players-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/183983\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Outright Five Players – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves have begun offseason roster housekeeping. Atlanta announced they\u2019ve outrighted five players \u2014 outfielder Jarred Kelenic<\/a>, right-handers Alexis D\u00edaz<\/a> and Dane Dunning<\/a>, catcher Sandy Le\u00f3n<\/a>, and utility player Luke Williams<\/a> \u2014 off the 40-man roster. They\u2019ll all be minor league free agents in the next couple weeks.<\/p>\n

Atlanta had 11 players finish the season on the 60-day injured list. They\u2019ll all need to be activated or placed on waivers within five days of the end of the World Series. This clears five spots, and two more will open when\u00a0Raisel Iglesias<\/a> and\u00a0Marcell Ozuna<\/a> reach free agency.\u00a0Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> will need to decide on his $16MM player option. They\u2019ll need to drop at least three more players\u00a0(four if Kim doesn\u2019t opt out) within the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

These were all relatively easy cuts, though it marks an unceremonious end to Kelenic\u2019s disappointing time in Atlanta. The Braves took a lot of dead money off Seattle\u2019s books to acquire the former top prospect during the 2023-24 offseason. He hit .231\/.286\/.393 with a near-30% strikeout rate across 449 plate appearances in 2024.<\/p>\n

Atlanta signed Jurickson Profar<\/a> to replace him as the starting left fielder. With\u00a0Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a> rehabbing ACL surgery and Profar getting suspended for a failed PED test, Kelenic had another shot early in the season. He batted .167 and played his way off the MLB roster by the third week of April. Kelenic\u2019s only MLB appearance after that was as a pinch runner on July 30.<\/p>\n

Things were equally bleak in Triple-A. The 25-year-old hit .213\/.286\/.309 with only four homers while striking out at a 27.6% clip with Gwinnett. Kelenic has never found sustained MLB success but had reliably hit Triple-A pitching until this year. As a former sixth overall pick, he\u2019ll get minor league offers, but it\u2019d be a surprise if he commands a major league contract.<\/p>\n

The Braves grabbed D\u00edaz off waivers from the Dodgers in early September. They had roster space to burn and wanted a look at a former All-Star closer who had recorded 28 saves with Cincinnati just last season. D\u00edaz had an uphill path to a 2026 bullpen spot and certainly didn\u2019t do much to convince the Braves to keep him around. He walked five batters and gave up five runs (four earned) in 2 2\/3 innings. D\u00edaz had a nightmare season between three teams, giving up 17 runs over 17 2\/3 big league frames. He also struggled to a 5.61 ERA across 25 2\/3 Triple-A innings.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz made $4.5MM this year in his first trip through arbitration. He would\u2019ve made something close to or matching that if he were tendered a contract. That\u2019s an easy pass for the team coming off the season he had. D\u00edaz has never had strong command, and his velocity and strikeouts have dipped since his excellent first two MLB campaigns. The 29-year-old could also be in minor league deal territory.<\/p>\n

The Braves acquired Dunning from the Rangers in July. It was a salary dump for Texas and one of a number of buy-low fliers that Atlanta took as members of their pitching staff kept dropping to injuries. Dunning was an up-and-down reliever for the Braves and gave up 12 earned runs in 10 innings. Le\u00f3n, a longtime third or fourth catcher, finished the season on the MLB roster after\u00a0Sean Murphy<\/a> underwent hip surgery. He appeared in five games and went 1-12. Williams got into 45 contests as the last man off the bench and designated position player pitcher in blowouts. He hit .129 and owns a career .212\/.270\/.280 slash over 349 plate appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves have begun offseason roster housekeeping. Atlanta announced they\u2019ve outrighted five players \u2014 outfielder Jarred Kelenic, right-handers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[54364,64,63,4128,117693,117694,591,89703,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-183983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alexis-diaz","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-dane-dunning","12":"tag-jarred-kelenic","13":"tag-luke-williams","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-sandy-leon","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}