{"id":733015,"date":"2026-06-13T01:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733015\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T01:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:32:14","slug":"braves-release-maverick-handley-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733015\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Release Maverick Handley – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves announced they\u2019ve released catcher\u00a0Maverick Handley<\/a>, who\u2019d been on optional assignment with Triple-A Gwinnett. That opens a 40-man roster spot for\u00a0Hurston Waldrep<\/a>, who was reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A. Atlanta also outrighted\u00a0Carlos Carrasco<\/a> yet again after designating<\/a> him for assignment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Waldrep has been out all season after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow at the beginning of Spring Training. The 2023 first-round pick had entered camp as a lock for the rotation after turning in a 2.88 earned run average through 56 1\/3 innings. Waldrep\u2019s injury was one of a number of Spring Training hits for the Atlanta pitching staff.\u00a0Spencer Schwellenbach<\/a> has yet to return from his own elbow procedure.\u00a0Spencer Strider<\/a> began the year on the injured list, while\u00a0Joey Wentz<\/a> tore his ACL.<\/p>\n

The Braves have more than weathered those injuries.\u00a0Chris Sale<\/a>, as expected, has been fantastic. Bryce Elder<\/a> has had an excellent season to stabilize the middle of the rotation. Strider returned in early May.\u00a0Grant Holmes<\/a> and\u00a0Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez<\/a> have gotten decent results despite middling strikeout and walk marks.<\/p>\n

Atlanta has a reasonably stable five-man group for the time being. They\u2019ve already bumped\u00a0Reynaldo L\u00f3pez<\/a> to the bullpen. Rookie righties\u00a0JR Ritchie<\/a> and\u00a0Didier Fuentes<\/a> are also in relief for the time being, the former after being recalled on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Waldrep figures to crack that group within the next few weeks. He just began a rehab assignment at the Florida complex before moving to Double-A Columbus yesterday. He went 3 2\/3 innings and tossed 53 pitches. Waldrep was only two weeks into what could have been a 30-day rehab assignment. It\u2019s not clear why the Braves elected instead to activate him to the 40-man roster just to have him continuing building up with Gwinnett.<\/p>\n

The righty was being paid an MLB salary and accruing service time while on the 60-day injured list, even on the rehab stint. That\u2019ll no longer be the case while he\u2019s in Gwinnett. The salary savings for the team are marginal, however, and there\u2019s no particular reason for service time to be a factor. Waldrep had 103 days of MLB service entering the season. He has already topped the 69 days he needed to surpass the one-year threshold.<\/p>\n

Whatever the rationale, Waldrep will probably be back up before long. He clearly has a higher upside than Holmes or P\u00e9rez if he\u2019s at full strength. Waldrep will burn his third minor league option year if he spends at least 20 days in Gwinnett, but the Braves would likely be granted a fourth option next offseason because of his limited professional experience.<\/p>\n

The procedural move pushed Handley off the roster. Atlanta claimed him off waivers a few weeks back after losing\u00a0Sean Murphy<\/a> and\u00a0Drake Baldwin<\/a> to injury. They immediately optioned him to Triple-A as a third catcher behind\u00a0Sandy Le\u00f3n<\/a> and\u00a0Chadwick Tromp<\/a>. The Braves subsequently swapped in\u00a0Austin Wynns<\/a> for Tromp.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re still light on catching depth for the next few days, but Baldwin is set to begin a rehab assignment tomorrow. Handley wasn\u2019t providing any short-term insurance regardless, as he landed on the Triple-A injured list last week. If he clears release waivers, he\u2019ll be a free agent. The 28-year-old has otherwise spent his entire career in the Baltimore organization, appearing in 17 MLB games over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves announced they\u2019ve released catcher\u00a0Maverick Handley, who\u2019d been on optional assignment with Triple-A Gwinnett. That opens a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,302689,228184,328586,591,85],"class_list":["post-733015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlos-carrasco","tag-hurston-waldrep","tag-maverick-handley","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733015","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=733015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}