{"id":964593,"date":"2026-11-14T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964593\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T21:04:09","slug":"nl-east-notes-braves-iglesias-nationals-thompson-marlins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964593\/","title":{"rendered":"NL East Notes: Braves, Iglesias, Nationals, Thompson, Marlins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Mark Polishuk<\/a> |
\n at November 14, 2026 2:33pm CDT <\/p>\n

The Braves made a big new bullpen addition by signing<\/a> Evan Phillips<\/a> on Thursday, and the Tigers just added<\/a> a prominent high-leverage reliever in Emilio Pagan<\/a>.\u00a0 Even after these moves,\u00a0reporter Francys Romero<\/a> writes that Atlanta and Detroit are still interested in veteran closer Raisel Iglesias<\/a>.\u00a0 For the Braves, it would mark the second straight offseason they\u2019ve re-signed Iglesias, after re-upping with the righty on a one-year, $16MM pact.<\/p>\n

Obviously there\u2019s plenty of familiarity between the two sides, and Iglesias has continue to pitch so well that there isn\u2019t much concern of a slowdown even after he enters his age-37 season.\u00a0 The Athletic\u2019s Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal<\/a> note that re-signing Iglesias to strengthen the bullpen would increase the chance that the Braves will use Didier Fuentes<\/a> as a starter next season, though Atlanta figures to add a more proven starter even if Fuentes is indeed stretched out in Spring Training.<\/p>\n

More from around the NL East\u2026<\/p>\n

The Nationals had one of baseball\u2019s worst bullpens in 2026, but while improving the relief corps is an obvious offseason goal, \u201crelievers who command multiple years and significant money are probably off the table,\u201d the Athletic\u2019s Spencer Nusbaum<\/a> writes.\u00a0 Since even contending teams often take this stance in acquiring relief help, it isn\u2019t too surprising that the still-rebuilding Nats aren\u2019t being too aggressive in adding the bullpen problem, even if Washington did exceed expectations with 77 wins last year.\u00a0 The rotation also needs help, and to this end D.C. seems more aggressive, as Nusbaum said the Nats have \u201casked around about controllable starting pitching in trade talks, and is casting a wider net than last season.\u201d
\nIn other Nationals news, Nusbaum reports that the team has hired John Morris as the team\u2019s new VP of baseball research.\u00a0 The role puts Morris in charge of \u201cthe baseball side of the Nats analytics department,\u201d as per Nusbaum.\u00a0 Morris comes to Washington from New York, where he worked as the Yankees\u2019 assistant director of quantitative analysis.
\nThe Marlins have hired Trayce Thompson<\/a> for a role in their baseball operations department, the Miami Herald\u2019s Barry Jackson<\/a> reports.\u00a0 The news presumably means the 35-year-old Thompson is retiring after a pro career that saw him play in parts of seven MLB seasons from 2015-23, and Thompson has spent the last three years in the minors, the Mexican League, in independent baseball, and playing for Great Britain\u2019s World Baseball Classic team.\u00a0 Thompson played for five different clubs at the MLB level, with 217 of his 369 career games coming in a Dodgers uniform.\u00a0 The ex-outfielder\u2019s best sustained offensive performance was a second-half surge with the 2022 Dodgers, and Thompson will finish his career with 45 homers and a .212\/.300\/.411 slash line in 1058 plate appearances in the bigs.\u00a0 MLB Trade Rumors congratulates Thompson on a fine career, and we wish him with the best as he begins this new direction in his baseball life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mark Polishuk | at November 14, 2026 2:33pm CDT The Braves made a big new bullpen addition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,10540,85,262084],"class_list":["post-964593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-raisel-iglesias","tag-sports","tag-trayce-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964593","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=964593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}