{"id":663552,"date":"2026-05-12T02:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663552\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T02:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:47:19","slug":"braves-jose-azocar-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663552\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves, Jose Azocar Agree To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves and outfielder Jose Azocar<\/a> are reuniting on a new minor league deal, per the team\u2019s transaction log at MLB.com<\/a>. He\u2019d previously been designated for assignment by Atlanta and briefly elected free agency after clearing waivers.<\/p>\n

Azocar, 30 today, went hitless in his only two plate appearances with Atlanta (and in his lone Braves plate appearance last season as well). He\u2019s a career .243\/.288\/.318 hitter in 420 big league plate appearances. Azocar has swiped 20 bags and popped two homers in the majors. Most of his big league time has come with the Padres, though he also appeared in a dozen games with the Mets last year.<\/p>\n

Azocar is out to a fine start in Triple-A this year. He\u2019s taken 113 plate appearances with Atlanta\u2019s Gwinnett affiliate and slashed .270\/.348\/.420 with a couple homers, eight steals, a 10.6% walk rate and a 16.8% strikeout rate. Those slash stats are near mirror images of Azocar\u2019s career marks in Triple-A. He\u2019s played parts of six seasons at the top minor league level and notched a .276\/.321\/.416 batting line in 1203 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s never been a huge threat with the bat, Azocar possesses plus speed (88th percentile in 2025, per Statcast) and is a quality defender in all three outfield spots. He\u2019s spent 459 big league innings in center, 370 in right and 238 in left. Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average both peg him as at least average in all three slots, with Azocar\u2019s center field work standing as his most effective to date.<\/p>\n

The Braves placed Eli White<\/a> \u2014 another speedy, glove-first, righty-swinging outfielder \u2014 on the injured list earlier this morning. However, his IL placement coincided with Ha-Seong Kim<\/a>\u2018s return from the injured list, which is going to mean less infield work for Mauricio Dub\u00f3n<\/a> and Jorge Mateo<\/a>, both of whom can play the outfield. With that pair supporting the trio of Mike Yastrzemski<\/a>, Michael Harris II<\/a> and Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a>, there\u2019s no need for another speed-and-defense outfielder on the bench. If the Braves incur more injuries in the outfield, however, Azocar could get another look, given that the Braves don\u2019t have any minor league outfielders on the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves and outfielder Jose Azocar are reuniting on a new minor league deal, per the team\u2019s transaction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,242021,462,82],"class_list":["post-663552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jose-azocar","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}