{"id":378820,"date":"2025-12-31T00:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/378820\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T00:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:32:08","slug":"braves-jose-azocar-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/378820\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves, Jose Azocar Agree To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves are in agreement with Jos\u00e9 Azocar<\/a> on a minor league contract, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball<\/a>. The fleet-footed outfielder will be in camp as a non-roster invitee.<\/p>\n

Azocar had a brief stint on Atlanta\u2019s MLB roster this year. He signed a big league deal on May 30 and spent a little over two weeks on Brian Snitker\u2019s bench. He was limited to two appearances, both as a late-game substitute, and flew out in his only at-bat. The Venezuela native also got into 12 games with the Mets earlier in the year. He made five starts and went 5-18 (all singles) with a pair of walks and a stolen base.<\/p>\n

Aside from his couple weeks on Atlanta\u2019s bench, Azocar spent the rest of the year in the Mets organization. He returned to New York on a minor league contract after the Braves cut him loose in mid-June. He played out the season at Triple-A Syracuse, batting .241\/.314\/.352 in just under 300 plate appearances. Azocar stole 17 bases in the minors but had his third consecutive below-average offensive season. He owns a .276\/.318\/.416 line over parts of five Triple-A campaigns and is a career .244\/.290\/.319 hitter in 418 MLB plate appearances.<\/p>\n

Azocar isn\u2019t going to provide much at the plate, but he\u2019s a plus-plus runner who can play all three outfield positions. Defensive Runs Saved has rated him as an average defender in a little more than 1000 career innings. Statcast\u2019s Outs Above Average is a little more bullish, grading him four runs above par. Most of the defensive value comes from his 2022 rookie season in San Diego, when he appeared in a career-high 98 games.<\/p>\n

Atlanta has four established outfielders in\u00a0Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a>,\u00a0Michael Harris II<\/a>,\u00a0Mike Yastrzemski<\/a> and\u00a0Jurickson Profar<\/a>. They have a few out-of-options players (Mauricio Dub\u00f3n<\/a>, Eli White<\/a> and\u00a0Vidal Bruj\u00e1n<\/a>) who could provide some speed off the bench if they make the team. Bruj\u00e1n\u2019s split contract makes him a candidate to run through waivers at some point, but Azocar would remain sixth on the outfield depth chart. He\u2019s unlikely to break camp barring an injury to someone ahead of him during Spring Training. It\u2019s likely he\u2019ll head to Triple-A Gwinnett to start the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves are in agreement with Jos\u00e9 Azocar on a minor league contract, reports Aram Leighton of Just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[148192,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-378820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-jose-azocar","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}