{"id":538830,"date":"2026-03-22T15:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/538830\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T15:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:52:08","slug":"meet-didier-fuentes-braves-20-year-old-pitching-phenom-on-mlb-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/538830\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Didier Fuentes, Braves’ 20-year old pitching phenom on MLB Opening Day roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Didier Fuentes, Braves’ 20-year old pitching phenom on MLB Opening Day roster<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was far from a given, but it’s happening.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Didier Fuentes is going to be on the Atlanta Braves<\/a>‘ Opening Day roster.<\/p>\n

The 20-year old right-handed pitcher is making the MLB club, with the news reported Saturday by ESPN’s Jeff Passan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fuentes actually debuted in the majors last season, making four short starts with Atlanta in a pinch due to pitcher injuries.<\/p>\n

Now, he earns his spot in the majors, and Passan writes that it’s going to be a bullpen role to start for Fuentes.<\/p>\n

Fuentes wasn’t going to win a spot in Atlanta’s rotation. Those belong to Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez, Spencer Strider, Grant Holmes and one of Bryce Elder or Jose Suarez.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

But it’ll be major league Opening Day for Fuentes, which is exciting.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Big Papi’s son has a special moment for the Red Sox<\/a><\/p>\n

Who is Didier Fuentes?<\/p>\n

Didier Fuentes is a 20-year old right-handed pitcher for the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n

He’ll turn 21 on June 17.<\/p>\n

He’s originally from Colombia, and he signed with the Braves in January 2022 when he was 16.<\/p>\n

Didier Fuentes already made Braves history<\/p>\n

When Fuentes made his MLB debut on June 20, 2025, three days after turning 20, he made Atlanta history.<\/p>\n

He was the third-youngest starting pitcher in Braves history.<\/p>\n

It didn’t go great for Fuentes, who had a 13.85 ERA in 13 innings, but he was still a relatively inexperienced minor league pitcher in a tough spot in the majors.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

A year later, he’s expected to be fully ready for the gig.<\/p>\n

Didier Fuentes pitches<\/p>\n

Didier Fuentes threw four pitch types during his time in the majors in 2025.<\/p>\n

His fastball averaged 96 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

He threw a sweeper about a quarter of the time, then a curveball and splitter less than that.<\/p>\n

In an admittedly very small sample size, batters hit just .188 off of Fuentes’ sweeper but mashed his fastball (.486 average).<\/p>\n

If he can work his fastball more effectively to pair with the sweeper, he can be solid out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meet Didier Fuentes, Braves’ 20-year old pitching phenom on MLB Opening Day roster originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2111,241341,190967,58368,90189,99956,33292,37884,363,28624,136689,18702,99],"class_list":["post-538830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-atlanta-history","tag-big-papi","tag-bryce-elder","tag-chris-sale","tag-didier-fuentes","tag-grant-holmes","tag-jeff-passan","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-reynaldo-lopez","tag-spencer-strider","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538830","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=538830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}