Amid the non-tender rubble, two relievers whom the Braves should call
Some useful pitchers were cut loose on Friday.
By my count, 61 players across Major League Baseball were non-tendered on Friday.
Most of these players are newly available for obvious reasons. Some, like Jordan Romano, are high performers whose injury concerns overshadow the quality work that would have rewarded them richly (at least within the limits of arbitration) in a few months. Others, like Josh Rojas, are big leaguers who have simply run out of runway with their clubs. We can assume that every team that non-tendered a player would have happily traded that player for a scintilla of value - a 35 FV prospect, a refilled soda machine, anything. If, say, the Braves valued the Cubs’ Adbert Alzolay at the $2.3 million1 that he was projected to receive in arbitration, they would’ve traded for him. So we can infer that the non-tender list is a list of players that all 30 teams have decided are not worth their arb estimates.
That said, there are valuable players who are now looking for a new home - including players who performed well in 2024! In particular, the free agent pool of relievers just got a little deeper. With A.J. Minter a free agent and Joe Jiménez to miss at least a bulk of the season recovering from knee surgery, it’s a safe bet that Alex Anthopoulos will add at least two relievers to the bullpen. And as much as Anthopoulos enjoys shopping for relievers at Erewhon, he’s done some of his best bullpen shopping at Dollar General. Tyler Matzek, Grant Holmes, Jesse Chavez, and Dylan Lee have all pitched critical innings for the team over the last few years after being acquired for peanuts, to say nothing of innings-eaters like Jackson Stephens and Michael Tonkin.
Let’s look at a couple of relievers who might be the next in that storied lineage. I’m listing the arb estimate for each player as a sort of salary ceiling - remember, if a team was willing to pay that amount or more, they would’ve simply traded for the player before he was non-tendered.
Hoby Milner, LHP
The essentials: Milner is entering his age-34 season. He has spent the last four seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, who non-tendered him rather than pay an estimated $2.7 million to bring him back in 2025.
What he did in 2024: Milner pitched 64.2 innings at a 4.73 ERA/3.15 xERA/3.14 FIP/3.15 xFIP clip.
Why he fits: Milner is a left-handed Darren O’Day. He throws sub-90-mile-per-hour fastballs from a submarine slot and it works great. He’s also a model of consistency. In the last three seasons, Milner has thrown between 64.1 and 64.2 innings each year. At no point has he posted an xERA worse than 3.39. a FIP worse than 3.16, or a xFIP worse than 3.66.
In 2023, Milner overperformed his peripherals and posted a 1.82 ERA. In 2024, the underlying stuff stayed the same - his strikeout rate increased half a point, his walk rate remained unchanged, his ground-ball rate increased a point. But he ended up with a 4.73 ERA, thanks to a horrid strand rate and other forms of rotten luck.
The Brewers aren’t stupid - and almost certainly no team is stupid enough to judge pitchers by their ERAs, anyway - so either they’re acting on proprietary information or they simply think they can get good relief pitching for less than Milner’s arbitration price. Maybe they’re right. But I’d happily pay something like $2 million to add Milner to the Braves’ lefty reliever mix.
Austin Voth, RHP
The essentials: Voth is entering his age-33 season. After spending the bulk of his career with the Washington Nationals, he spent part of 2022 and all of 2023 with the Baltimore Orioles and spent 2024 with the Seattle Mariners, who non-tendered him rather than pay an estimated $2.2 million to bring him back in 2025.
What he did in 2024: Voth pitched 61 innings at a 3.69 ERA/3.27 xERA/4.12 FIP/3.93 xFIP clip.
Why he fits: For all of their struggles with hitters, the Mariners have the Midas touch with pitchers. By ERA, xERA, and xFIP, Voth put up his best campaign since 2019. A lot has changed since then; Voth made all of his 2024 appearances out of the bullpen, and his cutter, which was his primary pitching 2024, wasn’t in his arsenal at all five years ago. And while he wasn’t used in much leverage - Voth had the eighth-highest leverage index of Mariners relievers who threw more than 10 innings - he was excellent. We’re talking 87th percentile xERA, 99th percentile hard-hit rate, and better than average strikeout and walk rates.
We can nitpick. It would be great if he’d induce more ground balls and post a lower barrel rate. The stuff models think his arsenal is fine, not special. But I’m shocked nobody wanted to pay Voth $2.2 million. With Jesse Chavez likely retiring (and at least a free agent) and Grant Holmes potentially contending for a back-end rotation spot, Voth would give the Braves a solid middle reliever who could be stretched out as an emergency starter or just mop up multiple innings.
Milner and Voth are fun to think about in part because the stakes are so low. These are players with low arb numbers that it seems the whole league nonetheless thought were too high. But baseball can crown odd heroes sometimes; Drew Smyly threw a few critical innings in the Braves’ 2021 run, after all. Milner and Voth would be inexpensive acquisitions. But for a bullpen that could use some reinforcements, either - or both - would be welcome.
All arb estimates in this article (and elsewhere on this site) come from Matt Swartz at MLBTR.