Braves Bullpen Boost: New Lefty Becomes a Dominant Force
The Atlanta Braves have filled a major gap in their bullpen just before Spring Training. At the cost of Ian Anderson, José Suarez will be the left-hander to fill the gap left by AJ Minter’s departure.
When looking at his stats, nothing necessarily stands out on the surface. Suarez has a career 5.47 ERA and had a 6.02 ERA in 22 appearances last season. The Braves are going to have to crack a code for this to work. They’ve done it before, and they can likely do it again.
This is a deep dive into what the Braves could potentially tap for success.
When looking at what could make a pitcher more effective, the first easy look is at his arsenal. According to Baseball Savant, one pitch consistently gets batters out. Another is a hazard. It can be ditched entirely.
His best pitch is his sweeper. Hitters bat .167 and have a .233 slugging percentage against Suarez’s sweeper. Its put-away rate is 21.5% and its whiff rate is 38.6%. This should immediately be his primary pitch.
After making the sweeper his primary pitch, the four-seamer needs to go entirely. The Angels have been making it a higher percentage of his pitch mix even though its never been effective. Each season, hitters have batted .280 or better and slugged over .500 against it most years. The lowest slugging percentage against Suarez’s four-seam fastball is .480.
As a reliever, you don’t need to mix pitches and pace yourself the same way that a starter does. There’s more room to attack the zone with a pitch or two to get through the three or four hitters (ideally) you’ll see in the game.
Another pitch that Suarez could use in tandem with his sweeper is his changeup. While it hasn’t been as effective the last two seasons, he’s had success with it previously. Hitters had a .459 slugging percentage against the change up in 2024. However, it still had a 25.5% putaway rate and a 33.3% whiff rate. Some work on location in the strike zone could go a long way.
It will take some adjustments to make this work, but the Braves have something here that will alow them to work their magic with bullpen arm yet again.
