OXON HILL, Md. — At a Winter Meetings that saw the Braves turn away trade proposals that included many of their top prospects, the only pitcher to exit the organization did so at the team’s insistence.
Williams Perez was released on the final day of the Winter Meetings, a move made Thursday morning to open a spot on the 40-man roster before the Rule 5 draft. The Braves used the roster spot to take hard-throwing reliever Armando Rivero from the Cubs’ Triple-A team.
“It was tough to make a move with Williams; we like Williams a lot and wish him the best,” Braves general manager John Coppolella said. “With some of the veteran starting pitching that we added this year, as well as with the young kids that we have coming up, it seemed like that was from an area of strength.”
After Braves officials left the Winter Meetings and returned to Atlanta, they finalized a trade that sent pitching prospects Tyrell Jenkins and lefty reliever Brady Feigl to the Rangers for hard-throwing reliever Luke Jackson. But until that deal was finalized Thursday night, the only pitcher sent away this week was Perez.
It was an unceremonious end to seven years in the Braves organization for Perez, 25, who was 9-9 with a 5.18 ERA in 34 games (31 starts) over two major league seasons. He had a 6.05 ERA in 11 starts in an injury-plagued 2016 season.
While the Braves didn’t rule out the possibility of re-signing Perez to a minor league deal, Coppolella said it was more likely Perez would get a major league offer from another team.
After a promising start to his rookie season in 2015, Perez had a series of nagging injuries that seemed to crop up at the most inopportune times and kept him from having any sustained success.
After giving up four runs and recording only one out in his major league debut at Washington on May 8, 2015, Perez was 3-0 with a 1.38 ERA and one homer allowed in his next eight games (six starts). But since then, he has a 6.05 ERA while allowing 18 home runs and 47 walks in 131 innings.
“I talked to Williams this morning and just thanked him for all he did for the Braves,” Coppolella said. “He’s a great person. He’s going to get a opportunity somewhere else, and I’m sure he’ll do very well.”
The selection of Rivero in the Rule 5 draft (along with lower-level pitcher in the minor league phase of the draft) was the only move made by the Braves at this year’s Winter Meetings, unless you count their signing of former Yankees power-armed relief prospect Jacob Lindgren on Sunday morning before the meetings got underway.
But the Braves said before the meetings began that they might not make any big moves because they had already done most of their heavy lifting — signing veteran starters Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey at last months’ GM meetings, signing super-utility veteran Sean Rodriguez on Thanksgiving and trading for Cardinals lefty Jaime Garcia on Dec. 1.
“We don’t want to make moves just to make moves,” Coppolella said. “You get here, you want to justify the reasons for being here. We all get excited and want to have that feeling of a deal being done and high-fives around the room. But we’ve been disciplined, we’ve made the tough choices. We’re very happy with where we’re at.”
They had some trade talks with the White Sox about All-Star left-handers Chris Sale (the ace subsequently traded to the Red Sox) and Jose Quintana, with the Rays about pitcher Chris Archer and with the Athletics about pitcher Sonny Gray, but in each case the Braves found the asking price too high.
They weren’t going to give up shortstop Dansby Swanson for Sale or anyone else, and they didn’t want to part with their younger top pitching prospects that other teams coveted.
The Braves also talked to free-agent catcher Welington Castillo’s agent and inquired about some other catchers and relievers, but none of the talks apparently advanced much during the Winter Meetings. They still could make a move to add a catcher, but the Braves don’t view it as a “need.”
They might also make a move to add another versatile bench player between now and spring training.
“There were a couple of things that we got close on, but nothing major,” Coppolella said before leaving the Winter Meetings hotel to catch a flight back to Atlanta. “I mean, we’re always looking for incremental gains, ways we can get better. But we’re happy with where we’re at as a Braves franchise. Two years into (rebuild), to be able to put a competitive and fun team on the field — which we feel we will — we’re very happy. And we hung onto our kids, and we’re going to keep building through young, homegrown talent.
“We can go to spring training with the team we have right now. Are there ways to get better? Absolutely. And we will look at those ways. But there isn’t any glaring need, at least we don’t feel, that we’ve got to fill. Obviously we’re really aggressive, but there’s nothing wrong with sitting back sometimes and getting a feel for what’s best for the Braves long-term. What you don’t want to do is make moves where you have that buyer’s remorse, where you look back and you’re like, you know, I got a good player but what did I give up? It’s a bad feeling.”
He added, “The other thing is, the offseason doesn’t end right now. I talked (Thursday morning) to the GM of a player that we’ve talked about earlier in the offseason, and he said, ‘Look, we’ll just keep talking.’ We’ve got plenty of time left. There’s still about eight weeks until spring training.”
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