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Braves extend Reynaldo Lopez and Aaron Bummer
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Braves extend Reynaldo Lopez and Aaron Bummer

Apparently there's never a dull moment with these Braves, even if the move itself mostly just involves moving money back and forth:

It's hard to think about these new contracts without considering the context of the previous deals. After all, both Aaron Bummer and Reynaldo Lopez were already under contract through the 2025 season, assuming the Braves wanted Bummer back at the price of his club option. So let's go player by player.

Bummer's future services for the Braves were tied to a number of club options: $7.25 million for the 2025 season with a $1.25 million buyout and then $7.5 million for the 2026 season with the same $1.25 million buyout. Essentially, the Braves could have paid Bummer $14.75 million for 2025-2026, or $8.5 million for 2025 alone, or $1.25 million to make him go away. Now they are paying him less than the scheduled amount for the 2025-2026 period, i.e. $13 million, but at the expense of the guarantee for both years. The move will also move cash, as Bummer will earn much more in 2026 than it did in 2025 (though it won't have a significant competitive balance tax impact).

The crap was phenomenal in 2024, with 1.1 fWAR in '55 13 innings (86 ERA, 57 FIP, 63 xFIP). It's perhaps a little strange to see the Braves give guaranteed dollars to a guy they didn't want to use with much leverage despite his pitching success, but something similar happened last offseason with Joe Jimenez, so for the most part we can just hoping Bummer might get leverage assignments commensurate with his pitching quality in 2025 and 2026.

Lopez signed a three-year, $30 million contract last offseason that included an $8 million option for 2027 (with a $4 million buyout included in the $30 million). Of that $30 million, he only earned $4 million in 2024, meaning he was essentially left with $26 million over two years (or $30 million over three years, if that Option 2027 was exercised). His new deal does almost nothing other than guarantee the option: it merely moves $3 million from his old deal, which would have paid out in 2025, into 2026. In other words, his old breakdown was 11/11/8 (or 4 if it was purchased). out) and his glitch is 14.8.8.

Lopez was a revelation for the Braves in 2024, finishing with 3.5 fWAR over 135 23 innings with an absurd 48/74/85 line. While he benefited from some significant HR/FB fluctuations in his favor and suffered through some injury scares that resulted in him being out for about a month in total, he avoided a serious decline in performance and never really hit the wall. While he slowed down in July, he bounced back after his time on the shelf and hit really well.

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