Atlanta Braves Acquire Josh Collmenter To Bulster Bullpen? Or Rotation??

Braves Trade For Collmenter and Wieland

The Atlanta Braves announced via Twitter this afternoon that they have acquired right-handed pitcher Josh Collmenter from the Chicago Cubs and right-handed pitcher Joe Wieland from the Seattle Mariners.

Interesting you say?  Well, Braves General Manager John Coppolella has done it again.  How he’s influencing other GM’s to do these trades is the bigger question.

The Braves will send cash to the Cubs and a player to be named later to the Mariners.

If you don’t remember the name, you’ll probably remember the funky windup Collmenter has or possibly his man-beard.

Collmenter is a six-year veteran in the MLB and has played almost all of his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks.  He was released by the DBacks on August 7 and picked up by the Cubs three days later.  He never saw the field at Wrigley, but started four games for the Cubs Triple-A squad.  He had a 2.24 ERA with 13 hits given up, four runs, eight walks and had nine strikeouts.

The 30-year-old has a career 3.54 ERA in the majors and has pitched as both a starter and a relief pitcher.  As of now, we’re unsure of where we’ll use Collmenter.

One other item…he loves pancakes!

Collmenter will join the Gwinnett Braves as they are currently in the Triple-A playoffs.  His last start with the Iowa Cubs was on Saturday, September 3rd.

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AJC’s David O’Brien mentioned on Twitter that the Braves may start him on Saturday against the Washington Nationals.  Though nothing is official, that may be stretching it for the veteran who could have thought his season was over…Iowa’s season ended on September 5th.

This is an interesting case, but I really don’t see him starting on Saturday for the Braves.  Maybe give him a start with Gwinnett, see how he does and then bring him up.  If not a starter, he could be used as a bullpen arm in Atlanta and that could happen very shortly.

Here are his split stats as a starter vs a reliever