Braves News: Will Smith Ready to Join an Already Dominant Bullpen

The Atlanta Braves bullpen is already one of the best in baseball and they’ve been missing their greatest asset all year.

Perhaps one of the most surprising moves of the offseason was when the Atlanta Braves gave up a high draft pick in order to keep reliever Will Smith from accepting the qualifying offer from the San Francisco Giants.

To do that, they gave the lefty a three-year deal worth $40 million.

Up until that point the Braves had been very frugal with their spending on relief pitching.

But as it was the obvious weak spot for the team in 2019 and cost the Braves several games, GM Alex Anthopoulos wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

That mentality has paid off so far in 2020 as the Braves have the sixth-best bullpen ERA in baseball at 2.79, the ninth-best K/9 among bullpens at 10.24, and the one I love the most, they have the sixth-best BB/9 at 2.48.

For years you just had to turn off the TV whenever a Braves reliever came in because you knew they were going to walk everyone.

That’s not something you have to worry about much anymore with this group of relievers.

And they’ve been counted on a lot this season as the Braves haven’t had a starting pitcher not named Mike Soroka or Max Fried work beyond 5 innings in a game.

In fact, the Braves have the fourth most innings pitched by relievers in baseball at 58 innings. Of course, numbers like that are a bit skewed because of the number of games that haven’t been played by other teams. And the fact the Braves haven’t had a single off-day yet.

All that to say, the bullpen only figures to get strong with Smith now in the fold after testing positive for COVID-19 and missing summer camp.

In my opinion, Smith is the best reliever on this team and should be the team’s closer.

For now, those opportunities will likely go to Mark Melancon. And I’m sure Snitker might give Smith a few low-leverage situations to start so he can ease his way back into real games.

But it would not surprise me at all if Smith takes over the closer role quickly.

Either way, it’s a big breath of fresh air knowing that when Snitker does go to the bullpen these days we can feel pretty confident about whoever he brings in.