{"id":49054,"date":"2025-04-17T21:51:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=49054"},"modified":"2025-04-17T21:51:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:51:46","slug":"braves-recall-alex-verdugo-option-bryan-de-la-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=49054","title":{"rendered":"Braves Recall Alex Verdugo, Option Bryan De La Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Darragh McDonald | <time datetime=\"2025-04-17T12:55:23-05:00\">April 17, 2025<\/time> at <time datetime=\"2025-04-17T12:55:23-05:00\">12:55pm CDT<\/time><\/p>\n<p>The Braves announced that they have recalled outfielder <strong>Alex Verdugo<\/strong> from Triple-A Gwinnett. Fellow outfielder <strong>Bryan De La Cruz<\/strong> was optioned down to Gwinnett as the corresponding move.<\/p>\n<p>Verdugo, 29 next month, is a veteran with at least five years of major league service time. That means he can\u2019t be optioned to the minors without his consent. However, he agreed to accept an optional assignment due to his lingering free agency. He remained unsigned until the second half of March, eventually getting a $1.5MM deal from Atlanta. Since he had missed spring training, he agreed to head down to the farm for a while, effectively as a delayed spring training.<\/p>\n<p>His inability to get a deal to his liking earlier in the offseason was surely due to his poor platform season. He had hit .282\/.338\/.430 from 2018 to 2023, production which translated to a 106 wRC+. That means he was only 6% above league average but that was still decent production, especially considering he\u2019s a solid outfield defender. But with the Yankees in 2024, he hit just .233\/.291\/.356 for a wRC+ of 83. He was actually pretty decent through the end of May but hit just .219\/.274\/.315 from June onwards. He then added 56 postseason plate appearances with a .208\/.309\/.313 line.<\/p>\n<p>That gave him little momentum going into the winter, which led to his aforementioned struggle to get a deal. For Atlanta, they were probably happy that he was out still out there, as their outfield wasn\u2019t in great shape at the end of last year. <strong>Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/strong> tore his ACL and missed the second half, with an expected return at some point during 2025. The club took a shot on <strong>Jarred Kelenic<\/strong> last year, which didn\u2019t work, as he hit .231\/.286\/.393. <strong>Michael Harris II<\/strong> saw his production drop for a second straight season after his Rookie of the Year performance in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The club made one big splash to upgrade the outfield this winter, signing <strong>Jurickson Profar<\/strong> to a three-year, $42MM deal. But just 11 days after they signed Verdugo, it was reported that Profar had been given an 80-game suspension for a positive PED test. Given the close proximity, it\u2019s possible Atlanta knew of Profar\u2019s test at the time of the Verdugo deal, but with the appeal process having not yet run its course.<\/p>\n<p>Since the Verdugo deal, things have broadly gotten worse for the club. They are out to a 5-13 start, with their outfield being one of the key problems. Kelenic is hitting .146\/.239\/.244 thus far and Harris is at .179\/.208\/.299. Before getting optioned today, De La Cruz put up a line of .191\/.240\/.213.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear what sort of production Verdugo can provide, but even something like his diminished 2024 offense would be miles ahead of what the club has received from its outfield so far. For what it\u2019s worth, Verdugo hit .207\/.303\/.448 during his recent optional assignment.<\/p>\n<p>Verdugo, Kelenic and Harris are all lefties, so that\u2019s likely to be the alignment against right-handed pitchers. Even after optioning De La Cruz, the club has a couple of righty-swinging outfielders in <strong>Stuart Fairchild<\/strong> and <strong>Eli White<\/strong>, giving manager Brian Snitker some ability to navigate around tough southpaws. Ideally, Verdugo can stabilize things somewhat as the club tries to get the season back on track. Acun\u00f1a will perhaps start a rehab assignment soon and be back with the club in the coming weeks. That will cut into the playing time of someone, likely Kelenic or Verdugo, depending on what happens between now and then.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Verdugo is up with Atlanta after a brief optional assignment. Read more at MLB Trade Rumors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":49055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[744,1301],"class_list":["post-49054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-alex-verdugo","tag-bryan-de-la-cruz"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Braves Recall Alex Verdugo, Option Bryan De La Cruz - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=49054\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Braves Recall Alex Verdugo, Option Bryan De La Cruz - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alex Verdugo is up with Atlanta after a brief optional assignment. 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