The Braves announced Tuesday that they have released the left-handed reliever Aaron Bummer and put a catcher Drake Baldwin on the 10-day injury list due to oblique strain. Atlanta also worked on the left Dylan Dodd from IL for 10 days, missed righty Victor Mederos from Triple-A, selected to a holding contract Chadwick Trump and right hand selected JR Ritchie in Triple-A.
Baldwin’s injury is a major setback for an Atlanta club that is also without a veteran Sean Murphy (broken finger). The 25-year-old Baldwin won National League Rookie of the Year honors in 2025 and so far has played like he has his eyes set on more hardware; Baldwin played at MVP-caliber speed in 2026, racing out of the gate with a .303/.389/.543 batting line. After hitting 19 home runs in 446 games as a rookie, he has already tallied 13 in 216 trips to the batter’s box in his second season.
Per wRC+ rating, Baldwin has been 60% better than average at the plate this season – the eighth-best hitter in the sport. That’s a feat in itself, but considering the average catch is about 12% worse than average at the plate, Baldwin’s tremendous production is all the more important. Couple that with strong blocking skills and average frame rates, and Baldwin has been one of the best all-around players in baseball. Both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference pegged him at 2.2 wins over his replacement in just over one quarter of the regular season.
The Braves have not set a timetable for Baldwin’s absence. Every injury case is different, but even a Grade 1 oblique can sideline players for more than one month. The greatest difficulty will come with a long absence. Atlanta skipper Walt Weiss will provide more details before this afternoon’s contest against the Marlins, who beat now-nominated Ritchie and the now-released Bummer by a combined 12 runs – six apiece – last night.
With Baldwin and Murphy both shelved, Atlanta will go from one of the most powerful catching tandems in sports to perhaps the easiest backstop tandem in baseball. Tromp joins 37-year-old Sandy León in managing operations for the foreseeable future. León hasn’t topped 100 plate appearances in a major league season since 2021 and owns a .176/.245/.268 batting line over his past 930 plate trips in the majors. Tromp is a career .221/.230/.390 hitter in 178 big league plate appearances. Both are solid defenders, and Tromp has low-level pop in his bat, but both can reasonably project an OBP in the .250 range.
As mentioned, Bummer was tagged with six runs last night in what will go down as his final appearance for the Braves. He only lasted one inning. If that decline had happened, Bummer’s veteran record would have saved him. The rest of the 2026 season, however, has been a disaster for the 32-year-old southpaw.
Bummer has pitched 15 1/3 innings for the Braves this season and is sporting a 7.63 ERA. He has given up multiple runs in five of 19 games, and the most damage has occurred in the past five weeks. Since April 13, Bummer has allowed 15 runs (13 earned) on 17 hits and seven walks in 11 1/3 innings. Opponents have hit six home runs in that span, and he has hit just 16.9% of his opponents on the road.
Before 2026, Bummer gave the Braves two seasons of middle relief. He rarely found his way to the majors but still combined for 109 2/3 innings of ball with a 3.69 ERA. He struck out 25.1% of his opponents and posted an impressive 7.3% walk rate over those two seasons. It wasn’t star-level performance, but Bummer was a very serviceable bull arm.
However, there were warning signs last season. Bummer’s strikeout rate dipped by a few percent, while his four-seamer average and slugging average both dropped nearly two miles per hour. The drop in strike and drop in velo has gotten worse in 2026. Bummer hit 94.7 mph on his four-seamer and 94.3 mph on his most recent sinker in 2023. He’s averaging 90.5 mph and 90.2 mph, respectively, on that pair of pitches this season.
Atlanta first acquired Bummer from the White Sox in a volume trade that sent five players to Chicago: Michael Soroka, Jared Shuster, Nicky Lopez, Braden Shewmake and Riley Gowens. He was signed to a five-year, $16MM contract with club options through the 2025-26 seasons at that time. After a strong sales campaign in Atlanta, the Braves restructured the contract, effectively securing both options years in advance while trimming $500K from their combined cap hit and squeezing most of the salary cap into the 2026 season. Bummer earned $3.5MM last year and is being paid $9.5MM this season.
The Braves will remain attractive throughout that contract. Bummer will be free to sign with any team, and the new club will only owe him the minor league minimum for any time he spends on the big league roster. That small amount will be deducted from what Atlanta owes the veteran southpaw, but they will eat up a large portion of the contract regardless of Bummer’s next moves.
