How the Braves Can Best Utilize Lefty Angel Perdomo

The Atlanta Braves bullpen is right-handed heavy. That might be an understatement of a sentence. On the entire 40-man roster, there are currently five lefties among the 22 pitchers. One of those lefties is Chris Sale and another is prospect starter Dylan Dodd. 

This leaves three options for relief. Only two of them have proven successful for the Braves: Aaron Bummer and Dylan Lee. That leaves the wild card, 30-year-old Angel Perdomo. 

Perdomo has been in the Braves organization for a year but has yet to pitch in a game since he has been recovering from Tommy John surgery. He comes in at a projected low cost of about $800,000. He brings an arsenal that features a four-seamer, a slider and a change up. 

Since the Braves have yet to bring in a notable free-agent reliever to take over AJ Minter’s spot, Perdomo is likely going to get a shot. 

In his most recent MLB season in 2023, Perdomo had a 3.72 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in 30 appearances. The advanced stats liked him as well. He had a 121 ERA+ and a 3.01 FIP. 

So he was showing signs of figuring out big-league hitters before going under the knife. While pitchers need some adjustments after coming back, getting a proper Spring Training should help with that. 

Beyond that, we can look to his arsenal to see how the Braves can utilize him best. He showed in 2023 that he has an effective fastball and slider. His change up didn’t show much effectiveness and was not used very much as a result. 

But between his two top pitches, his slider might be best used as a primary pitched. 

According to Baseball Savant, hitters had a .111 batting average and a .148 slugging percentage. While hitters only had a subpar .232 off his fastball, they had a respectable .449 slugging percentage. All three of his home runs allowed came off the fastball. Its 33.1% whiff rate shows its potential. It’s slightly higher than the whiff rate on Raisel Iglesias’ fastball (32.8%). Just needs some fine-tuning. 

If the Braves can make the most of that slider of his, Perdomo could become an effective lefty for the late innings. It would be a very on-brand way for the team to find that replacement.