Alex Anthopoulos Discusses Braves’ Free Agents, Rotation, Profar

The NL East champion Braves saw their season ended on Wednesday when the Dodgers eliminated Atlanta from the NLDS in four games. The team’s wrap-up press conference took place today, as Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos met with the media (including the Athletic’s Jesus Cano and MLB.com’s Mark Bowman) to touch on several topics. Reuniting with some impending free agents is a possibility, with Anthopoulos saying that the team will speak with all of its free agents before the market officially opens five days after the World Series. Anthopoulos praised the work of Tyler Mahle and Mauricio Dubon in particular, and the PBO noted that he is “very comfortable with” Dubon as a shortstop. This is notable given that shortstop is perhaps Atlanta’s most glaring area of need, as both Dubon and Ha-Seong Kim are free agents. Kim is unlikely to be re-signed given his extreme struggles in 2026, but Dubon (acquired in a trade with the Astros last November) ended up appearing in 153 games for the Braves, hitting .276/.321/.399 with 12 home runs over 619 plate appearances. Dubon is a utilityman rather than a true shortstop, with mixed reviews about his glovework at the position. The Outs Above Average metric gives Dubon a favorable +18 over his 1177 2/3 career innings at shortstop, though the Defensive Runs Saved metric grades him with an exactly average zero DRS over his career. Dubon is so useful as a super-sub that using him strictly at one position limits his overall value, plus Dubon’s below-average bat would make him a weak link in the lineup if used in an everyday capacity. One answer would be for the Braves to re-sign Dubon but then bring in another part-time type of player who could at least share shortstop duties with Dubon. Since Dubon is a right-handed hitter, this hypothetical newcomer would preferably swing from the left side to form a true platoon, and the Braves might even have an in-house candidate for this role in rookie Jim Jarvis. The free agent shortstop market is pretty thin and trading for an everyday shortstop could be difficult, so adding Dubon and another utility type might be a relatively low-cost way for Atlanta to cover the position, while saving money to address other needs. Mahle has already expressed his desire to Atlanta, and Anthopoulos’ comments imply that the interest is mutual. This is no surprise given how Mahle caught fire after being acquired from the Giants at the trade deadline — the right-hander posted a 1.99 ERA over 54 1/3 regular-season innings for the Braves, and then a 1.35 ERA over 13 1/3 innings in the postseason. Re-signing Mahle would provide some stability to a rotation that provided pretty solid results despite fighting through a lot of injuries. Spencer Strider didn’t pitch after June 12 due to elbow inflammation, and Spencer Schwellenbach hasn’t pitched since June 2025 due to three elbow surgeries — two to address an elbow fracture, and one to remove loose bodies. Unsurprisingly, Anthopoulos said the two pitchers aren’t “locks in the rotation” at this point, leaving the Braves in need of some more pitching help. “I think from a planning standpoint, I don’t think it’d be responsible to sit here and say, ‘okay, those guys are going to start 30 games and throw 180 innings.’ So that’s something we’re definitely going to have to account for and talk about where we’re going to get our innings for next season,” the PBO said. Rookie set-up man Didier Fuentes excelled out of the bullpen in his first full MLB season, and Anthopoulos didn’t rule out the possibility that Fuentes could be deployed as part of the rotation plans. “We view him as a starter long term,” Anthopoulos said, but noted that the club was mindful of too much of an increase in Fuentes’ innings. The 97 combined innings (between Triple-A, the majors, and the playoffs) represented a new career high for Fuentes, in his five pro seasons, topping his 75 2/3 frames for A-level Augusta in 2024. Anthopoulos also said no decision had been made about Jurickson Profar’s future in Atlanta, and implied that the outfielder’s fate has been a back-burner issue during the season simply because the team was focused on baseball. “There was no point at that moment in time because it wasn’t changing, right? He was gone for the year, and we had Spring Training to take care of. This is now the time to have those discussions,” Anthopoulos said. Profar signed a three-year, $42MM free agent deal with the Braves in January 2025, but just four games into the season, he was issued an 80-game suspension for testing positive for the PED known as chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). He returned in July to hit .245/.353/.434 over 371 PA during the remainder of the season, but Profar was hit with another PED suspension last March. This second violation (due to a positive test for exogenous testosterone) came with the mandatory 162-game suspension, wiping out Profar’s entire season and his $15MM salary. One more year and another $15MM remains on Profar’s contract. From a pure baseball perspective, Profar could help the Braves’ need in left field, but it is anyone’s guess as to how Profar could perform after a year away from the field. Releasing Profar and moving on entirely would mean the Braves would have to eat that remaining $15MM, but the team might view the contract as a sunk cost already (plus, just under $21MM of the deal was already erased by the two suspensions).