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Mady Mertens-Imagn Images
Ray Kerr had a crazy season, going from call-up to starter to down for the count with Tommy John Surgery Few guys on the 2024 Braves team had as many status changes as Ray Kerr. He started as a theoretical short-stint reliever that spent all of April in the minors. After his promotion, the Braves quickly transitioned him to a longer-stint role and then eventually gave him a couple of starts, before ultimately reverting him to a shorter-stint relief role. And then he went down for the count with elbow troubles and Tommy John Surgery, all before the season was halfway in the books.
How acquired
The Braves got Kerr as part of a salary dump: the Padres foisted Matt Carpenter’s salary (well, $4 million out of $5.5 million total) onto the Braves, sending Kerr to offset the commitment. The Braves sent minor leaguer Drew Campbell out to San Diego to complete the deal. The Braves cut Carpenter immediately, but retained Kerr, which was largely the point of the deal.
What were the expectations?
From the outset, Kerr was more than just another warm body — if the Braves figured he was just another Quad-A relief arm, they wouldn’t have taken salary on to acquire him.
Prior to the trade, Kerr had thrown 32 big league innings across 2022-2023, with a combined 124 ERA- and 108 FIP- (very bad for a reliever), but a 90 xFIP-. That latter number was probably intriguing by itself, but when you figure that it was heavily weighed down by five poor frames in 2022, and Kerr had a stellar 74 xFIP- in 2023, the Braves’ interest in Kerr and his boatload of team control becomes clearer.
The Braves didn’t feel a need to roster him out of Spring Training given that he had options. That flexibility, his pitch mix, his 2023 success, all pointed to Kerr being a useful piece for the Braves in 2024 — if not immediately, then at some point when injuries struck their existing relief corps.
2024 Results
Kerr’s topline for 2024 was 0.1 fWAR in 22 1⁄3 innings, including two starts and eight relief appearances. It was also a second straight season for him with a line where his ERA really diverged from his peripherals: he was at 103/96/74 last year, and finished 2024 at 136/111/93 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-).
Looking at that line alone, you might think that it was really mediocre, and that losing Kerr to Tommy John Surgery isn’t a big blow. But, that line really doesn’t tell the whole story.
Kerr started the season in the minors, and had a wild line in 14 innings at Gwinnett where he struck out 22 but allowed five homers as well as five walks. The Braves promoted him as a replacement for Tyler Matzek in early May; the next day, he threw a perfect frame in an easy shutout win. He then came up huge in a narrow victory over the Cubs, with two perfect frames, between which the Braves scored the only runs of the game. By that point, the Braves were figuring, “hey, this guy can eat some innings,” as, two days later, he completed three frames in a blowout loss. He then threw more garbage time four days later (3 1⁄3 this time), and by that point, Kerr had posted a 10/0 K/BB ratio in 9 1⁄3 innings of work.
So, the Braves then apparently figured, “Why limit this guy to short-stint relief?” and threw him into a starting role. Five days after getting ten outs, he made a start against the Pirates that featured a 6/1 K/BB ratio and zero homers... but saw his ledger get charged with five runs anyway. Then came the Nationals, and things repeated themselves: a 7/2 K/BB ratio and no homers, but three runs charged in 3 2⁄3 innings. He shifted back to relief after that, had one longer, unequivocally poor outing, then two fine short outings, and then the elbow went kaput. In his final outing, he tarnished his line by allowing a homer and three walks in an inning, with zero strikeouts to compensate. And that was it.
What went right?
It’s all a matter of perspective, right? Kerr made it back to the majors and pitched so well early on that the Braves just kept increasing his workload. He’d exceeded six outs just twice in his career before 2024; he matched that total thanks to his third and fourth outings of the season. He pitched well as a starter, results be unfortunately damned. His curveball was devastating, with a sub-.200 xwOBA-against and a whiff rate exceeding 50 percent — and he spotted it excellently.
And that outing against the Cubs, his second of the year, was so good. Relieving Reynaldo Lopez after five innings in a tie game, Kerr went six up, six down with three strikeouts. In that outing, the other three outs came on a combined five pitches. Here’s him blowing away Christopher Morel with a well-placed fastball.
What went wrong?
The biggest thing is that he blew his elbow out and will now miss much, if not all of, 2025, in addition to losing half of 2024. Moreover, that final outing really killed his line. Remember, he finished at 136/111/93, but if you just take that one outing out, he would’ve finished at 132/87/80.
There’s probably something to wondered about the Braves increasing his workload so rapidly relative to the course of his career so far... but the Braves had so many bigger problems in 2024 with injury incidence that it’s not clear anyone actually spent any time wondering that. Either way, it’s a little odd that the Braves paid cash to acquire a controlled, performance-oriented reliever and then figured he’d be best served eating innings and mostly working garbage time.
In any case, Kerr’s first start, which came against the Pirates, was probably the most annoying part of his season, before he got injured. The Braves were in a 5-0 hole when Kerr departed, but he had six strikeouts to a single walk. Pirates batters had a perfectly cromulent .318 xwOBA against Kerr in the game... and a .414 wOBA. So it goes.
2025 Outlook
Kerr will likely miss most, if not the entirety of, the 2025 season, so there’s not much outlook here. Maybe he comes back as the same hard-slinging reliever with a nasty curve the Braves acquired; maybe he comes back as some kind of weird bulk guy, or maybe he struggles to come back, period. We’ll see.
<img alt="MLB: Tampa Bay Rays at Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0_jSQL5IIJ1bAY99xSxiyBnO92c=/0x0:2425x1617/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73711135/usa_today_23555938.0.jpg">
Mady Mertens-Imagn Images
Ray Kerr had a crazy season, going from call-up to starter to down for the count with Tommy John Surgery Few guys on the 2024 Braves team had as many status changes as Ray Kerr. He started as a theoretical short-stint reliever that spent all of April in the minors. After his promotion, the Braves quickly transitioned him to a longer-stint role and then eventually gave him a couple of starts, before ultimately reverting him to a shorter-stint relief role. And then he went down for the count with elbow troubles and Tommy John Surgery, all before the season was halfway in the books.
How acquired
The Braves got Kerr as part of a salary dump: the Padres foisted Matt Carpenter’s salary (well, $4 million out of $5.5 million total) onto the Braves, sending Kerr to offset the commitment. The Braves sent minor leaguer Drew Campbell out to San Diego to complete the deal. The Braves cut Carpenter immediately, but retained Kerr, which was largely the point of the deal.
What were the expectations?
From the outset, Kerr was more than just another warm body — if the Braves figured he was just another Quad-A relief arm, they wouldn’t have taken salary on to acquire him.
Prior to the trade, Kerr had thrown 32 big league innings across 2022-2023, with a combined 124 ERA- and 108 FIP- (very bad for a reliever), but a 90 xFIP-. That latter number was probably intriguing by itself, but when you figure that it was heavily weighed down by five poor frames in 2022, and Kerr had a stellar 74 xFIP- in 2023, the Braves’ interest in Kerr and his boatload of team control becomes clearer.
The Braves didn’t feel a need to roster him out of Spring Training given that he had options. That flexibility, his pitch mix, his 2023 success, all pointed to Kerr being a useful piece for the Braves in 2024 — if not immediately, then at some point when injuries struck their existing relief corps.
2024 Results
Kerr’s topline for 2024 was 0.1 fWAR in 22 1⁄3 innings, including two starts and eight relief appearances. It was also a second straight season for him with a line where his ERA really diverged from his peripherals: he was at 103/96/74 last year, and finished 2024 at 136/111/93 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-).
Looking at that line alone, you might think that it was really mediocre, and that losing Kerr to Tommy John Surgery isn’t a big blow. But, that line really doesn’t tell the whole story.
Kerr started the season in the minors, and had a wild line in 14 innings at Gwinnett where he struck out 22 but allowed five homers as well as five walks. The Braves promoted him as a replacement for Tyler Matzek in early May; the next day, he threw a perfect frame in an easy shutout win. He then came up huge in a narrow victory over the Cubs, with two perfect frames, between which the Braves scored the only runs of the game. By that point, the Braves were figuring, “hey, this guy can eat some innings,” as, two days later, he completed three frames in a blowout loss. He then threw more garbage time four days later (3 1⁄3 this time), and by that point, Kerr had posted a 10/0 K/BB ratio in 9 1⁄3 innings of work.
So, the Braves then apparently figured, “Why limit this guy to short-stint relief?” and threw him into a starting role. Five days after getting ten outs, he made a start against the Pirates that featured a 6/1 K/BB ratio and zero homers... but saw his ledger get charged with five runs anyway. Then came the Nationals, and things repeated themselves: a 7/2 K/BB ratio and no homers, but three runs charged in 3 2⁄3 innings. He shifted back to relief after that, had one longer, unequivocally poor outing, then two fine short outings, and then the elbow went kaput. In his final outing, he tarnished his line by allowing a homer and three walks in an inning, with zero strikeouts to compensate. And that was it.
What went right?
It’s all a matter of perspective, right? Kerr made it back to the majors and pitched so well early on that the Braves just kept increasing his workload. He’d exceeded six outs just twice in his career before 2024; he matched that total thanks to his third and fourth outings of the season. He pitched well as a starter, results be unfortunately damned. His curveball was devastating, with a sub-.200 xwOBA-against and a whiff rate exceeding 50 percent — and he spotted it excellently.
And that outing against the Cubs, his second of the year, was so good. Relieving Reynaldo Lopez after five innings in a tie game, Kerr went six up, six down with three strikeouts. In that outing, the other three outs came on a combined five pitches. Here’s him blowing away Christopher Morel with a well-placed fastball.
What went wrong?
The biggest thing is that he blew his elbow out and will now miss much, if not all of, 2025, in addition to losing half of 2024. Moreover, that final outing really killed his line. Remember, he finished at 136/111/93, but if you just take that one outing out, he would’ve finished at 132/87/80.
There’s probably something to wondered about the Braves increasing his workload so rapidly relative to the course of his career so far... but the Braves had so many bigger problems in 2024 with injury incidence that it’s not clear anyone actually spent any time wondering that. Either way, it’s a little odd that the Braves paid cash to acquire a controlled, performance-oriented reliever and then figured he’d be best served eating innings and mostly working garbage time.
In any case, Kerr’s first start, which came against the Pirates, was probably the most annoying part of his season, before he got injured. The Braves were in a 5-0 hole when Kerr departed, but he had six strikeouts to a single walk. Pirates batters had a perfectly cromulent .318 xwOBA against Kerr in the game... and a .414 wOBA. So it goes.
2025 Outlook
Kerr will likely miss most, if not the entirety of, the 2025 season, so there’s not much outlook here. Maybe he comes back as the same hard-slinging reliever with a nasty curve the Braves acquired; maybe he comes back as some kind of weird bulk guy, or maybe he struggles to come back, period. We’ll see.
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