His tenure with the Braves didn’t last long, signing a minor league contract this past January, but on Thursday the team released veteran left-hander Chasen Shreve.
At 34-years-old, Shreve wasn’t expected to become a major piece for the Braves this coming season. But this past winter’s signing did end up resulting in an invite to big league Spring Training. In Florida this spring, Shreve pitched a total of five innings over three relief appearances with Atlanta, allowing three total runs from four hits (5.40 ERA). However, soon after that he was re-assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett where he began the 2025 campaign.
With the Stripers this season, Shreve primarily started, tallying four starts and one appearance from the bullpen. And though he began 2025 with a strong performance by striking out six in four innings on March 30th, he never really seemed to get in much of a groove. In those five total games (17.2 IP) with Gwinnett, Shreve pitched to a 5.60 ERA and allowed a .292 AVG and .818 OPS to opposing batters.
The release isn’t all too surprising. However, back in his younger days, including when Shreve was drafted by the Braves in the 11th round in 2010, the lefty managed to get pretty solid results despite not wielding the most electric stuff. As a rookie in Atlanta in 2014, his fastball averaged just 91.4 MPH; but regardless, the lefty struck out 15 batters in just 12.1 innings (15 G) to go with a 0.73 ERA coming out of the major league bullpen.
That first taste of the majors in Atlanta will most likely go down as one of Shreve’s best stints in MLB. He caught some fire with the Yankees back in 2017 (3.77 ERA / 45.1 IP) and was around replacement-level last year with both the Tigers and Rockies (4.63 ERA / 44.2 IP). But overall, this is a career -0.6 fWAR pitcher that owns a 3.96 ERA across 357 total innings.
Still, in the last 11 consecutive seasons, Shreve has done well enough to make it up to a big league team. There will surely be a place for him somewhere. Bullpen depth is and always will be very much-needed. And given Shreve still owns a plus K rate (9.76 K/9) for his career, it’s likely we’ll see him coming out of a big league team’s bullpen at some point later this season.
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Photo: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
