Key Braves offseason acquisition has already made team history in Atlanta

Every season, it seems as if a team takes a chance on a former top prospect who has struggled in the big leagues at a cheap price and it pays off. Think of Kevin Gausman with the Giants or Nestor Cortes with the Yankees. This year, it's the Atlanta Braves that appear to have pulled it off.

Atlanta signed Reynaldo Lopez to a three-year, $30 million deal in the offseason and it seems to be another one of those cases.

Lopez is a former top prospect in the Nationals system and was traded to the Chicago White Sox, along with Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning, in the deal that sent Adam Eaton to Washington in 2016. He had limited time in Washington, only making 11 appearances before the trade, but there was a lot to like about the upside.

He struggled upon his arrival on the South Side. In his first two years, he posted essentially a league average 104 ERA+, and then in 2019, Lopez had the second-worst ERA in baseball, posting a 5.38 in 33 starts. This caused Chicago to move him to the bullpen, where he became one of their more reliable relievers, pitching in 104 games of relief and even posted a 2.76 ERA in 2022. The right-hander was a casualty of the mass sale by the White Sox in 2023 and bounced from the Angels to the Guardians after.

Then, over the winter, Atlanta signed him to that contract and even wanted to make him a starter.

Reynaldo Lopez paying off for Braves in the biggest way

The 30-year-old is off to arguably the best start by any pitcher in baseball so far. Through four starts, Lopez has thrown 25 innings, striking out 24 and only allowing two runs, which is a minuscule 0.72 ERA. He's also tied for sixth in pitching WAR, according to Baseball Reference, with 1.4.

Those incredible early season stats have already made Braves history. According to David O'Brien of The Athletic ($), Lopez is just the second pitcher in the Braves era to allow one or no runs over six or more innings in each of his first four starts. The first was Aaron Harang. Lopez also became the seventh pitcher since 2000 to do so, with the last being Mat Latos for the White Sox in 2016.

This signing and subsequent performance would be great for the Braves just on its own, adding to what was already a great pitching staff coming into the year led by two Cy Young contenders. However, the early Spencer Strider injury which takes him out for the season makes Lopez all the more important.

Atlanta is now relying on an oft-injured Chris Sale, who has not looked himself thus far, and a 40-year-old Charlie Morton behind Max Fried. Lopez, if this turnaround and performance is real, will have to become a big part of the Braves rotation in a playoff push. Luckily, Lopez has had seasons where he has pitched more than 180 innings, but that last happened in 2019.

There will undoubtedly be some aggression to the mean for him. That ERA clearly isn't sustainable. However, one of the bigger Braves storylines to watch this season will be if the turnaround and improvement is real, and if it is, how many regular season innings he can throw after spending multiple years as a reliever.