It was announced on Wednesday that the Atlanta Braves won their arbitration hearing with reliever Shane Greene and will pay him $6.25 million in 2020.
The Atlanta Braves get their first win of the 2020 season with their win over Shane Greene during the arbitration process.
Atlanta and Greene went to arbitration battling over $500,000, which is about the equivalent of what I’ll make writing these articles over the next 100 years.
Greene obviously took a shot at stating his case for being paid like a closer, and Atlanta rightfully stated their case that he was not a closer for them and shouldn’t be paid like one.
The Braves traded for Greene this past summer to become their closer. Sending prospects Joey Wentz and Travis Demeritte to the Detroit Tigers in that trade.
It was a rough start for Greene in Atlanta as he blew his first save opportunity and took the loss in his next outing.
Altogether he gave up 5 earned runs in his first 3 appearances with the Braves and was quickly demoted from the closer’s role.
After posting a 1.18 ERA in 38 games for the Tigers in 2019 with 22 saves, he posted a 4.01 ERA in 27 games with the Braves and just 1 save.
He was much better once he was moved to the setup role and picked up 10 holds with Atlanta.
But he wasn’t exactly great in the postseason giving up 4 hits and a walk in 2.2 innings. He only allowed 1 earned run in the postseason, but it was the game-tying hit in Game 4.
Interestingly, he was used in the sixth inning of Game 1 and Brian Snitker was going to give the eighth inning to Chris Martin before he got hurt.
I’m not sure if that was strategic in any way, or if it was telling for how the manager views Greene’s role going forward. And Greene was only used in two of the five NLDS games.
Many had thought that Greene could be traded this offseason because of the bullpen depth the Braves have acquired, and it would save them just over $6 million towards the 2020 payroll for potentially another move.
That doesn’t appear to be the case now, but it will be interesting to see what kind of role Greene plays in 2020 in what is now a very deep Atlanta bullpen.