After one of the worst regular season losses in Atlanta Braves franchise history on Thursday, the Braves finally pulled the trigger and are bringing Craig Kimbrel up from the minors to fortify the bullpen. While the sentiment is great and it does seem like having Kimbrel in the bullpen will be a net positive, Atlanta's corresponding roster move failed to address the bigger issue in Raisel Iglesias.
In fairness, designating Scott Blewett for assignment is pretty defensible as well. Blewett was terrible in that brutal loss to the Diamondbacks and was probably the most expendable reliever on the roster. However, Iglesias' struggles have run so deep this season that finding a reason to put him on the IL should have been the roster moves the Braves made to try and get him a real reset.
Craig Kimbrel's return doesn't solve the fact that the Braves can't rely on Raisel Iglesias
While Kimbrel may still believe that he is a high leverage reliever, Atlanta is going to tread carefully with him to start with. As badly as the Braves need the bullpen help, immediately throwing a veteran in the twilight of his career that needed weeks to build up his arm strength into the fire all the time seems unwise.
More than that, Iglesias is going to remain a problem even if Kimbrel returns and pitches well. Atlanta's bullpen is already in a tough spot with Joe Jimenez's injury, so having Iglesias forget how to pitch is particularly rough as there isn't an easy replacement for him at closer. Unfortunately, Iglesias completely avoiding throwing his slider that hitters had been teeing off on did little to prevent Thursday's meltdown.
So where do we go from here? Well, losing Blewett isn't much of a loss and we should know pretty quickly if Kimbrel is in a good enough place to help the Braves this season. Unfortunately, the move they need to make (getting Iglesias out of there at least for a while) is the one move Atlanta seems to think they can't make right now.