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Atlanta Braves: 6 Legendary One-Year Braves players

These players may have not been here for the long time, but they were here for the good time.

By Mitchell Barbee |
Championship Series - Los Angeles Dodgers v Atlanta Braves - Game Two
Championship Series - Los Angeles Dodgers v Atlanta Braves - Game Two / Kevin C. Cox/GettyImages
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The Atlanta Braves have had a lot of good players over the years. While they've had so many long-term greats who could fill about four Mount Rushmores, they've also had a handful of players who left big impressions in the short time they had.

These are the six players who became legendary with the Braves, despite only spending a year (or in some cases even less) with the team.

6. Ervin Santana

#SMELLBASEBALL. This is what Ervin Santana began tweeting shortly before signing with the Atlanta Braves in 2014. He continued to tweet it again and again and again.

For the first month of the season, Santana kept tweeting away without explaining, leaving fans wondering what the new starter could mean.

Eventually he explained it was all about keeping the passion for the game.

Santana certainly showed his passion for the game while he was with the Braves, as he went on to have a 3.2 fWAR season with a 3.95 ERA in 196 innings. After the season, he signed a four-year deal with the Minnesota Twins, but the Braves were able to get a compensation pick, which they turned into Michael Soroka.

5. Josh Donaldson

Washington Nationals v Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals v Atlanta Braves / Mike Zarrilli/GettyImages

Coming off an injury-riddled 2018, the 2015 AL MVP needed a prove-it deal for 2019, and his former GM was willing to give it to him.

Donaldson got off to a slow start, but after getting into a scuffle with Joe Musgrove, the Bringer of Rain turned into a tropical storm.

From the beginning of the season until June 10, the day of the scuffle, Donaldson was slashing .237/.357/.419 (104 wRC+). After, he slashed .272/.394/.587, good for a 148 wRC+.

Around midseason, Donaldson began breaking out the umbrellas on several of his 37 homers that year. He won the NL Comeback Player of the Year and got the big contract he was looking for. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it wasn't with the Braves, as he left for Minnesota.

4. Shelby Miller

Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves
Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves / Mike Zarrilli/GettyImages

Shelby Miller's legacy with the Braves will always be complicated. Acquired in the Jason Heyward trade, the trade that started the Braves rebuild after the 2014 season, the then 24-year-old still had four years of control left. Meant to be a staple to shorten the rebuild, Miller broke out with the Braves.

Unfortunately, no one helped him out. Despite having a 3.02 ERA in 205.1 innings, Miller had a 6-17 record. He was the Braves only All-Star in 2015. The highlight of his season was his near no-hitter against the Marlins.

Although he was supposed to anchor the Braves rotation for years to come, Atlanta got an offer they simply could not refuse during the Winter Meetings that December, and the Braves traded him to Arizona for Ender Inciarte, Dansby Swanson, and Aaron Blair.

3. Billy Wagner

There aren't many players who can spend half of their career playing for two rivals, spend just one year with the Braves, and become a fan favorite, but Billy Wagner did just that.

Wagner signed a one-year deal for the 2010 season, fully intending to retire after the season. He pitched 71 games that year and absolutely dominated. He had a 1.43 ERA, had 37 saves, and was an All-Star. Not bad for a 39-year-old.

He retired after the season, but has occasionally appeared at Braves games, despite his short tenure.

2. Jorge Soler

World Series - Atlanta Braves v Houston Astros - Game Six
World Series - Atlanta Braves v Houston Astros - Game Six / Bob Levey/GettyImages

It's been almost two years since Jorge Soler went supersonic and won the World Series MVP. Since then, the Cuban slugger has been enshrined as a Braves legend.

But have you ever gone back and looked at the reactions Braves fans had when he was acquired on that well-remembered trade deadline? I have. Here are a few of my favorites (apologies if some of these are yours).

To be fair, on paper, Soler's stats were ugly on the surface. He was slashing .192/.288/.370 (78 wRC+) and had no defensive value. But Alex Anthopoulos knew what he was doing, and Soler immediately turned it around with the Braves.

After slashing .269/.358/.524 (132 wRC+) during the regular season, Soler went cold during the NLDS and missed the majority of the NLCS after testing positive for COVID.

But that World Series, Soler went off. He hit a homer on the third pitch of the Fall Classic, and then he hit a go-ahead homer in the 7th inning of Game 4.

But it was his homer on November 2 that guaranteed Braves fans would never forget his name.

Honorable mentions

J.D. Drew

J.D. Drew became the Doyle Alexander of the Adam Wainwright trade. Despite having a great season, Wainwright's prolonged excellence with the Cardinals soured a lot of fans' perspectives of Drew.

Mark Teixeira

A bad trade bringing him to Atlanta and an arguably worse trade sending him out of Atlanta have left Braves fans forgetting, much like with the J.D. Drew trade, that Tex was actually a very good Brave.

1. Joc Pederson

It's weird because Soler should occupy this number-one spot. After all, he was the World Series MVP, and he still gets standing ovations even though he plays on a division rival (the loose definition of a rival, at least). And yet...

Joc Pederson was Alex Anthopoulos's first acquisition post-Acuña injury. He was the player who was brought in to show that the Braves weren't giving up on the 2021 season despite losing their best player and having mediocre results up to that point.

Pederson's stats weren't all that impressive. He was a league-average hitter who played below-average defense, but he infused much-needed energy into a deflated organization.

He dyed his hair blonde, he brought along the iconic pearls and created a pearl craze in Atlanta, and he infiltrated the exclusive "Burgundy Boys" wine club. He penned the famous Players' Tribune article prior to the World Series proclaiming that the Braves might be those [guys].

The rest is history.

Joc may not have lit the world on fire statistically, but his few months in a Braves uniform solidified him as the most legendary one-year Brave in recent history.

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