The 2025 season was a tale of two seasons when it comes to Atlanta Braves closer Raisel Iglesias. It is completely fair to say that that Iglesias was terrible in the first half to the point where it was clear the Braves were trying to avoid using him at least in the short-term. However, Iglesias figured something out and the second half saw him look like his usual self. Even with that success, though, came a troubling trend.
Atlanta clearly saw enough positives from Iglesias' second half to bring him back on a one-year deal. However, even during his resurgence, one trend continued to be problem and that was in regards to his slider. If he can't figure out how to make the pitch passable, the 2026 season could easily be Iglesias' last in Atlanta.
Raisel Iglesias has a disappearing slider problem even after his 2025 rebound
Now, Iglesias' slider being a problem is not new. Iglesias was able to get it together and started to limit hard contact again after a rough first half. That in itself was enough to bring Iglesias' production back mostly in line with what was expected of him. As for the slider, that is a bit more complicated of a picture.
Back in May 2025, opposing hitters were teeing off on his slider (.500 batting average against) when it was one of his more effective offerings previously largely due to a drop-off across the board with the pitch's metrics. By the end of the season, the numbers were a bit more reasonable with a still not good .346 batting average against and the metrics seemed to bounce back. However, what is curious is that Iglesias cut his usage of his slider in half over how often he threw the pitch previously.
On one hand, throwing his slider less did seem to increase the quality of the sliders he did throw and there is wisdom in simply not throwing a pitch as much if it isn't up to snuff. However, Iglesias is basically a fastball/changeup pitcher now and it seems like opposing hitters were more keyed in on his changeup than usual when they didn't have to respect his slider. One possible piece of evidence of that is that opposing hitters hit .277 off Iglesias' changeup when they only hit .148 off the pitch in 2024. Moreover, that .277 mark is a full 60 points higher than the first half when he was terrible which means his changeup was REALLY getting beat up in the second half
Now, Iglesias could simply need to make adjustments that will make it harder for hitters to distinguish between his fastballs and his changeup while continuing to throw his slider sparingly. Alternatively (or perhaps ideally), Iglesias figures out how to throw a decent slider again. What probably isn't going to work is how Iglesias ended things last year because unlike 2025, the Braves have a replacement ready and waiting in Robert Suarez if Iglesias falters again.