These 3 key adjustments has Braves' Dylan Lee poised to breakout in 2025

Often overlooked, Dylan Lee has always been a quiet contributor for the Atlanta Braves. Since he's arrived in the big leagues Lee has puzzled hitters to the tune of a 2.58 ERA and 3.18 FIP. When he's been healthy Lee has always been a more-than-solid arm out of the Braves bullpen.

Despite all that success, Lee made a few tweaks in 2024 that led to some tremendous success. I'll dive into each of those small changes, and why Lee should be given some more high-leverage opportunities in 2025.

Dylan Lee makes some small changes and the results are a big success

The first was a very slight bump in velocity. Lee gained just over 0.5 mph on both his fastball and slider. It may not sound like much, but big league hitters will tell you it matters so it's worth mentioning here.

Next, is the usage of his pitches. In 2024, Lee upped his slider usage to a career high 54.7%. This jump came directly from his fastball usage which hit a career low 33.2% mark. The changeup usage remained in the 12% range for the second straight year.

The bump in slider usage served Lee well as he ranked in the 92nd percentile in breaking run value via Baseball Savant. If you look at the video below from pitching ninja you'll see why Lee was so excellent with his slider. The ability to constantly paint sliders just off or on the bottom corner of the zone made that pitch nearly unhittable.

Now we get to a slight change, and one that may have slipped past fans. It's hard to pick up by simply watching Lee pitch, but thanks to the statcast data available we can see the Lee dropped his arm angle in 2024.

In both 2022 and 2023, Lee's fastball/slider combo sat with an arm angle of 48°/47°. Last season that fastball/slider combo still had one degree of variance, but it instead came with a 46°/45° mark. That change dropped Lee's total arm angle from 47° to a career low 45°.

Lee's numbers show he is ready for a larger role in 2025

On the whole, last season was much closer to the excellent 2022 version of Lee that we saw. This past year Lee managed to set a career high in strikeout rate (31.7 K%) and ranked in the 92nd percentile or better in xERA (2.57), xBA (.198), chase% (37.4), whiff% (37.7), K% (31.7), and hard-hit% (32.0).

Despite all that success, Lee was mostly used in low/medium leverage situations last season. With A.J. Minter possibly leaving in free agency and the huge injury loss of Joe Jimenez, it's time for Brian Snitker to start using Lee in more high-leverage situations.

It was a very small sample size, but in high-leverage situations in 2024 Lee held opponents to a .125/.176/.250 slash line, .157 wOBA, 1.67 FIP, and 2.96 xFIP.

The Braves will almost certainly add at least one bullpen arm this offseason, but that shouldn't take away from both of the lefties already in the bullpen getting more high-leverage spots in 2025.

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