Atlanta Braves fans understandably grew numb over the course of the 2024 season when it came to injuries. When your team loses Spencer Strider, Ronald Acuna Jr., Sean Murphy, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, AJ Minter, and others for at least large chunks of the season, one just begins to expect bad news on any given day. So, when it was revealed right after the 2024 season that under-appreciated reliever Joe Jimenez needed knee surgery and would miss most of 2025, it was pretty much par for the course.
That isn't to say that Jimenez's injury went unnoticed. Attention turned to how to replace Jimenez in the 2025 bullpen pretty quickly, in fact. Beyond that, however, few have mentioned the impact that his injury could have beyond that despite Jimenez being one of Atlanta's best relievers the last couple of years.
The lack of attention is understandable as Jimenez wasn't even the Braves' closer and not anywhere close to as recognizable as some of the other Braves' injured stars. However, Jimenez's injury may have had a much larger impact than we all thought especially when taken in context of the Braves' other moves so far this offseason.
Injuries undermined the #Braves throughout the 2024 season, and continued in the offseason with Monday's announcement that Joe Jiménez will miss 8-12 months while recovering from knee surgery he had last weekhttps://t.co/4NfF3FPmHf
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) November 5, 2024
We may never know for sure, but Jimenez's injury may have prevented a truly wild Braves offseason
Here is what we know about the Braves this offseason: they are clearing money off their payroll for something. Trading Soler's contract was a good idea either way given how he played in 2024, but the Braves declining Travis d'Arnaud's option was a big clue that Atlanta was looking for cash this offseason wherever they could find it.
One other option to clear some payroll that was previously floated was trading closer Raisel Iglesias. Not only would the expected trade return for the pending free agent Iglesias have helped reload the Braves' struggling minor league ranks, but it would have freed up an additional $16 million for 2025. However, that plan only worked if Atlanta could replace him relatively easily and that replacement would have most likely been, you guessed it, Jimenez.
Had the Braves been able to trade Iglesias this offseason instead of desperately needing him in 2025 with Jimenez out, who knows what Atlanta could have gotten involved in? Perhaps we would be hearing a lot more about a reunion with Max Fried instead of crickets. It is also possible that the Braves would have been able to keep the highly regarded d'Arnaud and still pursue Willy Adames as an upgrade over the suddenly terrible Orlando Arcia. For the biggest of dreamers out there, maybe being able to make all of the moves the Braves have made this offseason AND trading Iglesias could have created some Juan Soto whispers at least.
As things stand, the Braves still are clearly looking to make some level of noise this offseason as Alex Anthopoulos wouldn't be so purposeful so quickly with culling the roster without some concrete ideas. However, one cannot help what chaos he could have had in store if Jimenez hadn't gotten hurt.