Sept. 1: Atlanta announced Tuesday that both Burkhalter and Farmer were selected to the major league roster. Righty Robert Suarez moves to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot. He’s already missed more than 60 days due to elbow inflammation, making the move a mere formality.
Aug. 31: The Braves appear set to call up righty Blake Burkhalter for his major league debut. Jesús Cano of The Athletic reports that Burkhalter has a locker set up in Atlanta’s clubhouse. The 2022 second-round pick is not on the 40-man roster. Chad Bishop of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that infielder Kyle Farmer also has a locker in the clubhouse. Both will be added tomorrow when active rosters expand from 26 to 28, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com. The club will need to open one 40-man roster spot to accommodate the pair.
Burkhalter, 25, was eligible for selection in last year’s Rule 5 draft but wasn’t chosen. He was coming off a strong 3.32 ERA in 103 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A, but Burkhalter posted middling rate stats that apparently gave other teams enough pause to forgo selecting him. He then had a back injury pop up in spring training and missed the first two months of the season as a result.
Since returning from injury, Burkhalter has been excellent. He’s moved into a full-time relief role after working as a starter early in his career and splitting time between the rotation and ‘pen last season. In 35 2/3 innings, the 6’, 205-pound righty has a 1.26 ERA, 32.2% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 37.6% ground-ball rate. He’s induced chases at a sharp 32% clip and posted a huge 14.8% swinging-strike rate in the minors this season. Opponents have just a 70.8% contact rate against Burkhalter — about seven percentage points lower than the major league average.
Though he doesn’t always listen when bowlers say they don’t roll on shabbos (NSFW link), Burkhalter will try to give Atlanta another weapon in the bullpen for the stretch run. Atlanta relievers have a collective 3.39 ERA this year, which is fourth-best in the majors, but there’s always room for someone to step up, especially with the expanded rosters in September.
Farmer, 36, is clearly valued by the club. That’s true even when they don’t have somewhere to put him. He was on the roster through late July, missing a little over a month due to a forearm strain. But he only got into 12 games and made just 16 plate appearances. For his career, he has a line of just .247/.306/.387 but has played all four infield positions as well as left field and catcher.
Atlanta released Jorge Mateo earlier this month and optioned Jim Jarvis to the minors. They are a bit light at shortstop, currently splitting that position between Ha-Seong Kim and Mauricio Dubón. Kim has mostly been injured and ineffective in recent years. Dubón is decent at the plate but has never really been an everyday shortstop. His 362 2/3 innings at that spot this year are already a career high, almost doubling his 206 1/3 innings from last year.
Farmer will likely be in a little-used bench role, like he was earlier this year, providing cover at various position. Perhaps that could allow the club to spare Dubón from time to time and manage his work before the postseason.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement, Imagn Images
