Jesse Chavez signing minor-league deal with Braves a delightful turn

“Jesse Chavez returns to Braves” isn’t so much news as it is a dependable rite of life in Atlanta, like “Pollen count rising” or “Falcons fail to make postseason.”

Who was surprised when Chavez signed a minor-league contract with the Braves on Saturday, and who wasn’t delighted?

Among Braves players and their fans, the answers to both must surely be “no one, not a single person anywhere.”

The beloved middle reliever who has made an inexplicable career out of thriving with the Braves, leaving for a new team, nose-diving and then returning to reconstitute himself as a dependable bullpen presence is back for a sixth separate time.

Chavez became available after the Texas Rangers, who signed him in January to a minor-league contract, released him Friday after his ineffective spring training. Two days later, it was as if he never left, pitching for the Braves in a spring-training game in North Port, Florida.

After negotiating two tenuous innings, he was reassigned to the team’s minor-league camp. But in a season in which a number of arms — think two octopuses worth — figure to be given chances in a remade bullpen, who would bet against the one they call Coach running in from the bullpen in due time?

Undoubtedly, everyone associated with the Braves would be thrilled for it to happen. Few have earned the respect and appreciation that Chavez has in his repeated stays at Truist Park.

Former Braves reliever A.J. Minter said it best of Chavez in 2023: “Jesse, I’m sure I can speak for everyone that he’s everyone’s favorite teammate. He’s a leader, but at the same time, he likes to keep everything light, keep everything fun.”

That’s part of Chavez’s appeal, but the following is what has puzzled and entertained Braves fans with each homecoming. He has been lights out for the Braves and decidedly unplugged elsewhere.

In 467 non-Braves games, his ERA is 4.52. In 186 appearances with the Braves, it’s 3.09. WHIP: 1.355 vs. 1.202. Home runs/nine innings: 1.4 vs. 0.9.

The 2022 season may have told the story best. Signed by the Chicago Cubs in March of that year, and even though he had a 6.35 ERA in 5⅔ innings, Chavez didn’t make it a month with his new team before the Braves traded to get him back.

Returned to the team he had helped deliver the 2021 World Series, Chavez regained his form, achieving a 2.11 ERA in 38⅓ innings. It made him an enticing acquisition for the Los Angeles Angels, who gave up closer Raisel Iglesias for Chavez and prospect Tucker Davidson.

After the trade, Chavez’s mojo promptly drained from his arm as if through a funnel. He had a 7.59 ERA in 10⅔ innings, and the Angels released him after less than a month.

The Braves picked him back up a day later. After apparently dipping his right arm in the magic waters of the Chattahoochee River, Chavez helped the Braves chase down the New York Mets for their fifth consecutive National League East title.

In his first game back with the Braves in that incarnation, Iglesias pitched the ninth to follow Chavez’s eighth, a pairing of the reliever who has since become the team’s dominant closer and the Trojan horse reliever who delivered him.

It was that September that Chavez identified the comfort level that he felt with the Braves “has 100% to do” with the difference in performance. He drew a distinction between “baseball people” and “baseball lifers.”

Said Chavez, “Baseball people want to help you (be) the best; baseball lifers just think it’s a country club. That’s how I look at it now, and we got baseball people here (with the Braves).”

In 2024, after he had signed with the Chicago White Sox and then bombed in spring training, he boomeranged back to the Braves. And how else would it work out but Chavez, back in his comfort zone, making a serious bid for his first All-Star game after failing to make the roster of a team that went on to set the modern MLB record for most losses in a season?

In a season that he said at the outset would probably be his last, no less.

“Hopefully it can keep going, and hopefully we can keep that relationship (with the Braves) going,” he said in July. “But I love this place and everybody knows that.”

Chavez did falter after his strong start. His ERA was 1.56 with a .214 opponents batting average through July 9, but 5.87 and .302 the rest of the way. In the heat of the postseason chase, manager Brian Snitker called on Chavez only four times in September.

Is there another season left in his arm?

The odds don’t favor it. But little about Chavez’s career has obeyed probability or logic, starting with him carving out a 17-year career in the majors after being selected in the 42nd round of the 2002 draft to being the most traded player in MLB history (10 times).

Why start now?