Numbers don’t lie: Braves have four of the best relievers in baseball

After a mostly disastrous 2025 campaign, the Braves bullpen was expected to be much improved following the addition of Robert Suarez — but not many pegged it as the best in baseball, which is exactly what it has been for most of the first two months of the season.

It starts at the top with Raisel Iglesias. He’s a primary reason Atlanta’s relief corps scuffled to begin last season, relying far too heavily on his slider — an offering that was consistently finding its way out of the yard.

Eventually Iglesias moved away from it, and with that decision came some remarkable success. Over his final 40.1 innings of 2025, he posted a 1.34 ERA, earning himself another one-year deal with the Braves. This season he’s almost completely abolished the pitch from his repertoire, utilizing it just three percent of the time — and through two months, he has yet to allow a single run.

Robert Suarez hasn’t been quite as dominant, currently sporting a ho-hum 0.81 ERA over 22 appearances. His high-powered arm has been a breath of fresh air at the back end of games. It’s something the Braves sorely lacked a season ago after AJ Minter signed with the Mets — probably why Anthopoulos wasted no time locking up Suarez in the offseason.

But while Suarez and Iglesias were always expected to be a nightmare for opposing hitters at the end of games, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Among National League relievers with at least 15 innings pitched, the Braves own four of the top six ERAs.

Notable Braves Relievers

• Raisel Iglesias — 0.00 ERA
• Robert Suarez — 0.81 ERA
• Dylan Lee — 1.11 ERA
• Didier Fuentes — 1.08 ERA

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Dylan Lee has been a silent assassin in Atlanta for a long time. Many fans of other teams probably haven’t heard of him, but he’s sporting a 2.64 ERA over 223 career appearances, taking his game to a completely different level this year.

Dylan Lee Notable Advanced Metrics

• xERA — 100th percentile
• xBA — 96th percentile
• Average Exit Velocity — 86th percentile
• Chase % — 93rd percentile
• Whiff % — 98th percentile
• K% — 96th percentile
• BB% — 99th percentile

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Simply put — Dylan Lee is elite.

Three pitchers operating at that level at the back end of games is going to result in a lot of wins. The addition of Didier Fuentes, however, has been the icing on the cake.

Fuentes’ high-90s fastball and swing-and-miss stuff make him a natural fit for late-inning work, but because he’s really a starting pitcher, the Braves are able to deploy him in a variety of situations. Some nights he bridges the gap for multiple innings. Others, he’s used in high-leverage spots to give the traditional late-inning guys extra rest.

That kind of versatility is a weapon — especially come playoff time, when starters typically aren’t going as deep into games. The Braves don’t view Fuentes as their closer of the future, even if he could thrive in the role. He’s a starting pitcher learning how to navigate big league hitters out of the bullpen, filling the role the team needs him in right now, and he’s gaining confidence with each outing.

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(Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire)