Braves roster cut a day after hiring Jeremy Hefner is worth a look from the NY Mets

Just a day after it was announced that Jeremy Hefner did a leg drop on the New York Mets at the finale of Bash at the Beach, the Atlanta Braves made a somewhat curious roster decision. From afar, a veteran pitcher with a 3.05 ERA last season seems worth $7 million. Not to the Braves apparently. They’ve decided not to pick up the option on reliever Pierce Johnson.

Numbers can be deceiving, though. Johnson had ERAs below 1.00 in July and August then saw it balloon to 8.31 in September. He gave up 8 runs in his final 8.2 innings of work, signaling to the Braves that maybe he wasn’t worth the $7 million.

What do the Mets think of him? His 2.91 ERA in parts of three seasons in Atlanta tells us that they should at least go to him with an open mind.

Pierce Johnson is full of red flags, but still someone the Mets should look into

The ERA last year was good but the FIP of 3.91 was nearly a full run higher. His strikeouts were down, at exactly one per inning pitched. An above-average number of home runs allowed in 2023 and 2025 as a member of the Braves, he’s someone who should terrify teams in hitter’s ballparks. Fortunately, Citi FIeld favors pitchers.

Frequently hit hard last year and with a poor ground ball rate, Johnson doesn’t seem to fit the kinds of pitchers the Mets were accustomed to acquiring during Hefner’s tenure in recent years. A ground ball percentage of just 34.6% last season was more than 10% lower than what he had the year prior and even below the 38.2% posted in his entire career. Turning 35 next May is yet another hint that maybe this arm has seen its best days.

Mostly meaningless but worth noting, he has been successful at Citi Field with one earned run in 9 innings. This includes 14 strikeouts.

The word “unpredictable” is a good one to describe Johnson. He dropped his walks to 2.9 BB/9 last year but also had his worst K/9 rate since coming back from Japan in 2020.

Consider Johnson someone in the category to replace Ryne Stanek. Potentially implosive and maybe not as expensive as many of the high-leverage arms out there the Mets should be looking into, it’s a matter of guessing whether or not he lost he is fully cooked. Considering 4 of his 8 earned runs in September came in his final appearance of the season, it doesn’t feel implausible to circle him.

The Braves also happened to turn down the option on Tyler Kinley for $5.5 million after giving them a 0.72 ERA in 25 innings. At the same age and with a poor ground ball rate last year despite the success with Atlanta, the Braves seem on a mission to have a certain style of reliever or maybe the savings by cutting this pair of pitchers ended up in Antoan Richardson's salary.