{"id":534585,"date":"2026-01-23T15:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534585\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:41:14","slug":"luke-williams-returns-on-milb-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534585\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Williams returns on MiLB deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Braves snuck this through the transaction wire earlier this week, but the team has brought back utility player\/pitcher Luke Williams on a minor league deal. The moved happened the same day the team announced that Ha-Seong Kim will be lost for most of the first half<\/a> of the regular seasons. The move to bring back Williams – who the Braves listed as a shortstop on their transaction – was speculated in the linked article.<\/p>\n

While the Braves signed Jorge Mateo<\/a> mid-week as a back-up shortstop option behind now presumed starter Mauricio Dubon, that doesn\u2019t mean that Williams doesn\u2019t have a path to a big-league roster spot at some point during the season.<\/p>\n

As it stands now, the Braves do have one open position player spot on the 26-man roster. The addition of right-handed power-hitting reserve of some kind – Justin Turner, Gary Sanchez, maybe even Marcell Ozuna – seems like a more valuable addition to the roster than Williams.<\/p>\n

Williams is not a good hitter. Full stop. He had a 0 (zero) wRC+ last year and for his career has a 63 wRC+. But, he is a good and versatile defender who can play in the middle infield and outfield. He is also a good base runner, making him an often-used pinch-runner option during his 221 games with Atlanta going back to 2023.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the punch-line to the joke that isn\u2019t really a joke. Williams is also a useful pitcher. As a position player, he has pitched in 10 career games – including nine over the past two seasons with Atlanta.<\/p>\n

In 2025, he made six appearances, tossing six innings and striking out four while allowing only two earned runs. His career WHIP is 1.18 with an xERA of 4.25 against an actual ERA of 3.27. His FIP and xFIP aren\u2019t as good but this is a position player, not an actual full-time pitcher. Last year, if not for his own injury, he likely would have pitched in at least two more games.<\/p>\n

Williams is-what-he-is. A player who can be useful as the 26th an on a roster where his positive attributes can be utilized if the other position players are going to see the majority of the playing time during the season. This has been something he has been able to do the last couple of season with Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Is there a chance he is nothing more but break-in-case-of-emergency depth at Triple-A this season? Absolutely, and hopefully so. But don\u2019t be surprised if Williams doesn\u2019t appear with Atlanta at some point this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Braves snuck this through the transaction wire earlier this week, but the team has brought back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4206,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-534585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlanta-braves-news","11":"tag-atlantabraves","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-braves","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115945176264704882","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}