The Atlanta Braves have spent the past three days quietly stacking depth, and Monday morning brought another piece when they acquired left-handed reliever Brent Suter from the Los Angeles Angels.
ESPN's Jeff Passan reported the deal first, with infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. heading back to Los Angeles in return.
Suter is 36 and pitching on an expiring deal, which made him an obvious name to move once the Angels fell out of the race.
Atlanta sits at 67-45 with an eight-game lead in the National League East, while Los Angeles has slipped to 43-69 and now sits last in the American League West.
Suter has thrown 63 1/3 innings across 41 appearances this season, three of them starts, and he owns a 4.12 ERA with 55 strikeouts against 17 walks.
He does not miss many bats or throw hard, but he keeps the ball down and gives up weak contact, with an 86.3 mph average exit velocity and a 30.4 percent hard-hit rate.
The more useful trait might be that he almost never misses time, since he made at least 47 appearances every year from 2021 through 2025 with a 3.57 ERA along the way.
He has also been sharper lately, with a 2.51 ERA over nine outings since July began.
Suter has actually handled righties better than lefties this season, holding them to a .656 OPS against an .828 mark for left-handers, so Atlanta is not adding him as a one-batter specialist.
The thinking here is simple enough, because the Braves have leaned on their bullpen hard while the rotation crumbled around them.
Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Reynaldo Lopez are all unavailable, and Walt Weiss has already been pushed into uncomfortable bullpen choices to protect his best arms in blowouts.
Suter can cover multiple innings on short notice, the type of arm that keeps a staff fresh in September, and Atlanta had been linked to bullpen help for weeks alongside the search for a starter.
Suter joins outfielder Lane Thomas and right-hander Tyler Mahle as Atlanta additions inside a 72-hour window, and Anthopoulos had signaled for weeks that he was keeping every option open ahead of the 6 p.m. ET cutoff.
Alvarez was once the best position player in Atlanta's farm system and climbed as high as third on the club's prospect list, but wrist and oblique problems stalled him and the bat never showed up.
The 23-year-old hit .216 with a .575 OPS across 240 major league plate appearances between 2024 and 2025, and he is batting .236 with a .663 OPS in 37 games at Triple-A Gwinnett this year.
His glove still plays at third base, and he walks plenty while rarely striking out, so the Angels are betting a change of scenery shakes something loose.
With Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley planted in the two spots Alvarez fits best, there was never a real path for him in Atlanta, and flipping him for an October arm was easy enough.
