I don’t want to overstate the value of raw economic power in baseball. The Mets spent more than $320 million on player payroll (not including luxury tax penalties), and they finished four games over .500. Money can’t buy happiness, or even a playoff berth.
However, it allows you to make a closer major upgrade to your bench. The Braves proved that on Wednesday when they re-signed closer Raisel Iglesias to $16 million for one year and traded the utility infielder with the Astros, sending Nick Allen to the West in a one-on-one deal for Mauricio Dubón.
Last season, the Braves were one of the favorites to win the NL pennant, only to fall to fourth place behind the Marlins (Marlins!) after a series of evocative dramas and disasters. a serious person. Jurikson Profar was sidelined with PEDs, Spencer Steed and Ozzie Albies lost their energy, half the players were injured and it was chaos.
When Iglesias can’t stop making saves, you know things are going to go bad. This is one of the best closers of the 2020s, a beat-’em-up relief ace in an almost paradoxical world. If you extrapolate the 2020 stats at a 162-game pace, Iglesias has had five straight seasons with between 58 and 67 plate appearances, an ERA between 1.95 and 2.75, and an FIP between 2.30 and 3.38. to get That A pitcher worth just $16 million would be a coup.
But when the Warriors started 0-7, Iglesias also lumbered out of the gate. He missed his first save chance and started to falter from there. The low point came on June 5, a game the Diamondbacks came back from trailing 10-4 in the ninth inning. Iglesias took the biggest hit. He faced seven batters and gave up three runs, plus another baserunner he inherited from Scott Bluett.
It was Iglesias’ fourth save in his first 12 save opportunities this season. At the time, he was 3-5 with a 6.75 ERA, with two of those wins coming in games in which he had already lost a save.
The underlying stats aren’t great either. Iglesias’ fastball velocity has declined somewhat since 2024, and by the end of May, his slider had allowed just nine pitches in seven hits, five of which were home runs.
That’s not what you want. If you looked at the Warriors’ season at… well, around the same time as Alex Anthopoulos, at the risk of being too blunt, you might wonder why the Warriors would be interested in retaining their 35-year-old at any cost, let alone $16 million.
After hitting rock bottom, Iglesias bounced back like his butt was made of plasticine. Starting on June 6, he made 45 appearances, totaling 43 1/3 innings. He struck out 48 times and allowed just 31 base runners, one home run and six earned runs of any kind. Looking at the Baseball Cards numbers, Iglesias made 21 of 22 saves with a 1.25 ERA and a 1.98 FIP.
I’m not sure it’s possible to get such good numbers by pure fluke, but this shift brings about some fundamental changes. He’s regained his lost fastball velocity and started throwing his fastball more, which is good; even with a bad start to the season, opponents are still batting under .200 against Iglesias’ four-seamer and sinker. By September, he had almost stopped throwing his slider.
Going forward, Iglesias will likely need to be able to throw a breaking ball, and that doesn’t mean he has to back up third base, but for now, I’m ready to declare him fixed and grant him pardon. Go forward, my friend, and surrender no more.
While Iglesias’ contract is good business for Atlanta, my first reaction to the Allen-for-Dupont trade was to wonder if there was a gas leak at Daikin Park.
I don’t know if you want Dupont’s bat in the lineup every day; he hit .241/.289/.355 in 2025, and he’s only had a wOBA with three starts in the past five seasons once. But the best Honduran-born baseball player of the past 30 years has appeared in at least 130 games in each of his three full seasons in Houston. how? Well, while Dupont is pretty inept against right-handed pitchers, he’s even better against left-handers, marking them with a 111 wRC+ in 2025. Perhaps more importantly, he appeared in at least 17 games at five different positions last season in Houston, appearing in three or more games in every game except pitcher and catcher.
Dubón’s defensive numbers this year are insane, enough to put him at 2.2 WAR in 398 games. That includes an above-average 16 shutouts in 500 innings at both center infield positions. Dupont has performed well, even very well, with the glove throughout his career. He won a Gold Glove while in Houston. But I doubt he woke up on March 1, 2025, and turned into Ozzie Smith in a mecha suit.
Despite this, Dubón is still a very useful utility player. Given that the Braves have to fill holes at shortstop, third base and both corner outfield positions in 2025, it’s obvious why they would be interested in Dupont.
The Warriors’ eagerness to upgrade must have something to do with Allen’s performance. As the starting shortstop, he hit .221/.284/.251 in 416 games. Allen is a great defender in the short term. He finished third in both OAA and FRV. I couldn’t care less, because if you’re trying to field a roster capable of competing in the NFC East, you’re not going to put a guy with a 53 career wRC+ in 500 games. Not when your two direct competitors for the position are Trae Turner and Francisco Lindor.
So why would the Astros trade the flawed Dupont for an inferior player? Because they are trying to get below the competitive equilibrium tax threshold. According to MLB Trade Rumors , the Astros are no longer tendering Ramon Urías and demoting him from Dupont to Allen will save him a $4.3 million arbitration award. Additionally, Dupont is in his final year at the helm and Allen has three seasons left in arbitration. That’s not to say either player has reached the level of control that they’ve had for years.
This trade is definitely an Astros move, like a friend who never brings enough cash to pay the bills, but if the Astros were going to go cheap somewhere, I understand why they did it here.
Dupont is a versatile infielder and corner outfielder who hits left-handed well but not right-handed. Houston currently has an extremely solid and more right-handed starting infield in Jose Altuve, Jeremy Pena and Carlos Correa. If one of those guys went down, Isaac Paredes, also a right-hander, would pull his glove out of storage and slide through the DH. In the corner outfield, Yordan Alvarez may be left-handed, but he can hit the ball left-handed better than almost any right-handed hitter on the planet.
The Astros don’t really need a player like DuPont playing with three guys at once and starting three games a week. They could live with a guy who could defend anywhere but never take a meaningful at-bat. That’s Allen.
So congratulations to the Braves for making meaningful progress, and congratulations to Astros owner Jim Crane for not having to write as big a check as he once did while not hurting the roster as much as possible.
