The Atlanta Braves made a deal with the San Diego Padres last night that netted them veteran Matt Carpenter and LHP Ray Kerr in exchange for Drew Campbell.
The Padres don’t want Carpenter’s contract and the Braves wanted Kerr. Much like the Kelenic deal with the Mariners, the Braves took on a bad contract to get the good contract.
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Why did the Braves want Ray Kerr?
Ray Kerr, 29, has 0.109 years of major-league service time. What does that mean? It means they can pay him league minimum or close to league minimum for the next three seasons before he even hits his first year of arbitration. It means the Braves have Kerr under team control for the next six years. It may cost a little extra this season (Padres reportedly sent $1.5 million with Carpenter) but in the long run, this is a value play for Atlanta.
Atlanta Braves LHP Ray Kerr Scouting Report
Ray Kerr has a high 90s fastball that can reach 101 mph. In fact, he had never reached 100 mph until July 25th, 2019, two years after he signed with the Mariners. The combination of his high velocity and his low arm slot gave him what some called one of the best fastballs in the minor leagues. MLB Pipeline gave his fastball a 70 grade. Last season with the Padres, his fastball averaged 96.0 mph.
He had primarily relied on his slider as his secondary pitch, by all accounts. MLB pipeline graded his slider as a 55 and made no mention of his curveball. Here’s a quote from MLB Pipeline.
“Kerr’s fastball is easily his best pitch, sitting in the upper-90s and consistently touching triple digits. He also throws a low-80s wipeout slider, which plays well off his fastball and helped him rack up a 13.6 K/9 rate last season.“
According to his Baseball Savant page, he appeared to have stopped throwing sliders last season and went with a curveball as the secondary offering.
While it was a small sample size in 2023 (185 pitches) his curveball had a tremendous 53.8% whiff rate. That means that over half of all major league swings against his curveball resulted in whiff!
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