The Braves made a few moves concerning their 40-man roster this evening, saying goodbye to a couple of guys while giving the future a bit of a welcome. To begin with, the Braves have designated both Jonny Venters and Ramiro Pena for assignment.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Braves?src=hash">#Braves</a> DFA'd INF Ramiro Pena and reliever Jonny Venters, who's coming back from 3rd TJ surgery and expected to miss entire 2015 season.</p>— David O'Brien (@DOBrienAJC) <a href="https://twitter.com/DOBrienAJC/status/535251280751755264">November 20, 2014</a></blockquote>
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For Venters, this day was an inevitable one. The writing's been on the wall since he suffered another UCL tear which forced him to have a 3rd Tommy John surgery. He's unlikely to ever pitch in the Majors again, much less for the Braves. It's also sad considering how electric his stuff was when he was healthy, and I'm sure that all of Braves country is going to wish him the best in his recovery.
For Pena, this marks the end of a 2-year stint with the Braves where he was used as an infielder off the bench. He saw plenty of time during the last 2 months of the season when Tommy La Stella started to slow down and whenever Andrelton Simmons needed some time off due to a nagging ankle injury. It was clear that Pena wasn't going to be much more than a bench player, so this move doesn't exactly hurt the Braves too much.
In addition to the Venters and Pena moves, the Braves also added minor leaguers Mauricio Cabrera, Williams Perez, Kyle Kubitza, Tyrell Jenkins, Yean Carlos Gil, Brandon Cunniff, and Jose Peraza.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p>Added to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Braves?src=hash">#Braves</a> 40-man: Mauricio Cabrera, Williams Perez, Kyle Kubitza, Tyrell Jenkins, Yean Carlos Gil, Brandon Cunniff, Jose Peraza.</p>— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/535242836393082880">November 20, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Clearly, the big news here is that Peraza, who shared Braves Minor League Player of the Year honors with Jason Hursh, is now on the 40-man roster. I still don't think that he'd be ready for the bigs by Opening Day, but the fact that he's actually on the 40-man roster is intriguing to say the least. However, I do find it flat-out strange that guys who haven't even made it to the AA level yet (Gil, Cabrera, and Jenkins) are now on the 40-man roster, so it'll be interesting to see how this develops.
So, as the Braves say goodbye to another part of their recent past in the form of Jonny Venters and Ramiro Pena, it's clear that the team is ready to embrace the future with the addition of Peraza (among others) to the 40-man roster.