Former Guardians relief ace falls victim to Braves’ Opening Day roster crunch 

While every team theoretically builds their Opening Day roster with the intention of building the best roster they can put out. But sometimes factors outside of a team’s control end up impacting how things go. 

From players being out of options to rookies not being ready to contribute (or service time manipulation), sometimes teams put some players on their Opening Day roster despite knowing that things could change soon. 

Former Guardians reliever James Karinchak was a victim of that earlier this week, as the Braves decided to send Karinchak to Triple-A in large part so they can keep long man José Suarez on their roster as pitching insurance at the start of their season. 

Not only do the Braves open the season by playing in 13 straight games, but they also have multiple starting pitchers who are working their way back from injury.

While Karinchak has spent the spring proving that he’s back to being a solid single-inning reliever, he doesn’t provide much help from an inning-eating standpoint. 

It won’t be long until former Guardians reliever James Karinchak is on the Braves’ roster 

As mentioned above, Karinchak’s been lights out this spring and has allowed just one hit across four scoreless innings to go along with nine strikeouts and two walks.

While the nine strikeouts he recorded jump off the page, it’s arguably just as impressive that Karinchak only walked two batters during his time in the spring since that ended up being the thing that derailed his career. 

After bursting into the scene in 2019 and ‘20, Karinchak struggled in 2021 but got back to being a solid set-up man in 2022 (2.08 ERA in 39 innings). His numbers took a bit of a hit in 2023 as he struggled to adjust to the pitch clock and only managed to throw 6 2/3 innings in the minors in 2024 due to shoulder troubles. 

He posted a 2.45 ERA in 29 1/3 innings at Triple-A for the White Sox last year but walked an eye-popping 16.5% of the hitters he faced. That’s part of the reason why he had to settle for a minor league deal with the Braves this offseason. 

There’s no denying that Karinchak has a legit fastball (95.2 miles per hour in 2022), but the command issues were a huge bugaboo that eventually led to the Guardians considering him to be expendable. 

But he still found a solid landing spot with the Braves, and did all that he could during his short stint in spring training.

And even though he’s not going to make the Braves’ Opening day roster, it seems like he’s going to be a part of the team’s relief picture at some point in 2026 so long as he’s able to stay healthy. 

The Braves have a stellar 1-2 punch at the end of their bullpen in Raisel Iglesias and Robert Suárez, but the rest of their bullpen is filled with a lot of guys who are pretty underwhelming. Karinchak should be a part of that picture sooner rather than later. 

In other former Guardians news, the Braves also reassigned Carlos Carrasco to their minor league camp. He pitched in three games for the Braves last season before being designated for assignment midway through the summer.