Baseball

Braves, Charlie Culberson Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have agreed to a minor league deal with free-agent utilityman Charlie Culberson, as first indicated on the MLB.com transactions log. Culberson, a Ballengee Group client, opted out of a minor league deal with the Rays earlier this week. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett.

It’ll be an overwhelmingly popular move among Braves fans, many of whom grew to love Culberson during his 2018-20 stretch with the club. The versatile infielder/outfielder has spent more time in a Braves uniform than any other in his 10-year career. In 230 games, he’s tallied 473 plate appearances and batted .265/.314/.454 with Atlanta. The best season of Culberson’s career came in 2018, when he set personal highs in games played (113), plate appearances (322), doubles (18) and home runs (12).

The past three seasons, including his brief final showing with Atlanta, have seen a pronounced downturn in Culberson’s production, however. Dating back to 2020, he’s slashed just .244/.289/.371 in 402 trips to the plate. The bulk of that action has come with the Rangers, for whom he played in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Culberson has appeared at every position on the diamond other than catcher and center field in his decade-long career, including 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball in mop-up duty (albeit with just one strikeout). Third base has been his primary position in the Majors, but he has more than 400 innings at second base, at shortstop and in left field as well. Culberson has generally struggled against right-handed pitching (.217/.277/.348), but he’s a .285/.313/.431 hitter against lefties in his career.

The Braves currently have Ehire Adrianza on the big league roster as a utility infielder, but Culberson could work his way up to the big league club in the event of injuries in the Atlanta infield.

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