Braves Select Connor Thomas, Release Daysbel Hernández

The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of lefty Connor Thomas from Triple-A Gwinnett. (Jesus Cano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Thomas’ promotion shortly before the formal announcement.) Righty Owen Murphy was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett to open an active roster spot. Right-hander Daysbel Hernández was released in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Atlanta also recalled righty James Karinchak from Gwinnett and placed fellow right-handed reliever Tyler Kinley on the paternity list. He can spend up to three days there.

Atlanta signed the 28-year-old Thomas to a minor league deal back in November. He’s a former fifth-round pick by the Cardinals who’s spent his entire career prior to 2026 in the NL Central, with the St. Louis and Milwaukee organizations. The Tifton, Ga. native and former Georgia Tech standout has only pitched 5 1/3 big league innings to this point in his career but will now get a second chance with his hometown club.

Thomas has been terrific in Triple-A Gwinnett thus far. He’s appeared in 15 games (13 relief appearances, two starts) and pitched 23 2/3 innings with a 1.14 ERA. He’s benefited from a fluky .213 average on balls in play and has a subpar 18.4% strikeout rate, but Thomas has shown solid command (8.3% walk rate) and an enormous 59% ground-ball rate to help offset that lack of whiffs. Metrics like FIP (3.89) and xFIP (4.27) feel his ERA should be higher, but Thomas’ results, command and grounder rate still merit a look.

Now that he’s on the 40-man roster, Thomas can be freely optioned back and forth between Gwinnett and Atlanta. He still has a full slate of three minor league option years, so the Braves don’t need to expose him to waivers if he pitches well but they want to free up a roster spot for a fresher arm at some point.

The 29-year-old Hernández has pitched in parts of three seasons with Atlanta. He touts a strong 3.38 ERA in 58 2/3 big league frames, but a huge 16.7% walk rate makes it tough to envision Hernández sustaining that rate over a larger sample.

The 2026 season has seen Hernández’s already prominent command troubles worsen. A shoulder injury sidelined him for the season’s first couple weeks, and Hernández has since posted a 5.06 ERA in Gwinnett. He’s probably fortunate to have escaped with “only” that mark. Hernández walked 19 of the 104 batters he faced (18.3%), plunked another three (2.9%) and was charged with a pair of wild pitches in 22 games. His 96.3 mph average fastball is down significantly from last year’s 97.7 mph average.

Hernández can now pursue other opportunities around the league or (speculatively speaking) in Asia. There are plenty of red flags from this season’s showing in Triple-A, but he’s an optionable, hard-throwing arm with a history of missing bats. That should be enough to latch on elsewhere, so long as he’s healthy.