Julio Teheran left off Braves postseason roster, team plans to go with six man bench with Ortega

We don’t have the exact postseason roster just yet...lets just get that out of the way. However, given that we know a large chunk of it just because of the who the regulars are, there were only a finite number of spots available. Ultimately the decision came down to whether or not to carry Julio Teheran as either the team’s fourth starter/long man or to carry another bullpen arm. After that, the number of bench players would determine if there would be an extra spot in the bullpen.

Braves manager Brian Snitker was asked today about their postseason roster selections and, well, we know a lot more now.

This is a real shame for Teheran as he had been really good for the Braves before the last month of the season or so. However, his last three starts have ranged from not good to bad and the Braves seem to like the flexibility that Max Fried gives them as either a rotation arm or a guy that can come in out of the bullpen. Given that Julio’s stuff doesn’t exactly play well out of bullpen combined with how much the team seems to like Josh Tomlin and, well, that means that Julio is the odd man out.

There were still decisions needed to be made about the bench and specifically who the last slot was going to go to. That decision seemingly came down to Austin Riley and Rafael Ortega and the Braves decided to go with the lefty bat.

This isn’t the decision that we would have made, as we noted in Talking Chop’s most recent podcast, but it is hard to fault the reasoning too much here. Neither Riley or Ortega have been hitting particularly well and one thing that the Braves don’t have on their bench is a reliable left-handed bat. With all of the righties that St. Louis can trot out there, carrying Ortega and hoping for the best is a defensible move.