Outfielder Jurickson Profar has signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Atlanta Braves, the team announced Thursday.
According to the Braves, Profar, who was No. 15 on Yahoo Sports’ Top 50 MLB free agent list, will earn $12 million in 2025 and $15 million in 2026 and 2027.
Profar has agreed to donate 1% of his salary to the Atlanta Braves Foundation, which aims to “build community through baseball engaging Braves Country, reaching vulnerable populations, and improving equity and access in sport, health, education and well-being outcomes for children, families, and communities.”
Last season with the San Diego Padres, Profar posted a career year, batting .280, hitting 24 home runs and driving in 85 runs with 10 stolen bases. Among National League left fielders, his 4.3 fWAR was highest, and he was above the 90th percentile in expected wOBA (.364) and expected batting average (.283). He was also the sixth-best hitter by wRC+ in the NL.
Profar’s play in the field earned him a starting nod in left for the NL All-Star team, and his production at the plate resulted in a Silver Slugger Award. He’ll now join an Atlanta outfield that will also feature Michael Harris II and Ronald Acuña Jr., who is returning from a torn ACL.
Profar began his MLB career with four seasons with the Texas Rangers before he joined the Oakland A’s in 2019. His first stint with the Padres lasted from 2020-22 before he signed with the Colorado Rockies. He was then released by Colorado and rejoined the Padres.
What to make of Profar’s deal with Atlanta?
Traditionally one of the more active teams each winter, Atlanta had been eerily quiet this offseason coming off its seventh consecutive trip to October. The Braves were one of just a handful of teams that had yet to sign a free agent to a guaranteed big-league deal this winter, but they finally got on the board with the addition of Profar on a three-year deal worth $42 million.
The Padres — with whom Profar starred in his breakout 2024 season — have also yet to sign a major-league free agent this winter, and they surely would’ve loved a reunion with Profar. But San Diego’s ongoing ownership dispute and bloated payroll apparently made retaining Profar difficult. Instead, he joins a Braves team that had an unsettled left-field depth chart that projected to feature the largely unproven Jarred Kelenic and recent signee Bryan De La Cruz in a platoon of sorts. Now that duo can cover right field until Ronald Acuña Jr. returns from ACL injury, at which point Acuña should join Profar and center fielder Michael Harris II to form one of the more dangerous outfield trios in the National League.
The switch-hitting Profar and his excellent on-base skills will provide some much-needed balance to a Braves lineup that severely underwhelmed in 2024. While Profar’s plate discipline has always been stellar, it was a notable uptick in power production supported by huge strides in his batted-ball quality that fueled his 2024 breakout that he has now parlayed into an eight-figure deal. Although he’ll no longer be a main character in the Dodgers-Padres rivalry, Profar could continue to play a key role for a team hoping to dethrone the champs in 2025. — Shusterman
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