Veteran reliever Collin McHugh is thrilled to be home with the Braves

NORTH PORT, Fla. — When Evan Gattis heard reliever Collin McHugh signed with the Braves, the former Atlanta catcher texted this Braves writer and said, “He’s freakin great. Awesome. He’s incredible on the mound, too.”

Gattis was teammates with McHugh for four seasons in Houston, including the 2017 World Series championship team. That team also featured current Braves co-ace Charlie Morton, who gave a glowing recommendation when Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos asked about McHugh.

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“He’s a great, great guy,” Morton said. “I was really excited when I heard that Alex was interested and the Braves were interested. I’ve been keeping in touch with Collin. He’s an Atlanta native. I know he loves the city. I’m really excited for him and the chance to play at home. But I’m even more excited to spend some more time with him.”

McHugh, 34, was among baseball’s elite relievers in two of the last four seasons. Last season with Tampa Bay, he recorded a 1.55 ERA over 64 innings (37 appearances) and tallied 74 strikeouts with only 12 walks, and three homers allowed. That alone made him a strong candidate for a Braves bullpen that returned three outstanding left-handers but only one righty from a unit that was a team strength after the All-Star break and throughout their World Series run.

But McHugh, who has lived in and around Atlanta since he was 6 or 7, grew up a hardcore fan who idolized Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. He never stopped pulling for the Braves — even when McHugh played for other teams.

And McHugh’s reputation as a witty, easygoing, personable guy whom everyone gets along with is just the type that Anthopoulos likes to have on a team that places a strong emphasis on clubhouse chemistry.

“A kid from Atlanta, a kid who wore 31 because of Greg Maddux,” McHugh said of his excitement after arriving at Braves camp Thursday, “and who met John Smoltz at a Krystal when I was 10. And who just wanted to emulate Tom Glavine on the mound and like, be stoic as much as I could.” 

McHugh smiled and added, “I am the baseball player that I am because of watching all those guys. And so to be part of the storied organization, in the place we are right now with the momentum that we’ve built, I couldn’t have asked for a better spot to land.”

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He signed a two-year, $10 million free-agent deal Tuesday that includes a $6 million club option for 2024. McHugh gets $4 million this season, $5 million in 2023 and a $1 million buyout if the option isn’t exercised.

He was asked who among his friends and family was most thrilled to hear he was joining the Braves. There is his mom, Theresa, who was a serious Braves fan, as was her late husband, long before Collin was born. There are the friends and former classmates from Providence Christian Academy in Lilburn and Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga. And there is his wife, Ashley, who owns a boutique/gift shop near the erstwhile Turner Field in the Summerhill area near downtown Atlanta.

“All of them?” McHugh said, laughing. “I talked to my mom — my wife first, and then my mom. Yeah, she (mom) was just speechless. She couldn’t really put words to it. It’s gonna be fun for all of us.”

That includes his two sons, ages 3 and 6, the latter old enough to know what dad does even if still not sure which team he does it for. (He thinks McHugh plays for the Yankees.) Ashley had always hoped her husband could eventually have a chance to pitch for the Braves so they could live year-round in Atlanta at their home in East Atlanta Village.

“I mean, 6-year-old me just freaked out,” McHugh said of his reaction after getting to North Port and being fitted for his Braves uniform. “I’ve been a Braves fan as long as I’ve been a baseball fan, which has been a long time. So there’s a lot of who I am today because the Braves were competitive when I was growing up. And to feel this full circle arc of my career is kind of surreal right now.”

He hopes to continue a rather stunning streak. The past four teams he’s played on — the 2017-19 Astros and the 2021 Rays — have won 100 or more regular-season games.

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“And to come to the defending World Champs and now hopefully, and with good reason, to feel like we can continue that streak means a lot to me,” he said. “They’ve already got so much talent in this clubhouse. Obviously they’ve got a connection here and a bond that’s built by winning, which is something that you can’t really replicate in baseball. So I want to come in and help where I can and become as much of a seamless part of this as I can as quickly as I can.”

McHugh is a former starter who has a 64-44 record and 3.77 ERA in 247 games (126 starts) over nine seasons. As a reliever, he has a 2.49 ERA in 121 appearances with 201 strikeouts and 50 walks in 166 innings. He first transitioned from starter to reliever with Houston in 2018, posting a 1.99 ERA in 58 appearances that season, with 94 strikeouts and 21 walks in 72 1/3 innings. At the beginning of the next year, he made eight starts before moving permanently to the bullpen. Last season, he served as an opener for the Rays seven times, and his longest outings of the season — five three-inning stints — all came in relief.

“We’ve got a bunch of good lefties, we needed some righties,” said 39-year-old reliever Darren O’Day, who is back with the team on a minor-league contract after an injury-shortened 2021 with the Yankees. “I’m excited to have him. He’s got a good reputation around the league … I think that’s one of the underrated things Alex does well, is character evaluation before he brings a guy on.

“The personalities in this room are pretty unique. Everybody as far as I know gets along really well and is pulling the same end of the rope. Whenever a guy’s talented and a good person who’s easy to get along with, for six months when we’re on top of each other (in the bullpen), it’s really helpful.”

McHugh signed with Boston in 2020 but had lingering elbow problems — he’d injured his arm in August 2019 — and opted out of the pandemic-shortened season.

Last season with the Rays, he had four IL stints — two for arm soreness or fatigue, one for a sore back, one on COVID-19 IL — but pitched brilliantly after April. He had a puny 0.77 ERA in 33 appearances from May 6 through the end of the season, limiting opponents to a .174 average and .451 OPS with 69 strikeouts in 58 2/3 innings.

He is slender and unassuming, maybe the least pro-athlete-looking guy in the room. And although he doesn’t throw hard by big-league standards, averaging 91 mph with his fastball, he has a devastating slider he complements with a cutter and a four-seamer that moves horizontally.

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Braves lefty reliever Tyler Matzek has known McHugh since 2013, when both were with the Rockies’ Double-A Tulsa affiliate. Matzek was 22. McHugh was 26 and back in the minors after making his big-league debut the previous season.

“Even then, he was a pro,” Matzek said. “He kind of mentored me, and another guy, Christian Bergman. He kind of took us under his wing and showed us the ropes on how to go about your business the right way.”

McHugh was born in suburban Covington, Ga., but his parents soon moved the family to Naperville, Ill., outside Chicago. He was only 5 at the time of “Sid Slid” in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS against Pittsburgh, but McHugh said he remembers the iconic Braves moment — and what happened next at the McHugh residence.

“I remember sitting in our living room watching Sid Bream round third,” he said, getting excited as he told the story. “He slides in safe, my mom freaks out and just throws her hands up in the air, smokes my dad right in the face. Like, I think she just broke his nose. It’s pandemonium, it’s bedlam. It was the beginning of it.

“It was the beginning of it from that point on. I mean, you could catch me 162 days of summer watching Braves baseball.”

The McHughs moved back to the Atlanta area in 1994, and Theresa McHugh has worked in the office at Providence Christian Academy for over 25 years.

One of the fond recollections of his youth was waiting in a long line to see Smoltz at an autograph signing session at a Krystal hamburger joint.

“Yeah, I got his autograph on a baseball — I still have it,” he said. “But I remember waiting in line for an hour at a Krystal to get in and see him and just look at him and going, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s him.’ And we’ve had the ability to catch up over the years and talk as my career has gone on and his pretty storied broadcast career has continued to develop. So it’s been a fun trajectory for both of us, I think.”

(Photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA Today)

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