Way back when, in the early part of the 2010s, the Braves routinely shut down the opposition in the late innings with the three-headed O’Ventbrel monster. Those were definitely fun times, but the Braves dynamic lefty duo of Jonny Venters and Eric O’Flaherty had some competition in that department from Rex Brothers, who was up there as one of the better relievers in baseball over his first three major league seasons.

Those days, of course, have come and gone, as has Brothers’ effectiveness. After three strong seasons with the Rockies (2.82 ERA, 3.22 FIP in the rarefied air of Coors Field), the wheels fell off for him in 2014, and he subsequently spent much of 2015 riding the bus between AAA and Denver as he battled ineffectiveness. Things only got worse: he was designated for assignment after the 2015 season, traded to the Cubs, and then released just a couple of weeks into Spring Training. After that point, he apparently sat out the remainder of the 2016 season, as there is no record of him pitching in the minors or for any other baseball league.

The Braves, though, have not let that deter them, and they’ve signed Brothers to a minor league deal, per Matt Eddy at Baseball America.

#Braves sign 29-year-old LH reliever Rex Brothers to minors deal. He went to camp with #Cubs last year but did not pitch. — Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) February 3, 2017

It is unclear whether the deal includes an invitation to Spring Training, but either way, Brothers has a lot of ground to make up before he can hope to sniff the Atlanta roster. While he’s shown a proclivity towards good left-handed relief in the past, he’s always had massive walk issues (career BB% north of 13%, which is abysmal, especially for a reliever), and has largely gotten by courtesy of striking out a quarter of the batters he faces.

Since early 2015, Brothers has battled weight issues and mechanics challenges. His stints in AAA for the Rockies didn’t seem to sort him out, and the Cubs didn’t think he was worth carrying as a minor leaguer (or taking up innings in Spring Training last year), so those are definitely red flags. Still, if he can recoup even a sliver of the productivity he had in his first few seasons, that will only be good news for the Braves.

Notably, Brothers is “local” to the Braves, hailing from Murfreesboro, Tennessee and having played college ball at Lipscomb University. He’s yet another first round draft pick agglomerated by the Atlanta front office, as the Rockies drafted him 34th overall in the 2009 draft.