Charlie Culberson elects free agency over assignment to Gwinnett

To clarify what happened here, Culberson was designated for assignment to make a spot on the 40-man roster. When that happened, he went on waivers and any team had the ability to claim him and add him to their own 40-man roster. 

Culberson went unclaimed, and so Atlanta sent him outright to AAA Gwinnett. But for any player with three years of Major League service time OR one who has been outrighted before, they can instead choose to reject the assignment and elect free agency instead. 

This is actually the same as what Culberson did after the now-infamous Father's Day DFA, where his father was scheduled to throw out the first pitch and he was instead DFA'd due to an injury to Sean Murphy. He elected free agency in that situation, as well, but quickly re-signed with Atlanta and reported to AAA Gwinnett. Culberson rejoined the major league roster a week later once Murphy was deemed healthy enough to play and the third catcher, Chadwick Tromp, was sent back down to Gwinnett. 

It feels different this time, though. Atlanta didn't DFA Culberson because they needed to reinforce a different position that he couldn't play; Charlie was DFA'd because Atlanta traded for Nicky Lopez from the Kansas City Royals and made him the new backup infield option on the major league roster. In essence, they replaced Culberson with Lopez. 

With it being tougher to make the major league roster now that Lopez is ahead of him in the infield pecking order, Culberson may elect to sign with another organization. Or, being a native Georgia resident (born in Rome, GA and went to high school in Calhoun, GA) whose family lives in the area, he may choose to re-sign with Gwinnett and continue to bide his time for an Major League opportunity. 

Either way, if this is it fo his time in Atlanta, Charlie Culberson will forever be remembered for possibly the greatest play of the entire 2019 season for Atlanta: