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Before I talk about the Braves, please read “About” and consider this testimonial from an authority on Ball Atlanta.
“When it comes to sports, especially football, if Ray writes it I'm reading it. His work is at a different level, info-wise, partly because it's clear the player, coach, etc. are not the only ones in the interview who really know the game." Chuck Oliver, 680 The Fan, Atlanta.
By Ray Glier
The Braves are trying to prod upside out of their young pitchers much like the contrivance in grade school of putting the eggs under a heat lamp hoping they hatch chicks before everyone goes home for the holidays.
The Braves’ young hurlers have not come out of their shells and the approach seems a little laissez-faire, don’t you think, considering all that is at stake? The Eggs+Heat Lamp approach for these young pitchers is more like a carcass on a spit over flame. The summer temps, the wound-tight baseballs flying in all directions for homers, the short season, and MLB’s ridiculously short learning curve for big arms is roasting these kids
Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, Touki Toussaint, Kyle Muller, and Sean Newcomb are trying to move from one room to a larger room without having minor league baseball during the pandemic to sort out their talent. The Braves need them to ride to the rescue of their ONE….
….no, TWO starting pitchers.
Ian Anderson is officially the No. 2 after a second strong start Tuesday night (6 IP, 2 runs at Fenway Park). It was a bigger story for the Braves than Marcell Ozuna’s three-homer game because Ozuna clobbered crummy pitching and Anderson beat a decent lineup and the Braves are more desperate for a second starter than they are for a meaningless homer in an 11-3 game.
If one of the other young hurlers busts out and the Braves have THREE starters—Max Fried, Anderson, ?—General Manager Alex Anthopoulos can go to finger-wagging at his scolders. He didn’t do a big deal at the trade deadline for a starter because maybe sitting on his backside waiting for upside is the right thing to do and….
….because he has a bad-ass lineup and deep bullpen and his club is in first place.
Even if Braves don’t uncover a reliable third starter they can fight the suzerain Dodgers (29-10) for the World Series. And that’s because the starting pitcher in baseball is on a shaky pedestal.
That the Braves are leading the National League East is a testament to their everyday talent, but also to their adapting to this era of 5-inning stints by starting pitchers. In 2019, the average start in the Majors was 5.2 innings. In 2020, it is 4.7. When the Braves get into their bullpen, they have an advantage. They are 9-3 in one, or two-run games. When leading after 6, which is when starters just collapse from exhaustion from their incessant nibbling and trying to miss bats, the Braves are 16-0.
Is the bullpen any way to win a crown?
Maybe it is….when backed by a versatile lineup of thumpers. The Braves are seventh in runs scored and that’s with Ronald Acuna. Jr. playing just 23 games and Ozzie Albies playing 11. Acuna is back tonight.
I keep thinking about the deals Anthopoulos hasn’t made for starting pitching….and the ones he did make…for relief pitching….and the Braves are in first place. Might we be watching another escalation of the pen in the game right before our eyes? The Braves as a bellwether? The emergence of lefty reliever A.J. Minter has been a revelation and gives the Braves six quality arms in the pen: Minter, Shane Greene, Mark Melancon, Will Smith, Darren O’Day, and Chris Martin. The southpaw Tyler Matzek can throw 96-97 mph. And we all love the spunk of Luke Jackson.
The three-inning stint and then a parade of fresh, strong arms—for three of the team’s five starts in a week—is a certifiable thing. More and more teams are above the 50 percent threshold of innings pitched by relievers vs. starters. It’s been a trend for six years, and the Braves are ramping it up. They are 9th in innings pitched by relievers, but climbing since Mike Soroka was hurt.
Imagine the Bullpen Duel World Series with the Braves vs. Rays, the team that led MLB in innings pitched by relievers in 2019. And look at the Rays now, the second-best record in baseball (26-12). The Braves, by the way, were 18th in innings pitched by relievers in 2019.
What difference does it make if the Phillies and Nats have three stout starters to the Braves two when their bullpens suck and Atlanta relievers own a collective ERA of 3.21, second in the NL to the Dodgers? Hey, the Nats won a World Series with those starters. Last season.
Anthopoulos said Monday after the trade deadline passed that not signing a frontline starter to help ease the loss of injured ace Mike Soroka was “not financial” meaning assuming a contract was not a barrier. Sonny Gray was out there...for a price…before the 2019 season, but the Braves passed on Gray. They passed on Cleveland’s Mike Clevinger at the 2020 trade deadline and they did not sign free agent Zach Wheeler last December. He went to the Phillies.
So if it wasn’t financial this week during a pandemic when the club has lost 97 percent of its revenue from Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta with no fans, what kept the Braves from dealing last December when they had money?
Are they simply settling for division crowns, and conceding to the Dodgers, one of only two teams over $100 million in payroll for the shortened 2020 season?
Maybe, but I think one reason for not buying a long-term starter is the formulaic use of the bullpen and the managing of the arms. The Braves also have Triple-A reinforcements right up the road in Gwinnett to face a second half schedule loaded with teams with .500 or losing records. The stalwarts in the pen can have their innings managed in September when a Triple-A pitcher can duck down to Truist Park to take innings against a weak schedule. In September rosters are 28 with 14 pitchers.
Does this math start to make sense now for these last two months? 12 outs by one guy. 15 outs by 4 guys. And who cares who gets the outs, anyway? MLB helped by allowing a 26-player roster, 13 of whom can be pitchers (27 players for double-headers).
I suppose Braves fans should continue to cross their fingers for Wright, Wilson, Touki, Muller, et. al to have a revelation—one of them at least—and push the Braves toward the World Series with THREE starters.
If you don’t believe in the pen, what is it going to take for the Braves to get that third reliable starter behind Max Fried and Anderson? Here are some thoughts.
*I wrote a book on Alabama football with former NFL General Manager Phil Savage. It dealt a lot with player development. When coach Nick Saban found a prototype at a position—say wide receiver Julio Jones—everything about Hoo was documented and filmed. He was placed on a high shelf to be admired and studied and recruiters were told, “This is what you are looking for in a receiver. Now get to work.” This is why Alabama recruiting is so consistent. Height/Weight/Speed/Intangibles. Don’t deviate from this blueprint.
The Braves need to show Wright, Wilson, Toussaint, Muller, and Newcomb the video of Anderson on Tuesday night against the Red Sox and make them study Anderson’s fastball command. It is what none of those pitchers has been able to nail down in the minor leagues or stints in the big leagues. They also don’t have that 88-mph splitter, or whatever it is, Anderson kept chucking up there behind his 95-fastball.
*Paul Byrd, the former Major League pitcher and now a wizard of an analyst for the Braves’ broadcasts on Fox Sports South, told me in 2019 that young pitchers with big arms have one gaping hole in their arsenal. Command. It needs to be earned by innings pitched in the minors. How many? We don’t know. That’s why we have the minor leagues. This is granular work. It’s why there are five levels to pro ball.
So it wasn’t surprising that Wright and Wilson did not perform well in 2019. Manager Brian Snitker said it out loud in July, 2019 as the young pitchers got waxed. They need work. They could not command both sides of the plate. You know, up-and-in, down-and-away.
An American League player development man told me that when the club’s 18-year olds showed up for his camp in 2019 they were ordered to leave curveballs, sliders, and changeups at the door. There was nobody to impress, but him and to impress him was with command of the fastball. They were forced the first half of the season in their rookie league to use fastball-only and it was ugly. Down and away and up and in were an anathema to them. When the kids couldn’t command both sides of the plate, they walked hitters, or became exasperated and threw down the middle and were rocked.
They got better, the personnel man said. They started acquiring command.
*Byrd told me a story. Curt Schilling, a young right-hander with the Phillies, was in his early stages of development. He was being schooled by the grizzled Johnny Podres, a southpaw chucker for the Dodgers in the 60s. “You want to see my curve,” Schilling said, eager to impress with his hook. “Fastballs,” Podres barked. “Down and away.”
Twenty pitches later, Schilling was still throwing fastballs trying to get it right. Podres kept his foot on the youngster. No curves. Fastball command. Schilling went on to be a World Series hero. He said the lessons of Podres were a turning point for him.
*Tyler Flowers had a story about the immensely talented Matt Wisler, who the Braves acquired in a trade. Wisler had stuff, but he couldn’t hit Flowers’ glove. It was maddening for Flowers because he saw a young pitcher with so much, how you say, upside. Wisler made his big league debut too early, at 22. He is on his fifth team in 2020. Wisler has been trying to take off the training wheels for five years because of ….command issues.
Another explanation for the malaise of young pitchers is too much coaching outside the clubhouse. Here it comes. Old guy bashing analytics. Somebody said the Braves’ data guys are calling pitches in certain counts and thinking the game for the young pitchers. Unless Travis d’Arnaud and Flowers have earpieces connected to the vampire room where the video guys hang out, that’s not happening. They are not glancing over at the dugout for the pitch call, either. To take instinct on calling pitches away from veteran catchers and give it to a dataHead is abominable. The T’s are being paid first for pitch-calling instinct and pitch framing, then throwing out runners. They are not looking at the dugout for ques.
*A sports psychologist who works with a professional baseball team told me there is fragile line between what Anderson is doing for the Braves and what Wright and the others are not doing. I get that, I said.
I really didn’t get that.
“It’s really freaking hard to stand out there for an hour and a half,” he said. “You go from facing a minor league team with two big league hitters to facing a Major League team with 14 really good hitters.”
I asked, “What’s missing from the starter who makes it and the ones that end up in the dustbin?”
“The ability to move on to the next pitch,” my guy said. “To slow the game down. To have the ability to know when your body is out of sync. To regain focus. To have self-awareness. The ability to manage your energy; to know where your energy is.”
There’s more, he said. More? Egads.
“Where is your eyesight? What are you looking at? What is your self talk? What is the que you want to feel? Is it the lower half driving into the ground, or the arm coming through like a whip? What does it feel like when you are going good?”
He continued: “Is your routine between pitches consistent? Is your emotion in the same place so you can repeat?”
“I get what the Braves are doing with these young pitchers,” the doc said. “They are having faith because they know these are not robot arms out there. Different guys arrive at different times.”
My guy talked about young pitchers needing the tools to manage a crisis. The sports psychologists on big league teams talk to some players, who are open to suggestions, but they mostly talk to the coaches, who have a better relationship with the player.
In case you’re wondering, the irregular development of Wright, Wilson, and Toussaint cannot be laid at the feet of the veteran pitching coach Rick Kranitz. If he is so bad at his job, how do you explain the quick rise of Soroka and Fried and now Anderson? The Braves spent weeks interviewing pitching coach candidates to solve the very issue they are dealing with now, which is trying to unlock the potential of big arms. It aint Kranitz.
The Braves are young enough with their core that they could have traded some prospects for Cleveland’s Clevinger, who was landed by the San Diego Padres. That move would have gotten the Braves to the World Series, at least to the NLCS where the Dodgers will be waiting. The top prospect San Diego yielded, No. 7 shortstop Gabriel Arias, was the organization’s third-best shortstop and wholly expendable because future superstar Fernando Tatis, Jr., 21, has the position locked down.
Could the Braves have done better with a mix of picks ranked No. 7, or lower? I’m assuming Anthopoulos gave it a try and the Padres were just better marketers of their young talent. Or….
….Anthopoulos was comfortable resting on his backside waiting for upside and watching that bullpen shine and his hitters rip.
The Braves are having the kind of season, so far, where they can swing blindfolded and hit the pinata every time. The club has chemistry and the lineup is deep, and this is without a healthy Albies or Acuna, Jr., for most of August.
This team might get to the champagne shower—without a bonafide starting rotation—by bashing the magical flying baseball, the bullpen as heroes, and their joyful pluckiness. And the Dodgers doing what the Dodgers do for a 33rd straight season, find a way to lose in the postseason when they get there.
There is more than one way to win a baseball game. Starting pitching is losing its premium status in MLB drip-by-drip, which many predicted five years ago. Is this 60-game season an abomination or might we be on the doorstep of TWO starters and a stout pen as a formula? The Braves are showing the way.