Here’s Jonny: Venters Dealing Out of Atlanta’s ‘Pen

At 71-50, the Atlanta Braves are sitting pretty in the playoff picture. Bobby Cox’s club holds a 2.5 game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, and CoolStandings gives the team an 85 percent chance of playing well into October. One of the reasons that the Braves sit atop their division is the strong work of the bullpen. With a collective 3.59 xFIP, Atlanta’s relief corps ranks second in the majors, trailing only the San Diego Padres. Greybeards Billy Wagner (39 years old) and Takashi Saito (40) are dominating, but a little-known 25-year-old has broken through to give the Braves a trio of terrifying ‘pen arms.

Heading into 2010, Jonny Venters barely made a blip on the prospect radar. The lefty, a 30th-round draft-and-follow pick in the 2003 draft, took the last spot on Baseball America’s list of the top 30 prospects in the Braves’ system. John Sickels didn’t include Venters on his top 20 list, nor did he place Jonny among the next batch of “Grade C” prospects missing the top 20. At the time, it would have been hard to criticize BA and Sickels. After all, Venters’ minor league career was marred by injuries (Tommy John wiped out his 2006 season, and elbow tendinitis put a damper on his 2008 campaign) and control issues. In 71 starts and 23 relief stints spread over 422.2 innings, Venters struck out 6.6 batters per nine frames and issued 4.1 BB/9. According to Minor League Splits, his minor league FIP since 2005 sits at 4.07.

Venters had some traits working in his favor, though. Baseball America noted that his fastball ranged from 88-94 MPH, and that his slider was a plus offering. Also, Venters burned worms to the tune of a 57.7 GB% in the minors since ’05. After a short stint at Triple-A Gwinnett to begin the year, he was called up by the Braves in mid-April. Venters has been a revelation as a full-time reliever.

Unleashing his 94-95 MPH fastball more than three-quarters of the time and also touting a mid-80’s slider, Venters has punched out 67 hitters in 61.2 innings pitched (9.78 K/9). His 14.9% swinging strike rate ranks sixth among qualified MLB relievers, bested only by Joaquin Benoit, Luke Gregerson, Hong-Chih Kuo, Rafael Betancourt, and Matt Thornton. Jonny’s 65.6% overall contact rate is second among ‘pen members (Carlos Marmol is first). He also places in the top 20 in outside swing percentage, at 35.3%. When he’s not inducing swings and misses, Venters has induced hitters to chop the ball into the dirt. His ground ball rate is 64.3%, a rate topped by teammate Peter Moylan, Ryan Webb, and Blaine Boyer.

Venters is still walking his fair share of batters (3.94 BB/9, 3.65 BB/9 without two intentionals), and he has certainly received some breaks with a .252 BABIP and a 3.4 HR/FB%. But even if Venters’ ERA (1.17) is wacky-low, his 3.07 xFIP cracks the top 20 among relievers. Cox has gradually called upon his rookie southpaw in more crucial situations. Here are Venters’ Leverage Index marks by month, measuring the importance of his appearances by inning, score and base-out state (one is average):

April: 0.2
May: 0.39
June: 1.18
July: 1.35
August: 1.63

Relief performance is notoriously fickle, and it would be rash to declare that this is Venters’ talent level moving forward. But he doesn’t look like a fluke. If Venters stays healthy, the Braves might not have to search far and wide if Wagner does decide to call it quits.





A recent graduate of Duquesne University, David Golebiewski is a contributing writer for Fangraphs, The Pittsburgh Sports Report and Baseball Analytics. His work for Inside Edge Scouting Services has appeared on ESPN.com and Yahoo.com, and he was a fantasy baseball columnist for Rotoworld from 2009-2010. He recently contributed an article on Mike Stanton's slugging to The Hardball Times Annual 2012. Contact David at david.golebiewski@gmail.com and check out his work at Journalist For Hire.

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Bobby Snyder
13 years ago

And his wife is really hot too!