The Braves’ Rotation Has Been Completely Dismantled
Entering the season, the Braves looked to have a solid rotation. Mike Soroka was returning after a very good rookie season. Max Fried’s first year as a full-time starter showed promise. Mike Foltynewicz seemed to have discovered his old form in the second half of the season after a disastrous first half. Veteran lefty Cole Hamels was added to the group to provide solid innings. Kyle Wright was going to get a shot at the fifth spot with Sean Newcomb, Touki Toussaint, and Bryse Wilson potentially in the mix. Here’s the current status of those eight pitchers, projected to start this season for the Braves:
| Name | SP IP | SP WAR | Current Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Soroka | 13.2 | 0.3 | Out for the Year |
| Max Fried | 50 | 1.8 | 10-Day IL |
| Mike Foltynewicz | 3.1 | -0.3 | DFA, Cleared Waivers |
| Cole Hamels | 0 | 0 | 45-Day IL |
| Kyle Wright | 19 | -0.4 | In Rotation |
| Sean Newcomb | 13.2 | -0.2 | Alternate Site |
| Bryse Wilson | 0 | 0 | Bullpen |
| Touki Toussaint | 17.2 | 0 | Alternate Site |
| Total | 117.1 | 1.2 | Yikes |
Fried was having a fantastic breakout season before an alarming drop in velocity resulted in a stay on the Injured List for a lumbar strain. The hope is that he will return from the IL when eligible a week from today, though at that point, there will be just 10 games left in the season. It might come as a surprise to look at the above table and discover that the Braves are in first place with a 24-18 record. Based on that, you might think the substitutions beyond the group listed above stepped up and had great seasons. But while prospect Ian Anderson has been good, great starts haven’t been coming out of the woodwork. Here’s the set of staring pitchers not listed above:
| Name | IP | WAR | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ian Anderson | 15 | 0.4 | Rotation |
| Josh Tomlin | 17.1 | 0 | Rotation |
| Tommy Milone | 6.1 | 0 | Rotation |
| Robbie Erlin | 16 | 0 | Bullpen |
| Huscar Ynoa | 5.2 | -0.2 | Alternate Site |
| Total | 60.1 | 0.2 | Yeesh |
Fried has pitched 50 innings, put up a 2.48 FIP, a 1.98 ERA and 1.8 WAR on the season. The team’s other starters have combined for 127.2 innings (under four innings per start) with a 7.05 ERA, a 6.27 FIP, and -0.4 WAR. Those numbers probably speak for themselves, but since I’m writing, I’ll just note that the Braves’ starting pitching performances this season outside of Fried is astonishingly bad. Will it get better? Our projections, even with Fried and Hamels returning, aren’t very optimistic:
| Name | IP | ERA | FIP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Tomlin | 18 | 5.14 | 5.09 | 0.1 |
| Ian Anderson | 18 | 4.48 | 4.65 | 0.2 |
| Tommy Milone | 18 | 4.83 | 4.93 | 0.1 |
| Max Fried | 13 | 3.49 | 3.54 | 0.3 |
| Kyle Wright | 14 | 5.03 | 5 | 0.1 |
| Cole Hamels | 9 | 4.47 | 4.5 | 0.1 |
| Robbie Erlin | 8 | 4.89 | 4.93 | 0.1 |
| Sean Newcomb | 5 | 4.73 | 4.85 | 0 |
| Tucker Davidson | 2 | 4.76 | 5.02 | 0 |
| Total | 105 | 4.65 | 4.71 | 0.9 |
With Fried coming back for a few starts, Atlanta’s rotation projects as the fifth-worst in baseball. Without Fried, it would be all the way at the bottom. If the playoffs started today, we might see Game 1 started by the 22-year-old Anderson and his 15 career innings. Anderson was the 44th-ranked prospect in all of baseball entering the season, so it isn’t like the talent isn’t there, but he didn’t end his 2019 season well in Triple-A, posts double-digit walk rates, and is coming off his first rough start of his career against Miami.
After Anderson would likely be Tommy Milone, who Atlanta just acquired in trade from Baltimore; when the trade happened, our headline read: “Braves Acquire Pitching Depth.” Milone is having a decent season based on his peripherals, but the 33-year-old lefty has given up a .302/.337/.544 slash line with a 5.40 FIP against righties since 2016. For Game 3 of the opening round of the playoffs, the Braves’ best option at the moment appears to be Josh Tomlin, who hasn’t started regularly since the 2017 season. Maybe Fried and Hamels come back and, along with Anderson, pose a decent threat in the playoffs. But it’s also possible that the Braves are simply going to be stuck with a huge deficiency in the rotation and will have to win games another way. Fortunately, they do have some strengths in that regard.
The Braves offense is thriving; their 114 wRC+ ranks sixth in baseball despite getting almost no contributions from Ozzie Albies (19 wRC+ in 46 PA), Ender Inciarte (48 wRC+ in 104 PA), and Johan Camargo (58 wRC+ in 127 PA). Marcell Ozuna (164 wRC+) has added a potent bat to a lineup with Freddie Freeman (168 wRC+) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (164 wRC+), as Dansby Swanson, Adam Duvall, and the catching combo of Tyler Flowers and Travis d’Arnaud put up solid offensive seasons as well. In their last 10 games, Braves starting pitchers have an ERA over seven, with the team giving up 5.8 runs per game, but the team is 6-4 thanks in part to scoring 69 runs during that stretch, including scoring seven runs or more six times.
And the offense isn’t doing this alone, either. Perhaps the most underrated and unheralded part of the team has been the performance of the bullpen. The Braves’ relief corps leads the National League in innings (183) and WAR (2.5) on the season. The discrepancy in performance between the rotation and the bullpen is the biggest in the NL and second only to the Blue Jays in all of baseball. The graph below shows starter and reliever WAR by team this season:
There are a bunch of teams succeeding despite mediocre bullpens, but very few teams have .500 records with poor starting pitching. The Blue Jays’ and Braves’ bullpens have helped carry rotations that haven’t been up to the mark. Only the Cardinals (1.8 SP WAR, 0.5 RP WAR) have failed to produce at least decent numbers in both, but that’s partly a function of having many fewer games than the rest of the league, as well as a very good defense. Tyler Matzek, Shane Greene, A.J. Minter, and Darren O’Day have all been excellent. Josh Tomlin has been very good when allowed to pitch out of the ‘pen. Chris Martin, Luke Jackson, Mark Melancon, and Grant Dayton have all pitched well, too. The Braves have 10 relievers with at least five appearances in relief this season and all but Will Smith have been at least 10% better than league average (FIP- of 90 or lower). The Braves rotation is currently a disaster, and the lack of arms at the start of games could come back to cost them, but the bulk of arms at the end of games, coupled with a potent offense, could help to nullify the Braves’ big weakness.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
The Braves also seemed likely to give Felix Hernandez a rotation spot before he opted out of the season. He looked pretty good prior to opting out, although that’s obviously not a super reliable assessment of how he would have done this year.
Disagree that they looked to have a solid rotation heading into the season. They had three solid starters (all three of whom have been sidelined with injuries, although Fried will hopefully only end up missing two starts) and a bunch of question marks. Foltynewicz was bad enough that he got demoted last season; he should not have been the Plan A for fourth starter. They had no real plan for fifth starter at all, just a bunch of guys who have never had consistent major-league success who might have been able to take the next step.
A team with championship aspirations should not have started with huge question marks in two rotation spots, not just because you’re setting yourself up for trouble in 40% of games even if everything goes as expected, but also because of this exact scenario: when Foltynewicz and worse pitchers are your Plan A, and your Plan A falls apart because of injuries (which are to be expected), you end up giving multiple starts to Kyle Wright and Josh Tomlin, to disastrous effect.
The current situation is certainly a worse-case scenario in terms of injuries and ineffectiveness, but it starts with poor roster construction.
Any word on why Tucker Davidson hasn’t been brought up in the midst of this rolling disaster?
He is supposedly working on a sinker/slider that isn’t ready for the majors yet.
We will see how the 3-gamers are set up, but the Braves should be set up pretty well to lean heavy on the bullpen in the playoffs, given the off days.
They’ll still need a 4th starter for the second round and beyond if they can make it that far.
Maybe, maybe not. Not sure how the off days shake out, but you can normally get by with three starters in a 5-game series. In a 7-game series, you could consider doing one bullpen game. Risky for sure, but they do have a deep and high-performing bullpen.
I don’t think the braves rotation looked good heading into the year, granted it has still been worse than expected. Soroka’s injury has really hurt but to me he looked to be headed for serious regression, Fried has been better than I expected. Folty’s been worse for sure, backend was always going to be a mess to rely on, Hamels stuff had kept regressing and none of those 5th starter options were safe by any means
The picture under “there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect” in the glossary/encyclopedia should just be a picture of Kyle Wright
It is interesting because there was this huge debate a couple years ago about whether they should trade some of their starting pitching for a major leaguer who could help them compete now. Obviously if they had traded Ian Anderson that would have been bad, but Kyle Wright and Bryse Wilson don’t look like the future at all. Even Touki and Gohara were ranked as FV50s at the time, which seems totally wild today. (Soroka was already a major leaguer in 2018 and Fried had zero trade value coming of that year). Wentz and Allard are gone and they might miss them, and Muller is still there (and Davidson’s stock has risen since then), but they mostly shied away from trading their top guys before the 2019 season.
The funny thing is that the consensus at the time in the comment section–that we were terrified of the idea of trading the wrong prospect, but that probably most of them would bust–still kind of holds. It’s easy to say that you would have traded Wright and Wilson and maybe a couple other guys but kept Anderson in order to grab someone like Lance Lynn or Zack Greinke but…did you really know that? I mean, I am pretty sure that would have been my preference back then, but I can’t really remember and it’s at least as likely that’s 20/20 hindsight.
The Braves did in fact trade some guys in 2019 at the deadline, so I’m not sure why a distinction needs to be made about “before the 2019 season.” Also, since that time there has been a whole 1 season and 1.5 months of baseball and no minor leagues this season. I don’t really think it makes sense to write off any of those guys (except Gohara) just yet. I mean, you can blame the prospect development if you want, but Soroka is just hurt, Fried is missing 10 days, Anderson has had a decent start in MLB, and there are still a solid 5-6 guys that could easily at least turn into serviceable starting pitchers. To me, the real problem here is the veteran pitchers. Mostly that Hamels has been hurt all year and Folty showed up this year looking like Gabe from The Office.
It’s nice when pitchers just blow through the minors and become effective starters immediately, but that is not actually what usually happens. Look at the top pitchers in baseball. Even they largely had some struggles along the way to the top.
Having watched Toussaint, Wright, and Wilson when they’ve pitched these past few years, I think the odds are good for Toussaint and Wright, and I wouldn’t give up on Wilson yet.
I think Toussaint can be a quality major league starter. He’s got great stuff. His biggest problem is mental, I think. He gets flustered, his mechanics get wobbly, his consistency goes, and he gets wild.
I think Wright has strikeout stuff, but he doesn’t know how to use it. He falls into patterns without realizing it, and often doesn’t have a plan of attack for hitters. His biggest problem is also the mental side of the game. He needs to stop shaking off his catchers so much.
Wilson has the worst stuff, but he’s got the mentality for a starter, and command. He’s also two years younger than Toussaint and Wright. But the stuff… really needs work.
Gohara had a combination of things happen that I wouldn’t wish on a young man. Father dies in his arms, his mother has heart surgery, and then he has a mysterious shoulder injury. I hope he gets back to the show.
I’m think the Braves did the right thing for them in trading Kolby Allard — he had the lowest upside of the pitchers they traded, and it was pretty clear that the Braves didn’t know what adjustments he needed to make to stay in the show.
It’s hard to trade away pitching prospects until you have some idea of what you have.
A day later, that team wRC+ has gone from 114 to 119.
After last night’s debacle I really don’t think Milone will be the game #2 starter under any circumstance. I think (hope) it will be Fried/Hamels/Anderson in the playoffs given health. The bullpen will be asked to carry the load like they have all season. Folty could also be back in time for either the bullpen or starting.
I would honestly much rather go with Tomlin. At the very least, you know he will throw strikes.
Partially a function? Don’t you mean entirely a function? The Cardinals have one of the best overall pitching staffs in the game right now.