Braves Off Season Trouble Spot–The Rotation
By Fred Owens
Sep 16, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Shelby Miller (17) reacts after getting pulled from the game in the fourth inning of their game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Turner Field. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
The Braves head into the off season with several trouble spots, among them a hole in their rotation.
Braves Youth Movement
In 2015 the Braves were forced into using the youngest rotation on display. The young arms weren’t able to go consistently deep into games putting extra pressure on a cobbled together bullpen that lacked experience and talent.
As we look forward to 2016 the rotation as it stands consists of Julio Teheran, Shelby Miller, Matt Wisler, a hopefully healthy Mike Minor and a combination or Williams Perez, Ryan Weber and Mike Foltynewicz.
The ironically named quality start stat says six innings pitched per game is the standard for a quality start. That number then would account for 972 of the 1458 regular game innings to come from a starting rotation.
Leaving aside what that actually means in terms or how good the pitchers are, teams that get closer to the 972 number – and ideally exceed it – don’t have to rely as much on the bullpen. Here’s how the teams did last year with their primary starters.
Note: All the stats came from the Baseball Reference web site. The division winners are in green, runners up in silver, third place in bronze and last place in red.
I limited the pitchers I called starters to those who exceeded 50 innings for their team, all others I considered spot/emergency starters.
Only two teams and none of the division winners actually got the 972 inning total from there full time starters. There are a lot of subtexts to be derived from those numbers but I’ll ignore those for now.
The Braves can only expect Teheran and Miller to provide a significant portion of that number by repeating their 200 inning seasons. After missing a full season with his shoulder injury Minor can’t be expected to go more than 150 at best.
Wisler (109) and Perez (116) can be expected to get about 30 more innings each meaning those five would theoretically provide somewhere near 840 innings. Folty could reach 150 if he harnesses that fastball while Weber threw 100 innings at AA-AAA and 28 in Atlanta so 120 IP from him is about right. If everything goes perfectly we could find 1110 innings in those arms. Hands up everyone who believes all that will happen. . . . Seeing no one I’ll move on.