The Five Least-Good Opening Day Starters in Atlanta Braves history

Not too sure about Julio Teheran starting on Opening Day?  Let’s check the history books.

To say folks have cooled on Julio Teheran over the years isn’t a vast overstatement. He was Baseball America’s No. 5 overall prospect after both the 2010 and 2011 season and the Braves top prospect for 2010, 2011 and 2012. Baseball Prospectus even touted him as “the best pitching prospect in the game” in 2011.

Not that he’s not still good—two years removed from an All-Star season, three years removed from a top-five Rookie of the Year campaign, Teheran’s still the most-proven pitcher in Atlanta’s rotation, which is how he’s earned the Opening Day nod for the third year in a row. But as Roger Craig once said, “There are Opening Day Starters, and there are guys who start on Opening Day.”  Teheran, at this point, falls into the latter category—pretty good, not quite excellent.

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But while it seems strange that Tom Glavine and John Smoltz were never able to do what JT (and Derek Lowe, shockingly enough) has done—earn the ball on Opening Day three years in a row—Teheran and Lowe both had less internal competition for the role.  Glavine and Smoltz were competing against perhaps the best (or second-best) right-hander of the Steroid Era (I’ll let everyone decide for themselves where they fall on the Maddux vs. Pedro Martinez argument).  No, aside from Alex Wood, Teheran hasn’t had much competition at all for the No. 1 slot the last three seasons (Shelby Miller didn’t appear until the third game of the 2015 campaign).

But JT is fine—if he’s Atlanta’s No. 3 or No. 4 a few years from now, they’ll be in good shape. He also won’t be getting Opening Day starts anymore and will hopefully be enjoying playoff runs and everything else when John Coppolella’s grand plan comes to fruition. He also also won’t fall into this list.

Here now, the five [negative adjective] Opening Day starting pitchers for the Atlanta Braves:

(Quick ground rules: These aren’t the guys who had the worst careers, or whom hindsight would’ve precluded from being anywhere near a roster. This is when the staff saw what was available, threw up its collective hands and said, “Screw it, somebody has to pitch.” Also, Atlanta-era only.)

Next: Derek Lowe (2011)