The Atlanta Braves Pitching Staff won’t be All Right for Long
By Scott Ferris
After pulling off one of the oddest feats in baseball last year, the Braves – specifically their starting rotation – could experience a substantial shift over the next couple seasons.
In 2016, a combination of injury, trades, and poor-performance led to the Atlanta Braves using an MLB-high 16 different starting pitchers (bonus points to anyone who can name them all without looking).
The only pitcher to hold down his rotation spot from Opening Day through the end of the season was Julio Teheran and even he missed time with an injury and, at one point, looked like a potential trade candidate.
While using that many different starters is noteworthy, that’s not the feat Atlanta pulled. It isn’t in itself all too strange, especially for a team of veteran reclamation projects and unproven youngsters.
The…Feat?
What is all too strange – every pitcher, all 16 of them, threw right-handed.
16 pitchers, 161 games (one cancelled), a righty on the bump every single time.
They were the only club to lack variety in the handedness of their starting pitchers (though the Indians came close with 160 right-handed starts).
With six of those 16 right-handed starters returning in 2017 and Atlanta’s first two off-season additions (R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon) also throwing from the right side, it looked for a while as though the team had a shot at repeating their bizarre accomplishment this upcoming season until Jaime Garcia was acquired.
However, looking ahead, the forecast for the rotation becomes decidedly less uniform.