The Braves have made it official. Mike Minor has been sent down and Brandon Beachy has been awarded the last spot in the rotation. “At this point,” Braves management says, “we just think that Beachy gives us a better chance to win right now.”
Beachy does play as the perfect fifth starter and innings eater. Despite his 4.2BB/9 in a tiny 2010 sample, Beachy doesn’t walk people. Throughout his professional career, Beachy’s kept his walk-rate lower than 2.66 batters-per-9 and posted a terrific 1.18 BB-per-9 at AAA-Gwinnett in 2010.
Beachy’s the typical fastball-mover. He’ll feature a straight four-seamer that’ll come in with about 9 inches of tail and work it all the way to a cutter that sit right on the 0-plane (or about league average). Both fastballs play pretty straight on the vertical axis and that may cause some problems down the line. Beachy backs up the fastball with a rather adequate change-up with a good amount of tail despite mediocre vertical movement. Toss in a hammer-curve and you’ve got yourself a Brandon Beachy. Despite a rather pedestrian fastball velocity, Beachy features the velocity-differential to make it work.
But, Mike Minor is quite the prospect. Minor flashed velocity that the scouts didn’t expect and ended up with a 9.52 K-per-9 and a 2.43 BB-per-9 in 40 MLB innings last year. Like Beachy, Minor’s capable of moving his fastball incredibly well and features a great change-up and a slurvey curveball.
Minor could definitely use some seasoning, but the Braves did make a curious decision: No Lefties Allowed.
Washington, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Florida, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and St. Louis are on the schedule for the month of April — Maybe they’re all just terrible against righties?
Meh. Division foes are all better against lefty pitching, even Philly. Ryan Howard made progress — if we can call 200 AB progress — against left handers in 2010. He posted an OPS of .826 which was well above his .766 career OPS. Chase Utley, who doesn’t really matter at this point, also posted above average numbers against lefties in 2010.
This is actually pretty interesting and going with an all righty rotation isn’t an awful idea. I’m sure the Braves aren’t micromanaging to this extent but it’s still an interesting concept.
