Atlanta Braves: Spring Opener and a Minor Wrinkle
As the Atlanta Braves and fans enjoyed their Spring Opener yesterday, another minor wrinkle reared its ugly head. Is it a minor wrinkle, or a major one?
When I read about a week ago that the Atlanta Braves had lost their arbitration battle with pitcher Mike Minor, I had mixed feelings.
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As you know, it’s not only rare for the Braves to enter arbitration hearings with a player, but it’s even more rare when a player wins an arbitration case after coming off a dismal season.
The word dismal might be about as nice a word as I can use when describing Minor’s 2014 performance.
I was glad on the one hand that Minor won his case, because damn the man, right! On the other hand, I wasn’t then (and am not now) all-together sure that Mike Minor is the best option as that fourth Atlanta Braves’ starter.
Mike has had moments of brilliant pitching, but overall he’s not been what I had hoped.
To put an exclamation point on that, Minor finished the 2014 season with just a 4.77 ERA over 145+ innings and 25 nods for the bump, struck out considerably less, and had considerable command issues. Granted, he dealt with injury more, and thus pitched fewer innings, but the problems with Minor were visibly obvious.
Now we have heard the news that Minor will be scratched from his first spring training start due to tightness in his left shoulder. According to a Tweet from the official Atlanta Braves’ Twitter account:
#Braves announce LHP Mike Minor has been scratched from his scheduled start on Sunday vs. Houston w/ tightness in his left shoulder
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) March 4, 2015
Of course we’ve also learned that this is merely a precautionary move by the Atlanta Braves. MLB reporter Mark Bowman tweeted about the precautionary nature of the move:
Minor first felt tightness yesterday. For now, the Braves are saying he's being scratched for precautionary reasons
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) March 4, 2015
There has been no known medical analysis done at this point, and there’s no specific reason to believe this is anything more than a temporary setback for Mike. With his health and injury issues last season though, it’s reasonable to be concerned, and as I said earlier, personally I’m not all that sold on Minor being our best 4th starter option.
There is already a battle for that 5th starter spot in the Braves’ rotation (see Atlanta Braves’ Fifth Starter: Top Contenders), and I’ve opined that I like Folty for the spot (Mike Foltynewicz (pronounced FOL-TEN-EH-VICH) – RHP). With Minor’s seemingly endless string of issues, this could actually end up being a good thing for the Braves. No, I don’t wish any bad news for Mike of course, but teams have to take what they’re given, and sometimes things that seem like setbacks end up a blessing in disguise.
In short, if Mike’s problems persist, we could see someone like Folty in that 4th spot (which could be better anyway), and then we have room for someone like Wandy Rodriguez or Eric Stults as a fifth starter. I’m not sold on Stults, but I’ve said if Wandy is healthy, he is a highly competent work-horse!
We’ll have to wait to see how all this pans out of course, but I’d be curious to know what other fans think of the situation. Are you itching to see Mike get healthy and get back to form, or like me do you see this as a possible blessing in disguise?
The only thing I know is that after winning his arbitration case against the Atlanta Braves, he’s now $5.6 million dollars richer for the 2015 season. With that kind of money, I suppose we need to see him in the fourth spot, but we need to see 2013 numbers.