More Atlanta Braves Rotation Woes Mike Minor Moves to 60 Day DL
By Fred Owens
Predicting the Braves 2015 Rotation isn’t an easy process. Graphic Created by Fred Owens for Tomahawk Take
Options Under Review
The Braves wanted and expected Minor to come back. Now that it won’t happen any time soon they have to look at options for a rotation that ‘s managed only one 7 inning start this season. Shelby Miller looks like the pick of the litter right now, but the rest of the arms have issues.
- Teheran isn’t as sharp as he’s been in the past,
- Alex Wood’s velocity dropped and he’s become much more hittable,
- Eric Stults looked good is his last two starts but tonight the Reds are slapping him around and he will be more hittable as the year goes on
- No one knows how many innings Folty will provide before wearing down and
- Trevor Cahill who was showing signs of progress, is now in the worst possible place for a pitcher like him; the bullpen.
The bullpen is already getting a lot of innings early and the Braves may need to charter a shuttle between Gwinnett and Atlanta to guarantee a ride.
Hart told the AJC, “Hopefully the next week or 10 days we will have our arms a little bit more around what needs to be done.” To me that means a look at the waiver wire and potential catch and release veterans and comparing that against using internal options like Banuelos or Williams Perez.
That’s A Wrap
Minor’s ongoing issues created an unexpected major issue for the Hart front office. The rotation this year was going to be a work in progress anyway, this moves the timetable up and removes the trade candidate most likely to have brought back a quality return if healthy. Hart stocked up on pitchers this year and was likely going to shuffle them and turn some into bats next. Now he has to rethink the whole plan. Other the next few weeks we’ll start to see where that plan is going and pass that along to you here on the Take.