Feb 15, 2017; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; A small Atlanta Braves fan watches players walk by through a gate during MLB spring training workouts at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 15, 2017; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; A small Atlanta Braves fan watches players walk by through a gate during MLB spring training workouts at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /
Bradley Roney has posted huge strikeout rates the last two seasons in the Atlanta Braves system. Could he be an impact reliever?
Bradley Joseph Roney was drafted in the 18th round of the 2011 draft by the Baltimore Orioles out of high school in Alabama. The Atlanta Braves drafted him in the 8th round of the 2014 draft after attending Southern Miss.
Roney was sent directly to Danville in the advanced rookie Appalachian League to begin his professional career. He made 18 appearances, throwing 22 1/3 innings, with a 4.03 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 20.2% walk rate, and 34.34% strikeout rate.
Roney opened 2015 with low-A Rome in the South Atlantic League. In July, he was promoted to high-A Carolina in the Carolina League to finish out the season, taking over as the Mudcats closer down the stretch.
Combined on the season, Roney made 33 appearances, throwing 48 1/3 innings. He saved 11 games total with a 2.98 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 17.68% walk rate, and 35.35% strikeout rate.
2016 saw Roney open with AA Mississippi in the Southern League, though by June, he’d moved to AAA Gwinnett in the International League due to an impressive performance for the M-Braves.
Combined between the two levels, Roney made 44 appearances, throwing 67 2/3 innings with a 3.33 ERA, 1.57 WHIP, 17.97% walk rate, and a 28.76% strikeout rate.
Roney was assigned to the Arizona Fall League after the 2016 season, but he was the team’s reserve in case of injury, which did not happen.
Size – Roney is listed at 6’2″ and 200 pounds, but I’d wager he’s more in the 210-220 range from looking at him. Regardless, it’s not bad weight as he looks quite athletic when he has a ball hit toward him.
Delivery – Roney works exclusively out of the stretch. He opens with his body in line with the plate, then takes a lift with his left leg to his waist and tucks his left shoulder toward third base.
From that point, he pushes hard toward the plate, releasing from a near overhand release point, stated as a high 3/4, but his is very high compared to others with that similar tag, releasing the ball over his shoulder socket.
Roney struggles with consistency in his landing point, and when he does that, his arm slot will suffer, with some pitches released nearly right at his ear.
The arm action in Roney’s delivery has a long path, going from his glove down to darned near his knee on the back side, pulling the ball toward his back, and then bring the ball up and over his shoulder.
That long arm action can easily get thrown off from just the slightest adjustment/mistake in the path of the arm in each delivery, which certainly also hurts in his consistency.
Control (35) – Roney was a two-way player in college, playing third and relieving. The Braves drafted him to relieve, and when you watch him throw off the mound, you wonder how he ever made throws across the diamond.
Roney’s pitches are all near-plus to plus-plus, but his control limits him such that it is questionable whether he’ll even play a long-term role in the major league bullpen, a sort of ridiculous consideration for a guy with pitches that good.
Pitches
Fastball (65) – Roney’s fastball is a sight to behold as it comes to the plate. He throws with premium velocity, bumping triple digits at the top end and sitting 93-96.
It’s not the velocity that makes the pitch impressive, however. It is the ridiculous movement. From his overhand delivery, Roney gets excellent plane on the ball, and low in the zone, the pitch is near-impossible to hit.
Roney’s fastball has excellent arm side run, especially low in the zone. It seems to have good rise up in the zone as well, which would indicate excellent spin rates, but there is no data publicly available to verify.
Change Up (55) – Roney uses a split-change as his third pitch. The pitch is absolutely wicked, coming to the plate like his fastball and then completely dropping off the table. The pitch also has some solid arm side run.
The only reason the pitch isn’t graded as a plus pitch is that Roney really cannot seem to get the pitch in the zone. While hitters rarely can hold up from swinging at the pitch, when they don’t, it’s rarely ever in the zone, so if a batter would simply wait on the pitch, it’d lose all effectiveness.
Slider (60) – Really, you can call it a curve or you can call it a slider. It gets tremendous drop like a curve, runs with velocity (low- to mid-80s) like a slider.
Roney’s slider behaves much like a curve without the hump before the plate but that level of multiple-plane drop in the pitch, and it’s nearly all vertical drop, not really moving much side to side.
MLB Player Comp
Roney’s arm angle isn’t the same, but he has similar size and pitch mix to Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Jake Barrett.
Barrett was also a college reliever, expected to move quickly through the Diamondbacks system. Instead, his severe command issues slowed his progress, and four years after he was drafted in 2012, he finally made his major league debut.
While this would sound great for return on many draft picks, Barrett was a 3rd round selection expected to contribute nearly immediately, so his delay was notable.
Barrett has a similarly graded fastball/slider combination, and he also mixes in a rare change, but it’s not a quality change by any means.
His 2016 debut was not terrible with a 3.49 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP, but Barrett did have an 11% walk rate, and that kept him from being trusted in the closer role, leading to the Diamondbacks bringing in Fernando Rodney in the offseason.
While Barrett was considered the cream of the Diamondbacks reliever crop, Roney is really one of many in an ever-growing group of elite arms in the Atlanta Braves system.
This will require Roney to really throw well for him to get the notice required to get up to the major leagues. He’ll likely open with Gwinnett this season, hoping for a big performance to get to Atlanta.
