Braves opt for caution in handling Julio Teheran, Anibal Sanchez. Meanwhile, they have cleared the decks and opted to bring up yet another of their ‘kids’ to start the series in New York. He might be here a while, too.
The Atlanta Braves will have the three youngest players in the major leagues all on the field together tonight when pitcher Mike Soroka takes the hill to do battle against the Mets tonight at Citi Field.
The #Braves today selected the contract of RHP Mike Soroka (@Mike_Soroka28) from Triple-A Gwinnett. Soroka, who went 2-0 with a 1.99 ERA in four Triple-A starts this season, will wear No. 40 and start tonight’s game. pic.twitter.com/MzshN8Q1ja
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) May 1, 2018
Sure – there was an expectation that Soroka (all of 20 years, 8 months and 27 days old) would be called up at some point this season, though it is admittedly surprising that the roster gymnastics have been engineered to make this happen today. More on that in a bit.
Soroka was plucked from Calgary, Alberta as a high school pitcher… no, it’s not exactly a hotbed of baseball up there, so this was truly an impressive task for Brian Bridges and his team to get a Canadian pitcher of this caliber.
As an aside, while the Toronto Blue Jays would be expected to have first dibs on their native Canadian players, that not quite how it works, of course. But the funny part is that the Braves managed to snatch Soroka with the 28th overall pick in the 2015 draft… effectively right from under the nose of Bridges’ new boss – Alex Anthopoulos, who was conducting his last draft as GM of the Blue Jays that year.
Soroka was listed as the 27th best prospect by Baseball America for this season, 31st by MLB Pipeline, and 33rd by Baseball Prospectus. He has certainly lived up to that billing so far this season with his AAA work.
In fact, Soroka has been pulling a ‘Ronald Acuna‘ stunt, you could say – his numbers are improving as he had been climbing the minor league ladder:
- A-Rome: 3.65 ERA (143 innings)
- AA-Mississippi: 3.40 ERA (152.2 innings)
- AAA-Gwinnett: 1.99 ERA (4 starts, 22.2 innings)
- Walks per 9 innings: all levels… 2.0.
- Strikeouts per 9: 7.9, 7.3, 9.5
- WHIP: 1.13, 1.087, 0.97
Tonight, the Braves’ #40 will be facing major league competition, but it’s not the first time. He’s been seeing that in Spring games, true, but he also faced the Blue Jays in a Canadian Juniors exhibition in 2015. He got roughed up a bit then as his defense wasn’t entirely supportive, but certainly wasn’t spooked by the experience.
I think he should have better help behind him tonight.
About that Roster thing
The first signal that something might be up started on Friday evening as Julio Teheran came out of the game early at Philadelphia with what was described as a sore trapezius muscle on his throwing side.
It then sounded like a possible precautionary move, then, when Gwinnett shuffled their own starters over the weekend to get Soroka out of his scheduled start.
But on Sunday, it was suggested that Teheran seemed to be improving to the point where he might make his next start. Indeed, he has not been added to the disabled list and published reports suggest that he might be good to go on Thursday – a day delayed from his normal schedule.
Alex Anthopoulos, responding to recent questions about Soroka, indicated that the youngster was “really really close” to being ready for the majors. Apparently that means “now” – whether there’s an obvious hole in the rotation or not… and thus the Teheran injury was effectively an unrelated red herring in this process.
Thus: at this time, the team seems to have chosen Soroka over Luiz Gohara for the rotation. It was on Saturday that Gohara was deemed to have completed his rehab work and was optioned to Gwinnett instead of being promoted to Atlanta.
In addition, Anibal Sanchez isn’t yet ready to return from the disabled list and Matt Wisler did not receive a third starting chance… thus an open spot was created for a new 5th starter.
This is not likely to be a ‘spot start’ or ‘trial run’ – this is the real deal… a genuine promotion that is intended to last for the duration.
UPDATE: Okay, just as I posted this came another word about that…
For now, looks like Soroka not gonna be up permanently and Anibal will return to rotation. But things can happen, obviously.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) May 1, 2018
“Things can happen.” Here’s my take: if Soroka pitches well, then Sanchez becomes trade bait fairly quickly. I still don’t believe that they brought Soroka up merely to fill a pair of shoes – that’s not normally done for such prospects. But we will see.
While the 40-man roster was easy to resolve for Soroka (he wasn’t on that list before today, but space was available) a move needed to be made to the Braves’ active roster. That happened with Chase Whitley being optioned back to Gwinnett yesterday.
So as the wheels have churned, here are the transactions made since Friday:
- Tyler Flowers was activated on Friday
- Luiz Gohara was activated as well… and then optioned to AAA the next day
- Matt Wisler was optioned on Friday
- Catcher Carlos Perez was designated for assignment
- Chase Whitley was recalled on Friday… and optioned back on Monday
- Lane Adams and Peter Bourjos have been released – both opting for free agency
UPDATE #2: This didn’t exactly his the wires…
Thought you'd like to know, I just saw the Gwinnett lineup and Peter Bourjos is in it. He apparently signed a minor league deal with the Braves today after his release on Sunday.
— Dave Williams (@DWilliamsWJCL22) May 1, 2018
So that free agency thing didn’t last very long. I expect that he has re-signed for the purposes of staying in ‘baseball shape’ in case any need arises, whether with the Braves or another team.
Next: Checking on the Braves' Checking Account
So congratulations to Mike Soroka… let your ride begin in style.