Atlanta Braves: Mike Soroka – Bret Hart of the Braves Pitching Staff

The Look Ahead

I wrote an entire article about why Soroka is not going to regress (which I linked earlier). I’ll touch on a few reasons Braves’ fans should expect Soroka to continue to dominate, as he has at every level of professional baseball thus far.

While the rest of the league is notoriously worse against hitters the third trip through the lineup, Soroka was actually more effective.

Opposing hitters averaged .242 off of Soroka the first time through. They hit .246 the second trip through and finally bottomed out with a .220 average the third time they faced the Calgarian Conquerer in a game.

Here’s how the rest of the league fared against starting pitchers each time they faced them in a game:

• 1st time: .244/.311/.418
• 2nd time: .262/.324/.453
• 3rd time: .270/.331/.477

When you see how Soroka bucked that trend, it makes you think that there must be something special about this cat. He’s a cerebral assassin. He’s more like Bret “The Hitman” Hart than I thought. He is the excellence of execution. Will he end up being “the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be?”

Our own, Jake Mastroianni recently discussed the fact that Soroka will be past his shoulder issues and ready to take the ball even deeper into games in 2020. Jake noted that Soroka only reached 100 pitches twice last season.

Braves: Time to take off the kid gloves with Mike Soroka and Max Fried

In the next step of their transformation as top of the rotation starters for Atlanta Braves, the kid gloves have to come off of Mike Soroka and Max Fried.

If he continues with the success he had against hitters the second and third times through, then, by all means, let’s “take those kid gloves off.”

I expect more great things from Soroka in 2020 and I bet you all do as well.

Welcome to baseball season, everyone!