Why Braves are Hesitant to Give Young Pitching Prospects a Chance

The Atlanta Braves have had several chances to bring up some of their young pitching prospects in 2020 but they refuse to do so.

Right now the Atlanta Braves starting rotation consists of Max Fried, Ian Anderson, and three veterans that have no future with this team.

This is not meant to be a post to take shots at those veteran guys, but we know what we’re getting with them. And I understand Brian Snitker and Alex Anthopoulos wanting to run out guys who they know what they’re getting.

But to me, this just seems like the best opportunity to run out some of the young guys so we can determine what their future might be with this team.

Let’s be honest, once Mike Soroka went down it was going to be nearly impossible for this team win a World Series in 2020. Right now they’re hoping Cole Hamels comes back and that Mike Foltynewicz has another resurgence.

Just like the Rebellion, I’m a strong believer in hope, but that plan for success seems hopeless.

And with the easier schedule the Braves have in September, the nice cushion they have in the division, it would take an epic collapse for them to miss the postseason with eight teams making it from the National League.

To me, this last month should be an audition for the young guys to see what we have for the future and who may or may not be a part of that future.

I’d much rather see Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint, and Bryse Wilson get the starts that Josh Tomlin, Robbie Erlin, and Tommy Milone are getting right now.

Atlanta Braves — Where are the prospects?

But even beyond those three, they’ve been very hesitant to give some of their other top pitching prospects a chance.

It took forever for them to finally give Ian Anderson an opportunity and that has worked out pretty well.

But guys like Tucker Davidson and Patrick Weigel — who seemed to be ahead of Anderson in their development — still haven’t been given a chance despite how bad the starting rotation has fallen apart.

There are only two good reasons I can think of why the Braves wouldn’t have called these guys up already.

One, they don’t want to rush them and stunt their development. That’s certainly understandable, but it hasn’t stopped them from rushing up pitchers in the past.

Maybe they’ve seen how guys like Wright, Touki, and Wilson have come up and struggled and ruined their confidence. Perhaps they’re trying to avoid that from happening with Davidson and Weigel.

And two, they just don’t believe these young prospects are good enough.

This is the one that scares me the most. As bad as things have been, they’ve still haven’t given these guys a chance.

That’s a little concerning to me and makes me think that perhaps these prospects aren’t as good as we’re hoping.

And we’ve been focussing on the pitching prospects, but you could throw Cristian Pache in this discussion as well. You can’t tell me with how poorly Ender Inciarte has played it doesn’t warrant at least giving Pache a chance?

I would hope that if the Braves thought these guys were ready and believed they could do better than what these veteran placeholders are doing they would have called them up already.

Considering the fact that they haven’t, I have no choice but to believe that they don’t’ think these guys are ready or good enough to pitch for the Braves right now.