Braves: Huascar Ynoa Making His Case for a Spot in the Starting Rotation

Someone who seems to get overlooked when thinking about the future of the Atlanta Braves starting rotation is 22-year-old Huascar Ynoa. 

With the Atlanta Braves likely without Mike Soroka to start the season, there is a starting rotation spot up for grabs.

While most of us think that spot will be temporarily filled by either Kyle Wright or Bryse Wilson, Huascar Ynoa is making a case for himself in Spring Training.

It’s kind of hard to believe that Ynoa is still just 22 considering he’s spent parts of the past two season with the Braves.

The righty does turn 23 this May, but he’s obviously still really young.

He’s had his share of ups-and-downs the last two season.

In 2019 he only made two appearances and was brilliant in one (2 innings of scoreless baseball against the Phillies), while the other one was a disaster (6 runs in 1 inning).

This past season was sort of the same. On September 4 he gave up 6 runs in 2.1 innings against the Nationals, and then over his next two outings he allowed just 1 earned run over 7 innings combined.

But then on September 21, he gave up 3 runs on 5 hits against the Marlins.

There were three outings last year (out of 9 appearances) where he gave up 11 of the 14 runs he allowed all regular season.

That’s pretty typical for a young pitcher — when things start to unravel he has trouble getting back under control.

If he can figure that out, he’ll take a huge step forward and could be a big part of the starting rotation in the future.

This Spring Training he’s looked really good allowing 4 earned runs on 3 hits and 2 walks over 4 innings with 8 strikeouts.

In Sunday’s game against the Red Sox, he was in complete control through two innings. But after several defensive replacements came into the game, he ran into some bad luck in the sixth.

Ynoa ultimately couldn’t get through that third inning of his outing and the bullpen wasn’t able to pick him up allowing an inherited runner to score from first.

Again, that’s where we need to see him grow. With the pitch count getting up there, Brian Snitker wasn’t going to give him much of a chance to escape that mess.

But as Spring Training goes on, and especially into the regular season, I want to see Ynoa do a better job of regaining control and working out of those jams.

If he can do that, we could be talking about a solid middle-of-the-rotation arm.

His slider and change-up are both really good pitches that get a lot of swings and misses. Now it’s just finding the consistency in his outings and learning how to work out of trouble.