The Atlanta Braves have several young pitchers who are entering a very important season for their future in the big leagues.
Over the last three or four years, the Atlanta Braves have called up a lot of young, promising pitchers.
That list includes Sean Newcomb, Max Fried, Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, Luiz Gohara, Touki Toussaint, Huascar Ynoa, Mike Soroka, and Ian Anderson.
There’s another wave of prospects knocking on the door in Kyle Muller, Tucker Davidson, Jasseel De La Cruz, and Patrick Weigel — some of them already getting a taste of the big leagues.
Looking back at things now, the success rate on those pitchers has been pretty good. Soroka and Fried look like top of the rotation guys — and Anderson certainly did in his first year.
Wright and Wilson both had their moments of promise and improvement in 2020 — hopefully they build on that in 2021.
Newcomb is an enigma and seems destined to be traded at some point.
What should the Braves do with Touki?
And then there is Touki. A fan favorite and someone that is easy to cheer for, unfortunately, he just hasn’t been able to put it all together on a consistent basis at the big league level.
According to this article from Gabe Burns of the AJC, Touki made some mechanical adjustments in the offseason to help him gain that consistency, and it seems to be paying off in Spring Training so far.
He’s pitched in three games this Spring Training (all out of the bullpen) and has allowed 3 earned runs on 3 hits and 4 walks over 8 innings with 7 strikeouts.
Walks have been a big part of his failures at the big league level, and he has to get that under control.
But we also know he has the ability to generate a lot of swings-and-misses with that big curveball, which has had a Whiff% over 45 percent the last two seasons.
His split-finger is also elusive with a Whiff% of 37.5 percent in 2020.
But like what I wrote about with Wilson the other day, he has to be able to establish that fastball in order to get hitters to chase his breaking pitches.
And we’ve seen how dominant Touki can be when he’s locating that fastball to setup his offspeed pitches. That’s exactly how he baffled the Blue Jays lineup for 6 innings in a game last season.
With the Triple-A season being delayed, the Braves should keep Touki on the big league roster to start the season as someone who can piggyback a starter that doesn’t go deep.
Say Drew Smyly or Bryse Wilson gets an elevated pitch count and comes out after just four or five innings, you bring in Touki for two or three.
Then when the Triple-A season starts, you can send Touki down there and let him start. The potential is too good for him not to get another shot as a starter.
But if that doesn’t work out, he can be a great multi-inning reliever, which is becoming more-and-more valuable in today’s game.