Atlanta Braves Prospects: Kyle Muller Scouting Report

The Atlanta Braves big left-handed pitching prospect had a good run at the big league level in 2021. Can he make the adjustments in 2022 to stick around this time? 

There is no shortage of pitching prospects in the Atlanta Braves system, but finding ones who can get over the mental hurdle at the big league level has been a problem.

It seems like the Braves have had several talented pitching prospects who dominated at the Minor League level in the past five years but never could figure it out at the big league level.

For Kyle Muller, he certainly found some success in his first cup of coffee. But once the league adjusted to him, he wasn’t able to — and not afforded the time to — adjust back.

That will be the key for him in 2022.

But the second-round draft pick in 2016 out of Dallas, Texas retains his prospect status after pitching just 36.2 innings for the Braves in 2021 and posting a 4.17 ERA in 9 games (8 starts) with 37 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.255.

Over five minor league seasons, he’s posted an ERA of 3.10 and a WHIP of 1.270 with a BB/9 of 4.1 and a K/9 of 9.5.

In 2019 at Double-A, he posted a 3.14 ERA in 22 starts with 120 strikeouts in 111.2 innings.

At Gwinnett in 2021, he had a 3.39 ERA and 1.356 WHIP in 17 starts with 93 strikeouts in 79.2 innings.

As I said, he’s proven he can handle the minor league levels. Now it’s just about finding a way to translate that into big league success.

The Pitch Mix

Fastball (93 MPH), Slider (87 MPH), Curveball (80 MPH)

In his first go-round in the big league, he primarily used the fastball (41%), slider (35%), and curveball (21%).

With his size at 6-foot-7 and 250 pounds, I expected the fastball to have more life. In the starts with the Braves I watched, he was mostly sitting 92-93 with the fastball — especially late in games as he wasn’t able to hold his velocity.

They register his fastball as a four-seamer, but to me, it looks more like a cutter breaking in on righties.

In fact, on the broadcasts, Paul Byrd kept calling it a cut-fastball. Statcast shows the horizontal break of his four-seam fastball at 6.5 inches, which isn’t a lot by comparison.

But I also think it’s the somewhat side-arm angle he uses that makes it look like it has more cutting action.

The slider is what gives him a chance to be really good. He threw it a ton at the big league level and got great results with it. Batters hit just .138 against the pitch and whiffed 34.6 percent of the time they swung at it.

His curveball has some very good, late drop on it and was highly effective as well with a Whiff% of 48.1. But I thought he left the curveball up in the zone way too much and wasn’t able to command it as consistently.

Muller will also throw a change-up and sinker, but neither are considered primary pitches at this point.

Kyle Muller — Ceiling and Comparisons

The Ceiling 

Part of me wants to believe Muller has a ceiling as a number two starter, but I just can’t get on board with that after watching him a few more times again.

I do think he has a pretty safe ceiling as a number three if he can learn to command his pitches better and attack the zone.

He has the pitches to be an effective big leaguer as we’ve already seen, now it’s just about finding that consistency.

Comparisons

Very different arm action, but as far as size and pitch mix goes, Muller is actually very comparable to Madison Bumgarner.

The big difference there is the command with Bumgarner having one of the best BB% in all of baseball early in his career at around 4-5 percent, while Muller is struggling at around 12 percent.

But MadBum was primarily four-seam, slider, and curveball coming up and even had years where he threw his slider more than his fastball, which I could see Muller doing at times.