Chase Whitley is competing for a spot this spring with the Braves, which is heady stuff for an Alabama native who grew up pulling for the team.
The 28-year-old pitcher was born and raised in tiny Ranburne, Ala., and became a Braves fan like many others in the year they won the World Series. He and his family, and later his buddies, would take the hour or so drive down I-20 to see the Braves when they played near downtown Atlanta.
“I’m not a frontrunner but my first year following the Braves was ’95,” he said, smiling. “I was five years old, so you can’t call me a frontrunner I guess.”
The former Ranburne High School and Troy University standout wondered as a kid what it might be like to pitch for the Braves, now he has a chance to after they claimed him off waivers from the Rays in December. A 15th-round draft pick by the Yankees in 2010, Whitley debuted in 2014 and pitched for parts of two seasons for the Yankees before spending the past two with the Rays.
The right-hander had a 4.08 ERA and 1.116 WHIP (walks-plus-hits per inning pitched) in 41 relief appearances for the Rays in 2017, with 43 strikeouts and 16 walks in 57-1/3 innings.
He has a low-90 mph fastball, sinker, change-up and slider, a starter’s repertoire, and Whitley made 12 starts among 24 outings with the Yankees as a rookie in 2014, and four starts in 2015 before Tommy John surgery and the waiver wire.
“When you come up with one team you think that’s who you’re going to be with your whole career, and all of a sudden you’re …,” Whitley said, not completing the thought. “But I’m excited about wearing this Braves uniform, being from Alabama and getting a chance to play for the hometown team.”
Whitley made nine minor league starts with the Rays after returning from TJ surgery in 2016 and one more start among five games he pitched in the majors that season. But in 2017 he was used strictly as a reliever with Tampa Bay and was almost as effective against left-handed hitters as against right-handers, allowing a .227 average and .655 OPS by lefties and .219/.612 by right-handers.
“I came up as a reliever actually, then made a couple of emergency starts and all of a sudden I was a starter for the Yankees,” he said. “Just one of those things; that was kind of cool. I like the idea of starting, but I like pitching regularly (as a reliever) too, so I mean, I don’t care. It’s just whatever.”
The Braves have more of a need and likely more of an opportunity for him in their bullpen than the rotation, but Whitley said he’d like get a chance to show what he can do as a starter at least some early this spring training, and the Braves will oblige.
“I feel like in spring training it’s always best to prepare for the biggest (role), whatever it might be,” he said. “So prepare for being a starter and if things go in that direction, you’re ready. If things go backward and you’re bullpen, then as far as innings you’re already prepared for that. So I think that’s the best way to look at it. If you come in just trying to prepare for a bullpen role and then all of a sudden they need a starter, you’re in a bad spot.”
Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said the Braves like the length that Whitley could give them in the bullpen and the year of experience he gained pitching in the majors for almost the entire 2017 season. Whitley has a minor league option remaining, so he could be sent down without being exposed to waivers.
“He has a desire to at least explore starting,” Anthopoulos said, “and we told him, as long as there’s no concerns getting him stretched out, if it’s done correctly, we’ll look to do that if we can. Again, we’re not necessarily locked into that, but we would do our best to try to accommodate that. Whether that means he gets to three innings, to four innings. I mean, that might change after we see a little bit, it might change with some of the other guys we’re developing. But if we can, we’re going to at least try early on to get him some more innings.”
Whitley has seen many of the young pitchers and power-armed prospects the Braves have in camp and been impressed. For young fans who might be drawn to the Braves for the first time this season, there are going to be young pitchers breaking in who could help sustain the organization for a lot of years.
“Obviously there’s some really good arms, and I think it’s exciting for the Atlanta fan base to have that,” Whitley said. “Because a lot of teams don’t have that. Pitching is something that everybody’s trying to get. If I can just come in and perform, share some stuff that I’ve learned along the way, shoot, that would be fine with me.”
