The Braves added yet another young pitching prospect with big potential and control issues Friday when they acquired left-hander Tyler Pike from the Seattle Mariners.
Pike, 22, was the player to be named later in the Nov. 28 trade that sent right-handed prospects Rob Whalen and Max Povse to the Mariners for outfield prospect Alex Jackson, who might shift back to his original position as a catcher.
Pike was 6-5 with a 4.23 ERA in 25 regular-season starts at high Single-A Bakersfield and had 134 strikeouts and 68 walks in 125 2/3 innings. Included was a June game in which he struck out 12 in five innings while allowing two walks and three hits.
He missed a few weeks for a shoulder injury at midseason and was eased back in after he returned in August, pitching fewer than four innings in his next four starts.
The Florida native’s strikeout rate of 9.6 per nine innings in 2016 ranked fifth among all minor league pitchers who worked at least 125 innings.
A third-round draft pick out of Winter Haven (Fla.) High School in 2012, Pike has a 26-26 record and 4.04 ERA in 113 starts over five minor league seasons, piling up a lot of strikeouts (492) and a lot of walks (301) in 530 2/3 innings.
He stayed at high-A for all of the 2016 season, after spending parts of the previous two seasons in Double-A and compiling a 3-6 with a 6.90 ERA in 16 starts in those stints.
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