On Tuesday, Braves rookie Williams Perez worked eight innings against Tampa Bay, yielding four hits and two earned runs. Both runs came on a seventh-inning homer by the Rays’ eighth-place hitter, to whom Perez threw the worst of his 92 pitches. In all, it was a strong performance by a 24-year-old who’d struggled in his first two starts after five weeks on the disabled list, and now we come to the tantalizing part:
If the Braves were asked to name their most valued pitchers under 25, Williams Perez mightn’t make the top dozen.
Here’s who would: Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran, Matt Wisler, Mike Foltynewicz, Manny Banuelos, Tyrell Jenkins, Max Fried, Touki Toussaint, Lucas Sims, Ricardo Sanchez, Kolby Allard and Mike Soroka.
Of the 12, only Teheran and Sims were Braves employees a year ago. Allard and Soroka were Round 1 draftees in June. Eight have arrived via trade. Of those eight, five were first-round picks for their previous clubs. Sims, who was the Braves’ No. 1 pick in 2012, and Fried are 21. Toussaint is 19. Sanchez and Soroka are 18. Allard turns 18 Thursday.
For those still wondering why the Braves would dispense with Alex Wood, who was 21-20 with a 3.10 ERA in three seasons here, these names are your answer. This organization believes it will have better pitching options than Wood, whose funky mechanics gave the Braves pause. In many chains, Jason Hursh — the Braves’ top draftee of 2014 whose fastball has been clocked at 98 mph — would be a prime prospect. MLB.com ranks him 10th among this club’s minor-league pitchers.
As we applaud John Hart and John Coppolella, the Braves’ president of baseball operations and their assistant general manager, for their creativity and diligence in stockpiling all this young pitching, we must also affix the disclaimer: Great young pitching prospects don’t always grow into great pitchers. As a case study, we offer a homegrown example — the Braves’ Young Guns of the late ’80s.
From 1985 through 1988, the Braves drafted a pitcher No. 1 every June: Tommy Greene (14th overall in 1985), Kent Mercker (fifth in 1986), Derek Lilliquist (sixth in 1987) and Steve Avery (third in 1988). Marty Clary (a third-rounder in 1983) and Tom Glavine (second round in 1984) were also considered Young Guns, as were Pete Smith, whom then-GM Bobby Cox landed from Philadelphia in the Bedrosian-for-Virgil deal of December 1985, and John Smoltz, acquired from Detroit in 1987 for Doyle Alexander.
Eight Young Guns, of whom 25 percent — Glavine and Smoltz — would become Hall of Famers. But what happened to the others?
Greene was the player to be named later in the Dale Murphy trade with Philadelphia in 1990, having gone 2-2 as a Brave. Clary was released in 1990, having gone 5-14. Lilliquist was traded to Cleveland in 1990, having gone 10-18. Smith was traded to the Mets in 1993, having served as the Braves’ fifth starter and gone 30-48 here. Mercker was traded to the Reds in 1995, having been both the No. 5 starter — even working the Braves’ most recent no-hitter — and briefly a closer. He was 31-25.
As for Avery: At 21, he was crowned MVP of the NLCS against Pittsburgh. Smoltz likewise won two games in the series, but Avery was nigh-untouchable — 16 1/3 innings, 17 strikeouts, nine hits, an ERA of 0.00. If you had to pick one candidate for Cooperstown back then, he’d have been it.
Alas, he developed a sore arm — actually a sore armpit — in 1993 and was never was the same. He was the Braves’ No. 4 starter when they won the 1995 World Series; he was used in relief in the 1996 Series, taking the extra-inning loss in the crushing Game 4. It was his last appearance as a Brave.
Avery left as a free agent to sign with Boston, where he tried to reinvent himself as a junkballer. He retired in 2003 with 96 wins, 209 fewer than Glavine, 117 fewer than Smoltz.
Earlier this summer, Hart invoked the baseball adage regarding young pitchers: “It takes 10 to get three.” His Braves have amassed more than 10 promising arms. If four or five turn out to be keepers, they’ll have done well.
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