LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The barrel-chested dude with the beard and straight-over-the-top delivery doesn’t light up radar guns with his fastball or have a breaking ball that falls off the table, but Josh Collmenter gets outs, and he could end up being an important piece for the Braves.
The veteran right-hander is penciled in for the long relief/spot starter role that the Braves and most teams always like to have filled but often can’t. There aren’t a lot of pitchers these days who are good enough to carry on a 25-man roster and versatile enough for a team to know he can be called upon at any time to pitch in relief or spot-start on short notice.
“Starting is obviously the No. 1 goal,” said Collmenter, Arizona’s opening-day starter in 2015, “but just anywhere you can fit in and help out. I’ve done both roles, it’s not like it’s unfamiliar or anything. I understand the necessity and importance of it.”
So does Braves manager Brian Snitker, who gave Collmenter, 31, his second start of spring training Wednesday in the Braves’ Grapefruit League finale against the Mets. He pitched five impressive innings in a 2-2 tie, throwing 45 strikes in 65 pitches while allowing one run, four hits and no walks with five strikeouts to finish with a 2.81 spring ERA.
“We wanted to get him stretched out,” said Snitker, who had Collmenter pitched two innings in each of four spring relief appearances and three innings in his previous start. “If you get them out of here stretched out, that plays for a month, or three weeks or whatever, before you’d have to re-evaluate it.”
Snitker meant that with his innings and pitch count built up enough in spring training, Collmenter could make a spot start for the Braves in the first three or four weeks of the season, rather than having to make a roster move.
“It’s like you probably have your sixth (starter) right there on staff and maybe not have to go to the minor leagues and disrupt (Matt) Wisler or (Aaron) Blair or one of those guys,” Snitker said.
Snitker and the Braves saw what Collmenter could do in mid-September, when scrambled to fill out their rotation as their offense was scoring plenty, but Braves starters were frequently exiting before the sixth inning. They signed Collmenter, who was released by the Diamondbacks at midseason and toiled with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs waiting for a team to call.
He went 2-0 with a 2.37 ERA in three starts (all Braves wins) during the final two weeks, allowing 15 hits, five runs and five walks with 16 strikeouts in 19 innings. If he gets another chance to start this season, Collmenter believes he can step in and do the job effectively once again.
“With the way the season goes, it’s so long, crazy things happen,” he said. “I mean, I’ve started a game where I found out 10 or 15 minutes beforehand, something happens with a starter — so you’re just always on alert. And to be able to pick up multiple innings is kind of a rarity for bullpen guys nowadays, there are one inning, one inning, one inning, one-plus.”
He re-signed with the Braves in November, avoiding arbitration and getting a base salary of $1.2 million with the opportunity to earn up to $1.2 million more in incentives if he makes a specific number of starts or relief appearances.
Collmenter knew when he signed that he might be used as a reliever, and there was little doubt about his role after the Braves’ subsequent addition of three veteran starters: former Cy Young Award winners Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey and left-hander Jaime Garcia.
With Colon and Dickey both well past their 40th birthdays and Garcia having pitched more than 130 innings just once in the past five seasons, a spot starter is a good thing to have for a team that wants to make sure it’s not forced to rush prospects and young pitchers to the majors like they did in recent seasons.
“Just to get an insurance blanket or whatever, just in case something goes awry, you have somebody that could (spot start),” Collmenter. “I kind of figured (his role) would go as it’s been. … I enjoy (the role). And I like the team, how everything is starting to come together and taking shape. The way they finished the year last year, and they added pieces to what was a very productive last couple of months of the season. So, hoping to take that into this year.”
He is 38-33 with a 3.50 ERA in 203 games (78 starts) over parts of six major league seasons, all with Arizona except his three starts in September for Atlanta.
“It’s a valuable guy to have,” Snitker said. “He’s like a bench player that’s versatile because he can pitch the seventh, he can give you an inning, or if somebody gets a line drive back at them or something early in the game, he can jump in there and run with it (pitch multiple innings) for a while. He’s a good commodity to have.
“He gets the most out of what he’s got. It’s been kind of neat to get to know him, too, to see his preparation, what a professional that he is. He’s been around for a while. It’s not a mistake when those guys play this game for a while.”
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