Braves’ Triple-A Gwinnett manager Brian Snitker was driving north from spring training in Florida on Sunday when he got the call from the front office that his roster was about to change.
By the end of the drive, he learned that the Braves had traded Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton and that right-hander Matt Wisler, formerly the Padres’ top pitching prospect, would join his already-stacked rotation in Gwinnett. Wisler is slated to debut at 2 p.m. Sunday against Durham at Coolray Field.
Wisler, whom Baseball America now considers the Braves’ top overall prospect, joins a rotation that already features power arm Mike Foltynewicz, the 6-foot-4 right-hander acquired in the Evan Gattis trade, whom Baseball America tabs the Braves’ No. 3 prospect.
Joining them is No. 14 Manny Banuelos, the former Yankees prospect who can hit 94 mph from the left side; Williams Perez, considered a top-30 prospect, who posted a 2.91 ERA in Double-A Mississippi last year; and veteran Chien-Ming Wang, the two-time 19-game winner for the Yankees in 2006 and 2007.
“We’ve got some high-profile guys, which is really cool,” said Snitker, who has been a part of the Braves organization for 38 years. “It blew me away that they replenished everything as quick as they did. I thought it’d take a few years. It’s not like they just got an abundance of players, they got some really athletic, good players in return.”
Snitker compares this rotation with the talent-laden one he managed at low-A Macon in 1997, featuring Bruce Chen, Jason Marquis, Rob Bell, Jimmy Osting and Jason Schiell, with Odalis Perez out of the bullpen — all of whom made the majors. This group is closer to being major league-ready.
He and the Braves coaching staff are just getting to know Wisler, but left spring training with a game plan for Foltynewicz to focus on fastball command, Banuelos on throwing breaking pitches for strikes early in the count, and Perez on repeating his delivery. Mostly, Snitker said, he’s tasked with keeping these arms healthy and ready to go.
“Our job here is to put them in situations to succeed,” Snitker said. “If we get them to the post, they’ll take care of the rest.”
