The Braves placed left-hander Cole Hamels on the 45-day injured list in order to open 40-man space for their previously announced selections of Matt Adams and Tyler Matzek, David O’Brien of The Athletic tweets. The move can only be backdated three days, so Hamels will be out of action until at least early September while dealing with a triceps issue.
Certainly, that’s not the outcome the Braves had in mind when they signed Hamels to a one-year, $18MM contract over the winter. Hamels’ salary will be prorated to a bit north of $6.6MM under the terms of the March MLB/MLBPA agreement that stipulated prorated salaries for players in 2020.
With Hamels sidelined for more than half the truncated regular season, the Atlanta rotation unquestionably looks a bit less secure. Mike Soroka and Max Fried give the Braves a pair of high-end young talents to front the group, and both Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb have at times shown themselves capable of pitching at high levels as well. Both, however, have been inconsistent in recent years.
The Braves inked veteran righty Jhoulys Chacin to a one-year deal earlier this week and also have a bevy of intriguing young arms in their player pool, including Kyle Wright, Ian Anderson, Patrick Weigl and Bryse Wilson. Wright made the Opening Day roster and could begin the season as the team’s No. 5 starter, depending on the plan for Chacin, who largely replaces righty Felix Hernandez after the longtime Mariner opted out of the 2020 season.
Impressive depth aside, a healthy Hamels would’ve been a clear boon to the starting staff. Although he struggled late in the 2019 season, Hamels has acknowledged that he rushed back from an injury. And prior to his DL placement last June, he’d given the Cubs 29 starts and 176 innings of 2.91 ERA ball since being acquired at the 2018 trade deadline. In a best-case scenario now, the Braves would get a few weeks of starts out of Hamels and hope to lean on him throughout a postseason run if he shows well.
WTF! Season down the drain for him and waste of money! This could be horrific for the Braves… especially with the way Folty looks… guy randomly lost 5-6 mph off his fastball and looked terrible this summer
Need to trade for a vet. Can’t rely on the back end of the rotation in the postseason.
Soroka and pray for rain
idk, the Nats proved last year you can win it all with just 2 pitchers.
You can’t seriously be comparing them to the Braves top 2, can you?
Nats top two were/are much better as a group although Soroka is just as good as them. But nats weren’t even the best NL East team last year … they may have won a World Series by getting lucky/hot at the right time, but they were not that great of a team…
Didn’t the Nats just have a terrible season through May and then we’re one of the best teams in baseball from June through the end of the season? Braves were certainly most consistent, but Nats were probably the better team through the second half of the season. They were 19-31 at some point in late May and still ended up with 93 wins. That’s not getting hot/lucky, that is a good team performing poorly early in the season .
Nats 3 and 4 are still better.
Well well well….
Thankfully, this season is useless so it doesn’t matter who pitches. The rotation is terrible with or without him.
Your username looks like it will age well unless Fried and Soroka can carry that rotation.
MadBum is a 4.00 ERA pitcher now and isnt a bet to stay healthy either
He will pitch for the Dbacks when the season calls for him. And enough with the injury claims. The guy has been a workhorse his entire career. He had his dumb setbacks, but he is a reliable arm 4 era or not.
100000% more reliable than Faulty, Newcomb, and Wright.
But I bet ppl will somehow still disagree with the above.
“he is a reliable 4 era…” for $85M…your alternative to Hamels and his $18M is an $85M contract for MadBum who wouldn’t be any better – a difference of $67M. If we wanted a “4 era or not”, we could have re-signed Teheran or just give the ball to one of the rookie SPs that doesn’t meet the approval of bitter, neglected scout NOBumgarnerEqualsNONLCS.
Let’s not even mention the turning point in MadBum’s career…his “dumb setback” was from a dirt bike. Yes, very dumb.
This would be a sound argument if the Braves actually spent money on quality. Instead, they went the cheap “safe” road, and once again it backfired on them. The rotation is a problem. It has been a problem the last 2-3 years (since their rebuild) and it is a problem now. Until they prove they will spend, we will be watching the same garbage on the field in the playoffs.
But I still hold my ground on Bumgarner. We will see what he does this year.
“[Rotation] has been a problem the last 2-3 years…and is a problem now.”
Starter’s Team ERA ranking (out of 30 MLB teams): Braves
2019: 12 (result: division winners)
2018: 4 (result: division winners)
They chose to spend their money, like last year, on year-to-year players (Donaldson + midseason bullpen upgrades in 2019 / Ozuna + Hamels in 2020) — will that work this year? We’ll see.
Is Bumgarner really a safe bet either? Maybe for a handful of innings, but he 5.29 ERA and 4.45 FIP away from home last year. Plus he had the worst numbers of his career so far. In at least 150 innings, this was his worst ERA, FIP, HR/9, and WHIP. While Hamels may not have been the answer, Bumgarner probably isn’t the answer either. Sure he’s great in the world series but has a 4.31 ERA in the NLDS and NLCS combined, and that’s something a lot of people overlook because of his World Series performances.
and what happened in the playoffs again?
Nobody is afraid of the Braves…no body.
Teams just step all over them including how the Cards did last season. The Braves barely carried their *** to game 5 then everything fell apart in an instant.
It will be the same thing this year unless they make a move.
They regressed this year. That is for sure.
Did you watch the playoffs…? Seriously, did you? The bullpen lost it. Plain-and-simple. They squandered leads and had multiple opps they failed to score on. Shane Greene went down and felt like a massive blow that snowballed.
Not saying MadBum wouldn’t have come in handy, but to think that post-injury 2019 MadBum is anything like his 2014 self is ridiculous – and definitely not one I’d bet $85 on, let alone $85M.
Splash some cold water in your face – it’s 2020. Time to ride the coattails of a better pitcher…and better dirt bike rider.
Not only that- but the Braves win game one if Chris Martin didn’t walk to the mound and go down. Game one was a win as scripted until he got hurt.
Soroka is a star. I have no doubt about him. Fried not sold yet. Everyone else, hope they are gone by 2021.
Fried has better stuff than Soroka.
You do realize that fried outperformed madbum last year. Better era, fip, war. Fried has better perpherals than soroka. Give him some credit. Braves need much more pitching just like you said.. we all agree with you on that.
Lol you’re out on Newk based on, what, 5 starts last April and a bad second half of 2018? Newk was nails in the first half of 2018 and nails from the pen last year….and you hope he, and his what 4 more years of team control, are gone next year?
Atlanta Braves 2020 World Champions!!!
Basically what this means is Hamels will be pitching in Japan or Korea next season
Should be no surprise that Bullets was hoodwinked again.
Paging Bartolo Colon to Atlanta.
In this tinker toy, wiffleball, throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks season, this may be the best outcome possible. Put these young guns in there and see just what they can do. Wishing nothing bad on Cole Hamels but perhaps his best role this season would be mentoring these younger pitchers from a safe distance. Still, get well soon
I believe that this shall be forever known as the “mother of all asterisks“ season
Stealing Money ha!….oh to be a major league baseball player
Let’s hope they took out insurance on that deal. Could actually save money, in the end.
lol? how do you save money for someone that never actually pitches for team?!?!….MLBPA is by far the best association in major sports…Stealing Money! Love it!
Hmm…maybe it would be what he said, an insurance policy that would save them money!
Good
As a Braves fan, the Braves deserve this. Maybe they’ll stop giving out 1 year deals to washed up starters knowing full well they need a front line starter.
And no, Bumgarner was no better of a choice. If they’re not going to go all in on a front line starter, either by trade or FA, then they need to be pitching guys like Wright, Davidson, Wilson, and soon Anderson
Good? What a fan…!
The last time they did that was Anibal Sanchez, whom they got a 3.1 WAR year for less than Bobby Bonilla made from the Mets that year ($1M).
Who is the frontline starter that you’re clamoring for? You think they should have signed Wheeler for $125M…maybe surpass their free agent record deal by 5x and somehow signed Cole…? I’m not saying they don’t need a frontline starter, but had one been available that didn’t cost the farm, he’d be here. Or you could watch some of these pieces that were traded away grow into an Adam Wainwright, Charlie Morton, etc. You ok with that?
Yeah good.
This is an organization that gave a middle finger to its fanbase last October by stripping them of the tomahawk chop in an elimination game to appease the opposing team, which, by the way, never seemed to be an issue in the regular season or during games 1 & 2 until St. Louis found their backs up against the wall.
And before you tell me it was the right move, you haven’t even bothered to change the avi icon on a message board so don’t even try to sell me that it was ok what they did to us last October.
You think they deserve my undying loyalty? In what way? That ship sailed so long ago.
And maybe you missed the part where I said if they can’t get a front line starter they should be pitching Wright, Wilson, etc.
I’m fully aware front line starters don’t grow on trees.
And yeah, sometimes you do need to take a shot and risk letting a Charlie Morton go. If you want to play the safe card nonstop you’ll never win. That’s not an opinion it’s a fact. They’re in a spot right now where a front line starter puts them over the top. Without it they’re not a real threat and you’re not much of a fan to itself if you can’t admit that.
Being a fan doesn’t mean living in denial letting your team stick it to its fanbase with relentlessly terrible decisions.
You know how when a family member steps out of line you’ll check them on it but if it’s a stranger making dumb moves you stay silent and let them keep making because you don’t care about them in the first place?
It’s like that.
So yeah, I’ll say it again… louder this time GOOD.
If they have to learn the hard way, at least it’s a lesson learned. Better than no lesson learned at all. The more this ends up as a train wreck the more likely it is to wake them up. It’s the best thing we could hope for
How’s that for being a fan?
I’m sorry. I fell asleep halfway through this post. What were you saying again?
And sorry but the last time they did it was Dallas Keuchel. An over the hill pitcher they pawned off as solving our pitching need.
Strong memory (or maybe I should call you out and question you being a fan)
Like I said, we’re better off pitching the prospects of you don’t want to go all in. At least there’s an outside shot of striking it rich there
I’m not sure why you’re worried about trading them. We don’t pitch them anyway
Chacin ringing a bell? They clearly still haven’t learned, assuming they end up letting him start. Hopefully not and I’ll be wrong if he’s shoved to the pen and Wright gets the 5th spot. We’ll find out in a week.
I’m not holding my breath though, that’s for sure.
@ MJ
I hate to tell you this, but if Keuchel had started game 5 of the playoffs against St Louis the Braves would have got to the NLCS against the Nationals, as it was a mistake to start Keuchel in Busch when his ERA was plus 10 in that ballpark….The End.
Dude, there’s a difference between making smart moves and having your talent valued and making moves that are the Texierra deal out of hunger for a player to check a box. You’ve gotta grow the club and trade for parts…there are four major league quality arms in the rotation right now. They need to come together and show us what they are. They haven’t gotten a real chance yet.
Hey, if we get a Year of JD Drew and Nate McClouth, I’m down.