The Braves recalled Tucker Davidson from Triple-A today while designating fellow southpaw Jesse Biddle for assignment, per the club.
Biddle, 29, is a former first round pick of the Phillies way back in 2010. He made his Major League debut for the Braves in 2018. He made 15 appearances for Atlanta the following season before also appearing for the Mariners and Rangers. Biddle made just one appearance in the Majors last season with the Reds. The left-hander’s bugaboo has been his control, and it haunted Biddle again this season in eight outings with the Braves. While walking 15.7 percent of hitters, Biddle struggled to a 8.44 ERA/5.10 FIP across 10 2/3 innings. He’ll now be exposed to waivers.
Davidson, 25, made his debut with just 1 2/3 innings of work last season. He’s done good work in Triple-A this season, however, allowing just one earned run on seven hits and three walks while striking out a batter per inning in 14 innings across two starts.
Tucker has looked good at Gwinnett, but I suspect he will need significantly more experience before that translates to the bigs. I compare him closer to a Wilson than a Soroka.
Why? He’s 25 years old. He pretty much needs to establish himself as a big league starter this year or it would be too late. 26 years old are no longer considered prospects, just organizational depth quad-A journeymen. Hopefully he gets a real shot to stick in the rotation this year and they don’t jerk his routine around too much. So tired of of seeing Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, and Touki Toussaint get a million second chances to suck as starters, yet they refuse to give Tucker a real shot year after year.
Tucker is mostly a FB pitcher, with a slider and curve that he throws about 10% of the time (each). That reminds me of Wilson. Tucker’s FB is reported to hit 97mph, which is good if he can maintain it over the course of a start. It’s a little better than Wilson’s FB, which is more like 95.
I don’t get to watch Gwinnett baseball, so my only time to actually see him pitch was last year. He wasn’t particularly good in his one appearance that I recall anyway. That’s not a knock. Lots of young pitchers need time to develop in the bigs.
One other point, Fried spent a couple years in the pen before moving permanently to rotation. That could be Tucker’s path.
@ Neil the difference is fried had tj so they used the white gloves on him. Tucker has earned every promotion he’s gotten and has succeeded at every level so far. I honestly believe on any other team he’d be in the major league rotation for the year just to get the full time in to adjust to the majors. I wouldn’t mind them giving tucker the same leash Newcomb got let him start the rest of the year and work through the growing pains to meet the sky high potential he offers.
Fried had TJ surjery in 2014. He was used in the Braves pen in 2017 and especially 2018. I don’t recall there being any issue with lingering effects of TJ 3 and 4 years after the fact.
Newcomb got a long leash during rebuild. I doubt Braves are going to give any pitcher as long a leash as they gave Newcomb and Folty for that matter while they are chasing a WS title.
I haven’t seen enough of Tucker to know how good he may be. But looking at the description of his pitches, I don’t see a top of rotation pitcher YET. Maybe he will shine. He is supposed to start tomorrow.
Good use of the word bugaboo. Well done.
I figured Biddle was going to be cut after last night. I’m surprised they kept him on the 25 man roster for almost 1 month. I’m hoping Tucker shines.
He’s looked great in limited time at AAA. Hoping next for De La Cruz for some RHP support.
Yea, my guess would have been De La Cruz over Tucker. De La Cruz might be that 1 inning guy out of pen with hard stuff from the right side. Tucker has been groomed for the rotation. So maybe Braves are looking for longer relief from Tucker.
It’s hard to figure because De La Cruz was called up recently then sent back down w/o a ML appearance. Same could happen to Tucker for all I know.
He’s not very good in franchise mode either.
I think the entire world saw this coming. It was questionable if he even deserved a roster spot, much less if he should have pitched yesterday. Was rooting for him, but he was just looking terrible! Now it’s time to take a serious look at Tomlins roster spot
And Luke Jackson. Good god could we just get rid of him already? So many wild pitches from him making crazy changes to his stance to try to throw that stupid slider as hard as he can.
Give Tucker Davidson a chance to start. At least give him a chance to fail as a starter before writing him off as a reliever. So tired of seeing Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, and Touki Toussaint get a million chances to suck as starters, yet they refuse to give Tucker a real shot. I would rather see Newcomb get another shot in the rotation than Wright, Wilson, or Toussaint.
I agree with all but Wilson. He needs a full season before he can be written off. The spot start here and there then bouncing between the rotation and pen hasn’t helped Wilson at all. Tooki and Wright have about burned there bridges
All I care about is if the dude can throw strikes. So tired of seeing the free passes and “cookies” guys are serving up there. They could have won that game yesterday.
Jesse Biddle had a song, Kid’s prolly pressed now. poor kid
Wish they would get rid of pos Tomlin
Braves need to pull the trigger on an early season trade for Kendall Graveman. Pony up the prospects and don’t worry about the sample size. The Mariners are about to get a loot for this years version of Andrew Miller. Nastiest reliever in the game.
The only thing impressive about Biddle is that 11 year leash.
And yet, somehow, Josh Tomlin remains on this team and Brian Snitker keeps putting him in to winnable games. Seriously, without Tomlin we would be in first place in the NL East right now.
Snitker’s bullpen decisions are horrendous. He thinks Josh Tomlin and Luke Jackson will keep us in close games. Both are garbage
Bringing back Biddle was one of the worst decisions in the 150-year history of this franchise.
I don’t think Tomlin is garbage, dude gave them 4 innings against Philly when Morton fell apart. Higher leverage situations though he is not the guy. Swingman that can spot start if needed and a innings eater in blowouts. On a good note, I really liked how those guys fought yesterday. Brew Crew helped them out with some costly errors but they made them pay in a few spots. I hate it when they lose but when they lose and it seems like they are going through the motions that infuriating.
It was a successful series overall but the fact that we were swept by Toronto right before this series makes two out of three feel like a disappointment. We need to consistently win series.
Swept by Toronto twice
Tomlin’s fastball averages 87mph. Dude is a batting practice or throw away game innings eater at best
I’d rather have another bench bat or 3 and let position players pitch than let guys like Tomlin, Biddle, Newcombe, Jones, Jackson, Webb, and others pitch in high leverage situations. AA did this a couple seasons ago and it was just as big of a disaster and he had to give up a lot of prospect capital to fix it at the deadline. It’s reactive, instead of proactive. You can’t tell me they didn’t have the money to sign a couple $3-4m right handed relievers with strikeout ability (what melancon got this year after we paid him $20m for a season and a half). This is depressing. Such a good team with so much potential but no one has ever won a World Series with a garbage bullpen in my lifetime. F- for off-season moves at this juncture, because there’s no immediate or cheap or easy fix. Sad.
Speaking of guys who are doing well at Gwinnett. Check out their SS, Orlando Arcia
52 AB 15 R 20 H 7 HR 12 RBI 1 SB .385 Avg . 450 OBP 1.296 OPS
Tucker is apparently starting Tues game vs Mets. So now we know why he was called up as opposed to a reliever. He will take a turn in rotation now that Ynoa is down