Shane Greene’s long free agent wait ended yesterday when he re-signed with the Braves on a one-year deal worth a prorated $1.5MM. “It seemed early on that a return to the Braves was his preference,” SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson writes (Twitter link), as Wolfson notes that the Twins were willing to offer Greene more money. This focus on Atlanta could explain why it took until May for Greene to land a contract, as David O’Brien of The Athletic estimated back in mid-March that the Braves were only willing to spend in the neighborhood of $1MM on Greene — given the prorated nature of Greene’s contract, he’ll end up earning around $1.1 or $1.2MM.
More pitching-related items from around baseball…
- Another Braves/Twins link is explored by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, regarding how Atlanta acquired breakout star Huascar Ynoa from Minnesota back in 2017. The Braves wanted to move Jaime Garcia at the trade deadline, and initially discussed a trade with the Yankees that would have sent Garcia to the Bronx for then-Yankees prospect Nick Solak. Once those talks fell through, Atlanta pivoted and sent Garcia to Minnesota, and the Braves “did not do as much diligence on Ynoa as they normally would on a prospect” since their top priority was just to dump the rest of Garcia’s salary. In fact, Ynoa wasn’t even Atlanta’s first ask from the Twins’ farm system, as Nick Burdi was initially part of the proposed trade. From being a rather anonymous rookie ball pitcher and an apparent “plan C” type of pickup for the Braves, Ynoa has become an unexpected stalwart of the Atlanta rotation in 2021. The righty has a 2.23 ERA/3.19 SIERA and an above-average 28.4% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate over 40 1/3 innings, plus Ynoa has augmented that pitching production with two home runs and a 1.267 OPS over 15 plate appearances.
- Pirates right-hander Chad Kuhl threw a live batting practice on Saturday as he continues to recover from right shoulder discomfort. In a radio interview on 93.7 FM (hat tip to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Pittsburgh GM Ben Cherington said Kuhl will return “before too long” but will first require a minor league rehab assignment. Kuhl has struggled in his first four starts of the year, posting a 6.32 ERA with more walks (16) than strikeouts (14) over 15 2/3 innings.
Pirates need to just move Kuhl to a bullpen role when he comes back. I’d much rather see Wil Crowe take his spot in the starting rotation and Kuhl’s stuff would be 10x better as a RP than an SP.
I agree completely.
The Braves struck gold by accident in acquiring Huascar Ynoa, Which is good fortune for Braves Nation!
Biggest steal since Smoltz.
OK, yes, that’s big talk, but given what the Braves gave up for Ynoa and Smoltz, Ynoa is looking like a major steal.
Ynoa was the last trade made by Coppy during the rebuild. That trade went under radar but not for long.
He throws two pitches. I would not get excited just yet.
Ynoa has a 3rd pitch, changup.
Here is the Brooks Baseball analysis of Ynoa
In 2021, compared to other RHP:
His fourseam fastball is blazing fast and results in many more groundballs compared to other pitchers’ fourseamers. His slider has exceptional depth, has primarily 12-6 movement and results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers’ sliders. His change generates a high number of swings & misses compared to other pitchers’ changeups, is much firmer than usual, results in more flyballs compared to other pitchers’ changeups and has slight armside fade.
I am pleasantly surprised with how well Ynoa is doing. He basically got throttled in spring training and I was shocked he made the team. It’s working out so far. I was unaware he threw anything other than fastball/sliders. Baseballsavant says he’s thrown a change up 5.6% of the time.
Well, his changeup is still a work in progress. He is only throwing in 6% of the time, so .. you are both sort of correct.
He is primarily a two-pitch pitcher, at least at the MLB level, but he is working on more. Quite frankly, one could say that about a ton of pitchers that had great careers. So, as ITF noted, we should not get too excited yet, but if he can continue to develop he is an absolute steal considering the Braves dumped salary as well.
Yea, Ynoa doesn’t use the change as much as the FB/sider, but that’s ok as long as it’s working and Ynoa has been very good.
The FB is above avg. What makes the slider so good is that it drops. Lots of sliders ride sideways (not as good). Wilson’s slider rides sideways, or used to. I haven’t noted his slider as much this year. And Julio had a slider that rode sideways, though it broke a lot more than Wilson’s slider.
A down breaking slider is always better.
One other comment about Julio’s slider. If you watched him closely, he would have some games where his slider broke down more than sideways. When that happened, he would have one of his really good outings.
On top of that, Julio would sometimes have a game where he was throwing a 2 seamer that broke arm side with excellent control, like a Greg Maddux pitch, On those days, Julio would be outstanding and could shut down even the best offenses.
Problem is that you didn’t know what you were getting on any given outing because other days he would be tossing high 80s FBs and had nothing else but a slider that he tried to fool RH batters with on the outside black (at best).
Watching Braves pitchers, pitch by pitch, during a game was my ‘fun time’ back in the day. I’m getting too old to harness that kind of attention span these days.
This is 100% correct.
Yes but no. Watch him next time and you’ll see that he throws his slider three different ways. He is incredibly crafty with that pitch alone
He changes the speed on his slider. Kinda like having a 3rd pitch. Working out so far.
Agreed. Solak has become quite a hitter, but our pitching would be sunk without Ynoa.
Using your change up 6% of the time on any practical level, makes you a two pitch pitcher and not so much a pitch you throw less often. He needs to develop and use that change up. Until then, he is a time bomb. Players will eventually catch up to two pitches they see all the time.
According to Brooks Baseball, Ynoa’s change generates more swing and misses than other pitchers’ changeups (see the blurb above). And you can view the blurb firsthand by googling ‘Brooksbaseball ynoa’. So the pitch is already pretty good. The change is about 9 MPH slower than the FB on avg, which is why Brooksbaseball describes the change as ‘firm’.
The FB and slider are so good that I doubt he needs to toss the change that often. Last night, for example, I thought he was having a little trouble locating the FB, but the slider is so good at 85 mph (avg) breaking down, Ynoa was still able to yield only 1 run in game last night.
Time will tell how good Ynoa can be, but Braves have had only 2 other starting pitchers come to the big club during rebuild and be as good or better than Ynoa. That’s Soroka and Anderson, much more heralded pitchers-1st round draft picks. Fried spent a lot of time in the pen before becoming a consistent member of rotation.
Just to let you know Tyler Glasnow was a two pitch pitcher in 2019 and 2020. He’s mixed in a slider this year and we’ve seen even better results.
Ynoa may have to settle in to a 5 inning starter role like Glasnow was until developing a 3rd offering. But that’s still pretty valuable and obviously it’s possible to develop a 3rd pitch.
There’s a lot to like. The Braves had so many high regarded pitching prospects (Wilson,Wright, Touissant, Allard) (I might be forgetting one or two others who haven’t panned out as well) It’s nice to see them get a nice surprise from Ynoa.
Newcomb and Gohara also. Pretty much the nature of pitching prospects. And they’ve certainly had some big hits with Fried, Soroka, and Anderson.
But can you imagine if a couple more of those guys would’ve hit their ceiling? Could’ve been scary.
Allard is in Texas.
I’m aware. He was a consensus top 50 prospect at one point in time. He was sold off later on when his star dimmed.
Good to know that Greene ignored other potential deals, preferring to return to Atlanta for a team friendly deal.
It’s his career, his decision.
Should the Braves move Ynoa to the bullpen when Soroka comes back, in order to limit his innings pitched?
remember the twins only had jamie garcia for 1 start as well before they dumped him to the yanks