The Braves recently added a couple relievers to the upper minors. Righty Mike Morin signed a minor league deal last week and has made a pair of appearances for Triple-A Gwinnett. Kodi Whitley is joining him after signing a non-roster pact on Monday, per the MLB.com transaction log.
Morin, 32, pitched in the majors every season from 2014-20. He posted a 2.90 ERA over 54 outings as a rookie for the Angels before struggling to a 6.37 ERA the next year. Morin would log parts of four seasons with the Halos before bouncing around the league. He suited up with the Twins, Mariners, Royals and Phillies before tossing four scoreless frames for the 2020 Marlins — his last MLB experience to date.
The North Carolina product had been pitching in the Mexican League early this year. A 2.89 ERA and excellent 26:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 18 2/3 innings earned him another affiliated opportunity.
Whitley, 28, logged parts of three seasons with the Cardinals. He tossed 42 2/3 innings combined from 2020-22, pitching to a 3.38 ERA despite a lofty 12.4% walk rate. Outrighted off St. Louis’ 40-man roster at the start of the offseason, he’d spent the year with their top affiliate in Memphis. The 6’3″ hurler posted a 5.19 ERA in 43 1/3 Triple-A frames and was released last week. He’ll look to pitch his way back to the big leagues with the second organization of his career.
Alex is hoarding all the pitching! Since there’s no good pitching to be had might as well acquire it in volume and hope for a winning ticket. There’s still 2.25 months left and pitchers ain’t gonna stop getting hurt, and since there’s no real quality to be had might as well shop in the quantity aisle. Barves gonna barve
This is what happens when you have promoted or traded your farm. You have nothing left to trade for quality arms at the deadline. I’m not criticizing, just stating a fact.
There’s no quality arms to be traded for! That’s my and their entire point. Totally should’ve traded Albies, Freddie, Dansby, Riley, Acuña & Harris II when they had the chance. And Strider, Freid, Kyle Wright, Elder, etal. They did essentially trade Contreras for Murphy & Pache + Langeliers for Olson. Lotta those dudes were in the all-star game iirc.
They haven’t had the arms in the minors to begin with. All the pitchers signed/drafted by Coppy were all injury prone or flamed out. AA has already developed more quality arms (drafting in worse spots) than Coppy ever did.
The issue, they don’t have elite position players to acquire a top arm. They’re banking on Fried and Wright coming back and will most likely go after a cheap veteran innings guy or just continue to stack arms for depth.
What top arms are you even talking about? Who’s available?
Nobody that’s any good is going to get traded – especially to Atlanta.
Giolito was just traded for basically nothing. Top arms = top arms on the trade market. I get that this requires basic context clues and general understanding of the market, but do better.
T
The AAA team is basically equivalent to the Mets major league roster at this point!
Lol Don’t be ridiculous…
Exactly, no way the Mets are that good.
Braves are really collecting as much meh pitching as possible and hoping a couple of them pan out lol. Certainly isn’t a bad strategy
No mention here of Whitley?
I suppose you say it best when you say nothing at all.
Honestly I like it. It’s “Sink or Swim” time. This team is eyeing a deep playoff run and if guys are getting done, your going to Gwinnett or getting DFA’d for the roster spot. AA is gobbling guys up to build capital giving them appearances IOT build value or to bump someone from the MLB roster. Keep going AA. IMHO.