Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Braves Rumors

MLBTR Poll: Braves’ Fifth Starter

By | at

The Braves made a surprising decision this week, optioning both Bryce Elder and Ian Anderson to Triple-A Gwinnett. That takes the duo out of consideration for the fifth spot in the rotation. Atlanta’s top four of Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton is settled, but the final slot now looks as if it’ll go to someone previously expected to open the year in the minors.

With injuries to Michael Soroka and Kolby Allard keeping them out of the season-opening mix, Elder and Anderson had seemed the favorites for the last rotation spot. Instead, it now seems the Braves will turn to a pitcher with no MLB experience out of the gate. Prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd look as if they’re battling for the final spot.

Jared Shuster

The 24-year-old Shuster was Atlanta’s first-round pick out of Wake Forest in 2020. He split the 2022 campaign between Double-A Mississippi and Gwinnett, working to a 3.29 ERA in 139 1/3 innings. He punched out 26.2% of batters faced compared to a modest 6.9% walk rate overall. Shuster’s strikeout numbers dropped precipitously after a midseason jump to Triple-A, however. He’d fanned 30% of opponents in 17 appearances with Mississippi but that mark fell to 19.4% over 10 outings for the Stripers.

Baseball America considers Shuster the #3 prospect in the Atlanta farm system. The outlet credits him with a plus changeup and above-average control. He’s not a particularly hard thrower and scouts peg his slider as a fringe-average pitch. Shuster has thrown 10 2/3 innings this spring, allowing only one run with 16 strikeouts and two walks.

Dylan Dodd

Dodd, also 24, was Atlanta’s third-round pick in 2021. An underslot senior signee coming out of Southeast Missouri State, Dodd moved across three minor league levels in his first full professional season. He started 16 games with High-A Rome and nine for Mississippi before closing out the ’22 campaign with one appearance in Gwinnett. The left-hander soaked up 142 innings over the three levels, posting a 3.36 ERA with a 26% strikeout percentage while only walking 5.3% of opponents.

Ranked the #6 prospect in the organization by Baseball America, Dodd has a similar pitchability profile as Shuster. His fastball also sits in the low-90s and he leans heavily on a pair of advanced breaking pitches in his changeup and slider. He’s an excellent strike-thrower who’s generally regarded as a solid bet to be a back-of-the-rotation starter. Dodd has tossed 8 1/3 scoreless innings in exhibition play, punching out 11 without handing out any free passes.

————-

The book on Shuster and Dodd is fairly similar. They’re both advanced left-handers with strong secondary stuff and control to drive the profile despite middling velocity. They’re each recent college draftees without a ton of professional experience but already in their mid-20s. Both pitchers are having excellent showings in Grapefruit League play, apparently vaulting themselves past Elder and Anderson on the immediate depth chart. Neither is yet on the 40-man roster but Atlanta has a vacancy after losing Dennis Santana on waivers last month and could clear more room by placing Tyler Matzek and Huascar Ynoa on the 60-day injured list.

It stands to reason both Shuster and Dodd will make their MLB debuts at some point this year. One of the duo now figures to break camp with the big league club and assume a key role from the season’s outset. Who will get the nod?

(poll link for app users)

 

Braves Option Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder

By | at

The Braves announced today that right-handers Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder have been optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett. The club now has 50 players in camp.

The club is going into the season with four of its five rotation spots spoken for, with Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton firmly cemented. The only question was who would get the fifth spot. Anderson and Elder seemed like the frontrunners for such a job since they have some major league experience and are currently holding down spots on the 40-man roster. With players like Michael Soroka and Kolby Allard dealing with injuries, that seemed to only work in their favor. However, it seems that strong spring performances from Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd may have changed the calculus.

Anderson, 25 in May, seemed like a key member of the rotation at this time a year ago. Over 2020 and 2021, he tossed 160 2/3 innings with a 3.25 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate and 49.9% ground ball rate. Based on the fact that he was the third overall pick in 2016 and a highly-touted prospect, there was every reason to suspect he would just continue on that kind of trajectory for years to come. Unfortunately, he took a big step back last season, posting an ERA of 5.00 with all of his rate stats going in the wrong direction. He got sent down to the minors and was later recalled but finished the year on the injured list. Though his stock was down after that rough season, many still expected the club to give him another shot here in 2023. The results haven’t been especially strong here in spring so far, as he’s registered a 6.14 ERA in 7 1/3 innings.

In the case of Elder, 24 in May, he has less major league experience, just 54 innings last year. But he posted a solid 3.17 ERA in that time, continuing his groundball-heavy approach from the minors. 49.3% of balls in play allowed in the majors were on the ground, and he had slightly better rates on the farm. But like Anderson, he’s had a rough spring, posting a 6.17 ERA in 11 2/3 innings.

Shuster, 24, was the club’s first round pick in the 2020 draft and has been pushing his way up the minor league ladder since then. He tossed 90 2/3 innings in Double-A last year with a 2.78 ERA, but that jumped to a 4.25 ERA in 48 2/3 innings at Triple-A. He also saw his strikeout rate drop from 30% at Double-A to 19.4% at Triple-A. Coming into 2023, he was still considered one of the club’s top prospects, though it didn’t seem as though he was kicking the door down. But in 8 2/3 spring innings so far, he has a tiny ERA of 1.04, striking out nine batters while issuing just a single walk and allowing just a pair of hits.

Dodd, 25 in June, was selected in the third round of the 2021 draft and jumped three levels last year. Going from Class-A Advanced to Double-A and Triple-A, he tossed 142 innings on the year with a 3.36 ERA. He struck out 26% of batters faced and walked just 5.3%. He’s also had a strong showing here in camp, tossing 8 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run, striking out 11 against no walks and five hits.

Clubs will occasionally start a season with a four-man rotation, as the early parts of the schedule will sometimes have extra off-days that negate the need for a fifth. That doesn’t seem to be the case for Atlanta, as they have just two days off in the month of April, playing in 12 straight days to start the month and then a 17-day stretch without a day off that covers the end of the month and the start of May. They will certainly need someone to take the ball alongside their front four in that time.

Neither Shuster nor Dodd are currently on the 40-man roster. If one of them is eventually called upon to join the Opening Day rotation, the club will need to make a move to get them a spot. That should be fairly easy, however, as both Huascar Ynoa and Tyler Matzek are expected to miss most or all of this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery late last year. They will be moved to the 60-day injured list at some point and won’t count against the club’s roster number. There’s still a couple of weeks until the opener and the club could always change its plans, but it seems that signs are pointing to a surprise ending to the club’s rotation battle.

Diamond Sports Planning To File For Bankruptcy; MLB Planning To Stream Games For Free Temporarily

By | at

Diamond Sports Group, the corporation that owns 14 Bally Sports regional sports networks, is expected to file for bankruptcy March 17, according to a report from Josh Kosman of The New York Post. The timeline will be awkward for Major League Baseball since the 2023 season opens on March 30, but the league plans to step in and broadcast the games themselves.

It had been reported for some time that Diamond is in financial trouble and they forewent interest payments worth roughly $140MM to creditors last month. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said at that time that the league was monitoring the situation, hoping that Diamond would make its payments but also drawing up contingency plans. It was subsequently reported that the league had hired multiple former RSN executives for a newly-created Local Media department, seemingly to get in position to take over broadcasting duties where necessary.

The problem stems from continued cord-cutting as fewer customers are paying for cable bundles these days, opting instead to use streaming services. That leads to decreased revenue from ad sales and cable contracts, creating situations where RSNs are paying teams more for rights fees than they are able to make back from those revenue streams. Per Kosman’s report, there are at least four teams where Diamond plans to reject the contracts via the bankruptcy proceedings. The teams in question are the Reds, Diamondbacks, Guardians and Padres, with the San Diego deal currently $20MM in the red on an annual basis.

The report goes on to state that MLB’s plan is to take over the local TV broadcasts of those teams, as well as streaming them for free in those local markets as they negotiate lower deals with cable companies. It’s not yet clear if fans in blacked-out markets would be able to access those streams in the short-term. If deals are reached, the league plans to offer over-the-top service for around $15 per month. As Kosman notes, that’s lower than some other streaming deals, with the Red Sox charging $29.99 per month. The league also already tried to acquire the rights to all 14 teams currently controlled by Diamond but were turned down. Those clubs are the Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Guardians, Marlins, Padres, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Twins.

A similar situation has arisen with Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns AT&T SportsNet and is a minority owner of Root Sports. It was reported last month that Warner was planning to get out of the RSN business, which would have implications for the Rockies, Astros and Pirates, though not the Mariners. Warner only owns 40% of Root Sports Seattle with the Mariners owning the other 60%. Kosman’s report indicates the league plans to take over those broadcasts eventually as well, though not by Opening Day.

This is a fluid situation and many of the details are still being worked out, but it’s possible there is a sea change approaching in how Major League Baseball delivers its broadcasts to its fans. Most out-of-market games are available to paying subscribers via MLB TV, though these RSN deals have always taken precedent, leading to blackouts that prevent fans from watching their local club on the platform. Many fans have been critical of the way these blackouts are applied, with some subscribers saying that their home is covered by various overlapping blackout areas. The people of Iowa, for instance, have often complained that they can’t watch games featuring the Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Twins, Royals or Brewers. That’s an extreme example but highlights the sorts of issues with the current system. Manfred has expressed a desire to move to a new system that would allow customers to purchase broadcasts regardless of where they are, though it’s unclear how long it would take to get such a model in place.

Whenever that new system is in place, it will also have implications for the finances for teams. These RSN deals have long been a significant source of club revenue that seems to now be drying up. Streaming will present new revenues sources, of course, and already has. The league has previously agreed to lucrative deals with streaming platforms like Apple and NBC and may strike other deals in the future.

For now, it seems the immediate concern is making sure that the broadcasts for the 2023 season are maintained. Kosman reports that the league plans to retain current local announcers for any broadcasts that it takes over and it doesn’t seem as though there are any current concerns of games being missed. Assuming the league is successful in all of these plans, it’s possible that fans won’t notice much difference in their baseball consumption here this year, but the field may be wide open for changes down the line.

Joe Pepitone Passes Away

By | at

The Yankees announced today that former major league first baseman/outfielder Joe Pepitone has passed away at the age of 82. “The Yankees are deeply saddened by the passing of former Yankee Joe Pepitone, whose playful and charismatic personality and on-field contributions made him a favorite of generations of Yankees fans even beyond his years with the team in the 1960s,” the statement reads. “As a native New Yorker, he embraced everything about being a Yankee during both his playing career — which included three All-Star appearances and three Gold Gloves — and in the decades thereafter. You always knew when Joe walked into a room — his immense pride in being a Yankee was always on display. He will be missed by our entire organization, and we offer our deepest condolences to his family, friends and all who knew him.”

Pepitone first signed with the Yankees as an amateur in 1958 and was able to make his major league debut in 1962. He got into 63 games for the Yankees that year, hitting seven home runs and batting .239. He didn’t make any postseason appearances that year, though the Yanks did go on to win that World Series.

He would go on to establish himself more firmly the next season, hitting 27 home runs in 157 games while batting .271. He would remain a fixture of the club’s lineup for the remainder of that decade, playing at least 100 games in each season from 1963 to 1969, hitting at least 13 long balls in each of those. He also won three Gold Glove awards in that stretch, one in 1965, 1966 and 1969, in addition to being selection to the All-Star game three straight years beginning in 1963.

He was traded to the Astros prior to the 1970 season and then was traded to the Cubs midway through that campaign. He’d go onto to spend roughly three years with the Cubs before getting traded to Atlanta in the middle of the 1973 season. He only played three games for Atlanta, which were the last of his major league career. He went to Japan that summer to join the Yakult Atoms, now known as the Yakult Swallows, but he hit just .163 in 14 games.

Pepitone’s major league career finished with him having appeared in 1,397 games. He racked up 1,315 hits, including 219 home runs. He stole 41 bases, scored 606 runs and drove in 721. We at MLB Trade Rumors join others in sending condolences to Pepitone’s family, friends, acquaintances and all those mourning him today.

Kolby Allard Out With Grade 2 Oblique Strain

By | at

Braves lefty Kolby Allard has been shut down after being diagnosed with a Grade 2 oblique strain, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link). He’ll begin the season on the injured list.

There’s no specific timetable for Allard to return just yet, but even Grade 1 strains can lead to a month-long absence at times. Every injury is different, of course, but for some recent context, Rays righty Tyler Glasnow was diagnosed with a Grade 2 oblique strain earlier this month and received a timetable of six to eight weeks.

Allard wasn’t expected  to open the season in the Atlanta rotation, but he’s on the 40-man roster and has been sharp in limited spring innings thus far, allowing a run on three hits and a walk with four strikeouts through five innings.

The 25-year-old Allard was the No. 14 overall pick by the Braves back in 2015 but was traded to the Rangers in a 2019 deadline swap that brought righty Chris Martin to Atlanta. The Braves reacquired him in the offseason trade that sent veteran right-hander Jake Odorizzi back to Texas (with Atlanta covering $10MM of Odorizzi’s $12.5MM salary). Allard has a career 3.73 ERA in 316 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball, but he’s been hit hard in parts of five MLB seasons, recording a 6.07 ERA in 232 2/3 frames.

The Braves’ rotation again looks quite strong, led by Cy Young runner-up Max Fried. He’s followed by Charlie Morton, Kyle Wright and Rookie of the Year runner-up Spencer Strider. Candidates for the fifth spot include righties Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder and Mike Soroka. Two of those three will likely join Allard (once healthy) in serving as rotation depth with Triple-A Gwinnett.

Liberty Media Releases Braves’ Financials For 2022

By | at

Liberty Media, the corporation which owns the Braves, is a publicly traded company. As a result, they’re one of two teams (the Blue Jays being the other) whose books are opened to the public. This morning, Liberty Media released 2022 financials. The full report is available courtesy of Investors Observer and chronicled by Doug Roberson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to the report, Liberty Media collected a franchise-record $588MM in Braves-related revenue last year. That’s a $20MM jump over 2021’s previous franchise-record figure, which the corporation attributed to increased ticket demand and additional retail on the heels of Atlanta’s World Series championship.

The franchise’s operating income before debt and amortization (OIBDA), on the other hand, was down relative to last season. Its $71MM OIBDA was down from last year’s $104MM figure. The corporation reported an operating loss of $15MM after reporting $20MM in operating income during the prior season. However, those figures do not include revenue from the Battery Atlanta, a mixed-use development complex adjacent to Truist Park and owned by Liberty Media. Liberty Media reported $28MM in additional net operating income and $53MM in total revenues related to that project.

Regarding the related figures to the Braves franchise specifically, Liberty Media attributed the comparatively lower OIBDA and operating income to loftier revenue sharing expenses and a higher player payroll. Indeed, Atlanta’s Opening Day payroll checked in around a franchise-record $178MM in 2022 after sitting at approximately $131MM in 2021, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

However, another significant change for the organization between 2021 and ’22 was the club’s postseason fortune. The Braves, of course, won the championship in the former season and benefited from eight playoff home games. Their defeat in last year’s NL Division Series kept them to two postseason home contests. As a result, Liberty Media reported significantly lower fourth quarter revenues in 2022 than they had the prior season. Barring a repeat World Series run, the franchise’s playoff-related income always seemed likely to regress.

The Braves are coming off a very quiet offseason, at least from a free agent perspective. Atlanta acquired catcher Sean Murphy and promptly signed him to a six-year, $73MM extension. That was their only notable investment of the offseason. The club’s only other major league acquisitions were relievers Joe Jiménez and Lucas Luetge (combined $4.315MM in arbitration salaries), low-cost free agent deals for outfielder Jordan Luplow ($1.4MM) and reliever Nick Anderson ($875K if in the majors) and trades for pre-arbitration players like Eli White and Sam Hilliard.

Atlanta saw a top free agent depart for the second consecutive offseason, watching Dansby Swanson sign with the Cubs a year after Freddie Freeman went to the Dodgers. Despite the fairly quiet winter, they’re easily on track to again set a franchise high in player spending. The Braves will go into 2023 with a payroll in the $199MM range, as calculated by Roster Resource. Their projected luxury tax number sits a little under $240MM, which will exceed this year’s $233MM base threshold. The franchise looks set to pay the luxury tax for the first time in Liberty Media’s ownership tenure.

That’s a reflection of the staggering number of contracts already on the books, many of them early-career extensions. No other organization has had the same kind of success signing key players to long-term deals shortly after their MLB debuts. Those kinds of pacts tend to be backloaded to roughly mirror how a player’s earnings would have progressed via arbitration. Not coincidentally, Atlanta already has upwards of $90MM on the books through the 2028 campaign.

The Braves’ Fifth Starter Competition

By | at

Coming off a 101-win campaign, the Braves again look like one of the top teams in the National League. There aren’t many areas of concern on the roster. On the position player side, all but shortstop and left field have established solutions who should play at somewhere between an above-average and star level if healthy. The bullpen is one of the sport’s best, and the top four starters of Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton is elite.

There is a little bit of uncertainty as to who’ll round out the starting staff, however. Atlanta has a handful of pitchers vying for the final rotation spot in Spring Training. A couple have had some big league success but struggled with underperformance or injury recently. Another is a less proven, younger talent.

Ian Anderson

At this time a year ago, it’d have seemed foolish to picture Anderson fighting for a rotation spot at any point in the near future. Heading into 2022, the former third overall pick carried a 3.25 ERA with a 24.5% strikeout rate in 30 career regular season starts. He’d twice excelled on the postseason stage. Anderson looked like an upper mid-rotation arm, a key starter both in the present and over the coming seasons.

The 2022 campaign was the first in which the righty ran into trouble. He made 22 big league starts but allowed five earned runs per nine innings across 111 2/3 frames. Anderson’s strikeout rate fell to a personal-low 19.7% clip, although he still picked up swinging strikes on an above-average 12.3% of his total offerings. While he did a solid job keeping the ball on the ground, he surrendered a little more hard contact than he had in prior seasons. Anderson also walked a career-high 11% of opposing hitters.

With Atlanta in the thick of a division race, they optioned the struggling Anderson to Triple-A Gwinnett in early August. He started four games there, posting similar numbers as he had in the majors. His season was cut short when he strained his left oblique in the middle of September.

Anderson is just 24 years old and certainly capable of bouncing back from the down year. His average fastball velocity was down marginally last year but still checked in at a solid 94 MPH. He owns one of the game’s better changeups. Anderson’s curveball was a little less effective, with the lack of an impact breaking ball contributing to a disappointing .313/.375/.511 line in 253 plate appearances against same-handed hitters last season. Anderson told reporters last week he’s working on a new slider to try to add a weapon to deal with righty batters (link via David O’Brien of the Athletic).

Bryce Elder

A fifth-round pick out of Texas in 2020, Elder flew through the minor leagues. He was in the majors by April of his second full professional season. The 6’2″ righty started nine of his first ten MLB contests, posting a 3.17 ERA through 54 innings. That came with strikeout and walk numbers each a bit worse than league average (20.7% and 10.1%, respectively) but a quality 49.3% ground-ball percentage.

He had a longer run in Gwinnett, starting 17 of 18 games. Elder’s 4.46 ERA in 105 Triple-A innings wasn’t as impressive as his MLB run prevention mark, but his peripherals were stronger across the board. He punched out 22.2% of opponents, kept walks to a 7.3% clip and racked up grounders at a 55.9% rate.

The 23-year-old isn’t overpowering, averaging only 90.7 MPH on his sinker during his MLB action. He consistently kept the ball down in the minor leagues, though, posting grounder numbers on over half the batted balls he allowed at every stop. Elder almost carried that over against big league competition in his first crack and should some aptitude for avoiding hard contact — thanks in large part to a cutter and slider he was comfortable deploying against lefties and righties alike.

Mike Soroka

Soroka, another ground-ball specialist, was one of the sport’s top young pitchers not too long ago. An All-Star at 21, he finished sixth in NL Cy Young balloting after posting a 2.68 ERA through 28 starts as a rookie in 2019. That came on the strength of an excellent 51.2% grounder percentage and tiny 5.8% walk rate, with Soroka demonstrating rare polish for a pitcher his age.

Unfortunately, a brutal series of injuries has limited him to three big league outings since then. Those came in the abbreviated 2020 season before he blew out his right Achilles. After a year of rehab, the same thing happened again shortly before he could make his return to a mound. He lost all of 2021 and almost all of ’22 recovering. Soroka returned from the injured list to start five Triple-A games late last year but felt some soreness in his elbow — not unexpected for a pitcher coming off such a long layoff — and was shut down for precautionary reasons.

While the Achilles and elbow concerns are hopefully behind him, Soroka has again been slowed up by his body this spring. He experienced some hamstring soreness that’ll delay his getting into Spring Training games for a few weeks. It’s not believed to be a major concern, but the righty candidly called it “a kick in the groin” given how much work he’s put in rehabbing from other injuries the past few seasons. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be able to fully build up for Opening Day.

Other Possibilities

It looks as if the early battle for the fifth starter job comes down to one of the three pitchers above (with Soroka perhaps behind the others given his hamstring issue). However, a few others could find themselves in position to vie for reps at some point during the season, particularly if one or two of Atlanta’s top four starters suffers an injury.

Kolby Allard, a former Braves first-round pick, was acquired back from the Rangers at the start of the winter for Jake Odorizzi. He has a 6.07 ERA in 65 big league contests but occupies a 40-man roster spot. The same is true of Darius Vines, whose contract was selected at the start of the offseason to keep him from the Rule 5 draft. He’s never pitched in the majors but posted a 3.95 ERA with a 28.5% strikeout rate over 20 Double-A starts to earn a late-season bump to Gwinnett.

Former Cubs righty Matt Swarmer signed a minor league deal over the weekend and is in camp as a non-roster invitee. 2020 first-rounder Jared Shuster had an impressive start at Double-A before a more average performance in Gwinnett last season. He’s not yet on the 40-man roster and one of the better prospects in a now-thin Atlanta farm system.

Braves Sign Matt Swarmer To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Braves signed righty Matt Swarmer to a minor league contract over the weekend. The team didn’t formally make an announcement, but the transaction log at MiLB.com indicates he signed a couple days back. Swarmer actually already made his spring debut with the Braves in yesterday’s Grapefruit League contest, tossing one-third of an inning in relief of righty Bryce Elder.

Swarmer, 29, made his big league debut with the Cubs in 2022 when he tossed 34 innings of 5.03 ERA ball over the life of 11 appearances (five starts, six relief outings). He fanned a solid 23.5% of his opponents but issued far too many walks (13.1%) during that brief MLB sample. Swarmer’s big league tenure started with a flourish, as he tossed consecutive quality starts and held the Brewers and Cardinals to a combined two earned runs on seven hits and three walks with 11 punchouts in 12 innings. Over his next 22 frames, however, he was tagged for a 6.95 ERA. The Cubs outrighted him off the roster back in July, and he became a minor league free agent after the season.

A 19th-round pick by the Cubs back in 2016, Swarmer pitched across three levels — High-A, Double-A and Triple-A — in his first full professional season back in 2017, although the results were generally shaky, as one might expect for a pitcher rising so quickly through the system. He had a nice season between High-A and Double-A in 2018 before being hit hard in 2019 and 2021 at the Triple-A level. (There were no minor league games in 2020, of course.)

The 2022 season was the first in which Swarmer found some success in Triple-A. He tossed 81 1/3 frames with the Cubs’ Iowa affiliate, notching a 3.87 ERA with a 24.9% strikeout rate and a 9.5% walk rate. Swarmer doesn’t throw hard (90.6 mph average fastball in last year’s debut season) but has typically posted average or better strikeout and walk rates throughout his minor league career.

Given the manner in which the Braves have thinned out their system on the trade market over the past calendar year — Kyle Muller, Tucker Davidson and Freddy Tarnok are among the upper-minors arms they’ve moved — it’s sensible to see them add some depth in the form of a minor league veteran who had Triple-A success and made his big league debut in 2022.

Read The Transcript Of Our Live Chat With Former MLB Outfielder Billy Sample

By | at

Of our ever-growing list of current and former MLB players to hold live chats here, Billy Sample is the first to have played in the 1970s.

The Texas Rangers came to be in 1972, and the following year they drafted Sample, a three-sport star, out of Virginia’s Andrew Lewis high school.  He did not sign at that point, instead attending Madison College (now James Madison University).  Sample boosted his stock and became a 10th round pick of the Rangers in 1976.

Billy was a September call-up for the Rangers in 1978, leading off a game against the Brewers and singling to right field on his first Major League pitch.  In 1979, Sample served as the Rangers’ primary left fielder.  He posted a fine .292/.365/.415 line at the plate, striking out only 7.4% of the time.

In 1981, Sample enjoyed a 19-game hitting streak, and in 1983 he ranked fifth in the American League with 44 stolen bases.  He had an excellent 84.6% success rate on swipes that year.

In February of 1985, the Rangers traded Sample to the Yankees with a player to be named later for Toby Harrah.  After one season in New York, Sample was traded again to the Braves.

Though more of a speedster than a home run hitter, Sample left the yard 46 times in his nine-year MLB career.  The list of pitchers he took deep include Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, Mark Langston, Dennis Martinez, and Cy Young winners Vida Blue, Mike Flanagan, Mike Scott, and LaMarr Hoyt.  One of Sample’s many memorable moments included a walk-off home run against the Angels’ Don Aase in 1982.

Sample played during an interesting time in MLB history, being drafted months after free agency came to the sport.  He was part of the 1981 strike, in which 713 games were cancelled, and can count many legendary players as former teammates.

According to his Wikipedia entry, which Billy suggested I reference for his post-playing career, “Sample has broadcast for the Braves, Seattle Mariners, and California Angels, as well as contributing to NPR, CBS Radio, ESPN, and MLB.com. As a writer, Sample has been published in Sports Illustrated and The New York Times, and was one of the columnists at the inception of USA Today’s Baseball Weekly (now Sports Weekly).”  Billy has also written and produced a movie and self-published a book.

Billy graciously lent his time to chat with MLBTR readers today, spending over four hours discussing his career on the field, what life was like for players off the field in his time, the collusion of the ’80s, broadcasting and so much more! Click here to read the transcript!

Are you a current or former MLB player?  We’d love to have you on for a one-hour chat.  Click here to contact us.

Braves Sign Joe Harvey To Minors Contract

By | at

The Braves have signed Joe Harvey to a minor league deal earlier this week, according to the right-hander’s MLB.com profile page.  Harvey has been assigned to the team’s Triple-A camp.

The 31-year-old Harvey has amassed a 3.32 ERA and a 29.75% strikeout rate over 105 2/3 Triple-A innings (all in relief) during his career, spending time with the top affiliates of the Yankees, Rockies, and Twins since the start of the 2018 season.  Those missed bats came at a price, however, as Harvey has battled his control and also had to deal with some injury concerns.  Harvey’s 2020 and 2021 seasons were both cut short by forearm strains, and he didn’t pitch at all in 2022.

Harvey’s MLB resume consists of 21 1/3 total innings, 18 of which came with the Yankees and Rockies in 2019.  He’ll look for a path back to the big leagues (or perhaps just some healthy innings whatsoever), with a Braves team that has had some luck with veteran reclamation projects in recent years.  If he can keep his walks down, Harvey might have some potential as an under-the-radar depth reliever for Atlanta’s bullpen.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top