Monday, March 14, 2011

MikeMinor vs Beachy

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It's been a long weekend and I might not be remembering things correctly, but... as much as I like Mike Minor, is there a reason he's pitched twice as many "A" games as Beachy? It feels like Beachy's only pitched "B" games, even though in my mind, he's on equal footing with Minor for the job. Is this the Braves' way of saying they're favoring MM over BB? I kinda hope not. Why can't we have both?! CABravesFan and I were discussing it, and she says they're rotating the guys in the 5th rotation spot, but honestly, I don't remember. (I kinda have a lot on my plate right now... just moved, Grammy in ICU, laid off from my contract job, need another job asap!)

Anyway, I just love our pitching depth, even with Meds' injury. When he comes back we're going to have a wonderful problem!

4 comments:

Alison W. said...

Maybe it's because Mike Minor is a lefty starter... we don't have any of those in our rotation. If Beachy becomes the fifth starter, we have an entire rotation of righties. I mean, yeah, our bullpen has a good number of lefties... but still. It's something to think about. The game favors lefties.

I'd be ok if they rotated the 5th spot. or just had a 6 man rotation. I don't think there's a rule against that. ;)

BraveFanHawaii said...

Alison's got a point about the handedness of Minor giving him a slight advantage. Even though it may be statistically silly to think in the long term that the handedness of a pitcher (if he's good enough, that is) will dictate his success or lack thereof, it's easy to look at the Braves rotation from an organizational standpoint and say "We need a lefty". It's much the same way that the organization looked at the offense and said to themselves "We need a righty power hitter". Ultimately, if the player is good enough, handedness doesn't matter....but considering there are generally few platoon-busting all-around beastly players, it's easy to see how and why the team may be favoring Minor.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Mike Minor is the top pick while Beachy was an undrafted free agent. True, it makes Beachy's rise that much more impressive, but it also probably shows that the team is locked into Minor because of money's owed and expectation to let him debut before the underdog.

As for alternating the 5th slot, I would completely agree with the idea...given that we keep BOTH Minor and Beachy on the same schedule. Example: Minor starts against the Phillies to take advantage of his handedness, and Beachy relieves him. Then Beachy takes the start against the righty-heavy Marlins with Minor relieving him. The only thing that gets complicated is if there are games where the bullpen gets toasted and/or stretched in an extra inning game between their starts where having a roster spot locked into a starter who is handcuffed to another will cause a disadvantage.

Ultimately, I'd have given Mike Minor the overall advantage in the competition for the 5th slot from day 1. Like I mentioned, he's the number 1 pick with the expectations to become something special. Like Alison mentioned, he's also left-handed, which "balances" the yin and yang of the rotation. I really would love to cheer for Beachy, and I do hope the Braves keep him around for the entirity 2011 (because I think the depth is too good to be true and we'll need him in the long run)...but our "safest" bet (balancing the media and fan interest along with financial factors and potential) is to give the job to Minor, granted he does not fall flat on his face.

CABravesFan said...

Alternating the 5th spot won't work simply because the prep work that goes into being a starter is very different then the prep for a reliever. If all things continue to be as even as they are right now, I would give the edge to Minor also because he is left handed, and Beachy would be at AAA starting and ready in case of injury or failure on the big club. But with at least 2 more starts in some form before the season starts, one may still pull ahead of the other. Like LT said, this is a good problem to have :D

Lauren T. said...

Thanks for the input, y'all...excellent points, all around. My girl JV was surprised I wasn't leaning MM because he's a lefty, but I do like them both a lot and I look forward to any way this thing ends up going. :)