A lot has been made of the Braves' stable of young pitching, and rightfully so. It was easy to make an argument that it was baseball's best group of up and coming starters, with Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino, and Randall Delgado getting most of the attention. However, what made the group really formidable is not only the quality of the pitching prospects, but also the quantity of them, which is being shown by Brandon Beachy and Mike Minor's performance in the big leagues this year.
The 24 year old Beachy has been in the starting rotation for the majority of this season, with his only set back being an oblique strain that kept him out for about a month in May and June. The least regarded out of the Braves' pitching prospects coming into the season, Beachy hit the ground running with an outstanding opening outing against the Milwaukee Brewers, when he pitched 6 strong innings with 1 ER, 1 BB, and 7 Ks. Beachy's biggest strength is outstanding command, and he his shown that at the big league level, sporting a 2.73 BB rate this season, which plays nicely with 9.94 K rate. Beachy is sneaky quick with his fastball, topping out at around 93, while also developing his slider nicely, which has rounded his arsenal into a quality 4 pitch array. All four pitches rate about average or better which allows for a guy like him to have success at the big league level despite not having "explosive stuff." His K rate shows that his stuff is plenty good enough, and combining it with good command makes him an above average starter. He has accumulated 1.5 fWAR in 18 starts, which would put him on a 3 WAR pace over a full season of starts. Not bad for an undrafted college player only 3 years ago.
Beachy's one concern in the future will be keeping the ball in the park, as he has been bit by the HR bug in recent starts. Beachy is a fly ball pitcher, sporting a ground ball rate of just 31.6%, so it will be key for him to continue to be a swing and miss pitcher with great command. He will give up some home runs just because of the sheer quantity of fly balls he allows, but the fewer extra baserunners allowed will help to offset that though. There is a lot to be encouraged about, but this will need monitoring in the future.
Also making his presence known this season has been Mike Minor, regarded by most as the 4th of the "Big 4" Braves' pitching prospects. Drafted in the top 10 out of Vanderbilt (go Dores) in 2009, Minor was regarded as a bit of a reach, as he had had a subpar season by his standards while also demonstrating a decline in velocity. However, the Braves made a minor (no pun intended) mechanical adjustment to his delivery, and he was topping out at 94 by the time he hit the farm system that summer. His development was so pleasing to Braves' brass that they refused to include him any deal this summer, despite all of the Braves pitching depth.
And that trust has paid off to a degree this summer. Despite making only 9 starts, FanGraphs has estimated his contribution at 1.6 WAR this season. That number is a little bit off because it incorporates FIP into it, and Minor's is extremely low because he hasn't allowed a home run this season. When setting his HR rate at league average, his FIP rates at 3.44, which is still an excellent number. Minor has pitched well, striking out over 8 per 9 innings while also sporting a 1.30 ground ball to fly ball ratio. His BB rate will have to improve, but he has been better with that recently after a rocky first outing in Milwaukee.
One of Minor's downfalls has been the fact that he has been extremely unlucky, sporting a .372 BABIP and a ghastly 29.9% line drive rate this season. Those are numbers that won't continue, as his 8+ K rate shows that he has good enough stuff to avoid more hard contact than he has to this point, which means I'll chalk it up to variance until I see a bigger sample. However, some of the fly balls will leave the yard at some point, which will suppress some of the positive regression that Minor will eventually have. Despite all this, his performance suggests he's a keeper, with 3 average or better offerings from the left side. His presence is key for the Braves, as it allows the Braves to be patient with Tommy Hanson and his shoulder problems. Shoulders are nothing to trifle with, and the Braves should wait as long as they need to before letting Hanson pitch again, especially because they have a capable fill in. The drop off from Hanson to Minor isn't huge, and with a comfortable wild card lead and all the value in future seasons a healthy Hanson could provide, its better to wait on him than rush him back.
Beachy and Minor have given the Braves even more reason to be excited about the future, as their performance is showing they are already capable big league starters. Considering their ages, there should be even more development. If these guys are in the back end of the Braves' rotation in 2 years while performing similarly to their output this year, there is reason to smile when thinking about the future. The fact that they are cost controlled only makes it better.
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