Atlanta Braves News: Owen Murphy Tommy John, Schwellenbach starts, more

Owen Murphy is undergoing Tommy John surgery and he’s an interesting case study for the Braves’ recent organizational strategy of investing more in pitchers than hitters. Of course, some of this is due to their long-term contracts with many position players, which lessens their need for new position players, but it’s a seemingly clear strategy. Many of their draft picks (Schwellenbach, Ritchie, Murphy, Phillips, Maier, Burkhalter, probably others) missed and/or are now expected to miss significant time due to injury. Such is the nature of pitchers.

If the organization can expect to produce enough quality players (or use pitching prospects to trade for them) and then expand them, thereby extending their usefulness to the team, then investing in the quantity of pitching prospects is makes sense, as they may be used to trading and it is more likely that some of them will survive the high attrition rate and reach the majors. On the other hand, however, it could be argued that since position players are more stable and valuable assets, the team would be better served by trying to develop a certain amount of them and then trading them for major league-ready pitchers, if needed. Both approaches have some advantages and there are confounding factors such as the organizational development capacity for each player type, the quality of prospects available to the organization during the draft and IFA, among others. It’s interesting to see how this strategy has worked for Atlanta and continues to work as prospects develop.

Braves News

Arguably the Braves’ most impressive prospect this season, Owen Murphy will undergo Tommy John surgery.

Garrett has prepared an introduction to Spencer Schwellenbach’s profile, in anticipation of his Wednesday debut.

The Braves added a former athletic standout who was at one time a potential trade target for the organization in a minor league deal.

Ray Kerr will start Thursday’s game, pushing the rest of the rotation back a day, which is especially helpful for Reynaldo Lopez and Chris Sale.

Spencer Schwellenbach had a solid first outing, but he may have had too long a leash and there’s nothing the offense can overcome at the moment, as the team lost 7-2.

The Braves selected Jimmy Herget to make room for Spencer Schwellenbach on the active roster and filled their final 40-man free roster spot with the right-handed prospect.

MLB News

Alek Manoah to have MRI for elbow pain this caused him to leave Wednesday’s game early. This continued for a few difficult years for him.

Jorge Lopez gave one of the most spectacular quotes (profanity included) about the Mets as a Mets player after being ejected in an inflammatory manner, and was promptly DFA’d.

Speaking of the Mets, they placed their $100 million reliever on the IL due to a shoulder injury during the season immediately following his season-long disappearance due to injury .

The Red Sox are placing Tyler O’neil on the IL with knee inflammation as the outfielder has started the season well.