We’ve got some more roster shuffling to discuss as the Atlanta Braves are continuing to throw stuff at the wall and figure out what sticks and what doesn’t. This time, they’ve decided to go with one of their most intriguing pitching prospects in the form of Jhancarlos Lara. The hard-throwing right-hander will get the chance to face big league hitters for the first time at some point in the near future.
Lara is certainly an extremely interesting prospect and he’s certainly going to light up the radar gun — in his most recent start, he hit 100 mph on the gun at least twice and has routinely sat in the high-90s with his heater. His breaking stuff is also pretty nasty as well, as his slider in particular has always graded out pretty high. As such, he’s had a Strikeout percentage of 31.8% across both Double-A (27.1%) and Triple-A (33.8%) this season.
However, there’s a catch: He’s struggled mightily with his command. He basically has a 20% walk rate as well and as a result of his command issues, he’s sitting on a 7.73 ERA (6.53 with Gwinnett, though) and a 5.37 FIP (again, lower with Gwinett at 4.58) across the minors this season. That’s usually a recipe for disaster at the big league level but hey, maybe he’ll collect a ton of whiffs along the way and give the Braves something positive to think about here in the final stages of the season.
Meanwhile, Dane Dunning has been sent down to Triple-A and Jonathan Ornelas has been DFA’d as well. Dunning has been up-and-down with the Braves at the big league level this season — his peak was pitchign two shutout innings against the Rangers on July 26 and his valley was when he helped contribute to that astonishing bullpen disaster in Cincinnati (a game that the Braves somehow ended up winning) where he gave up five runs without recording a single out. Atlanta probably figures that it would be more productive to see what Lara’s got instead of trotting Dunning out there, so it makes sense from that standpoint.
Ornelas has only appeared in two games for the Braves this season and actually fared alright but also it’s pretty clear that he’s not in the future plans for the Braves. We’ll see if he sticks around in the organization of if he’ll be released.
