I didn’t really know (or care to know) anything about Anthony Molina before this week. The only really notable thing about him is that he pitched in the Colorado Rockies organization. The Braves have a thing for Rockies relievers. He doesn’t really strikeout anybody (career 15% K rate), had a 6.82 career ERA, and didn’t do anything particularly interesting in Gwinnett this year. But Molina has a 96-97 MPH fastball and a decent curveball. He might become a useful guy for Atlanta. And with 2 option
years, we might be seeing more of him.
Molina’s pitch usage was all over the place with the Rockies. The slider was working for him, but the Braves have culled his pitches and made him into a fastball-curveball guy with a changeup to lefties. The curveball has an okay shape, and he was getting 26% putaways with it in 2024 before he shelved it for the slider. It was hard to tell how much drop he can really get on it on Friday. You could tell that the gameplan was to not hang anything, so he was spiking it into the ground.
His breaking stuff is playable and the fastball is hot. But he has a similar problem to a lot of marginal relievers in that he can’t locate the fastball. For example, how useful would a healthy Daysbel Hernandez be right now if he could actually throw strikes? So is Anthony Molina an interesting reliever? He’s done enough to warrant some attention. I’m looking forward to another former Rockies reliever success story.
