The Braves are turning to right-hander Allan Winans to start Saturday’s game in Milwaukee, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). He’s not on the 40-man roster, so Atlanta will need to formally select his contract within the next 48 hours.
Winans entered the professional ranks as a 17th-round senior sign by the Mets five years ago. He topped out at Double-A in the New York farm system in 2021. After that season, Atlanta nabbed him in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft. Winans spent the bulk of last year with Double-A Mississippi and has played at Triple-A Gwinnett for all of 2023.
The Campbell product has worked 102 2/3 innings over 18 appearances for the Stripers. He’s carrying a 2.81 ERA with decent underlying marks. Winans’ 22.3% strikeout percentage is nearly average, while he’s inducing grounders at a strong 49.6% clip and pounding the strike zone. His 6.3% walk rate is fifth-lowest among the 38 International League pitchers with 60+ innings.
At the start of the season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin of FanGraphs noted that Winans relies on a sinking fastball and an above-average changeup. As a near 28-year-old rookie, he’s certainly not a top prospect, but his strong upper level performance was enough to overcome the very modest draft profile and get to the big leagues. Now that he’s securing a 40-man roster spot, he’s in the mix as a depth starter.
Atlanta’s 40-man roster is full. Unless the Braves anticipate Jesse Chavez missing another month, they don’t have an obvious candidate for a 60-day injured list transfer. They’ll likely have to designate someone for assignment when they bring Winans up.
winning move
This also means that the Braves don’t have much confidence in Shuster nor Smith-Shawver right now.
Glad to see Winans get his first call up the the Show. I hope Wall gets in a game, too.
Shuster pitched yesterday, so he would be on short rest. Oh, and he got rocked again. Sitting on a 7.03 ERA in AAA. He’s not coming up any time soon.
AJSS hasn’t been that great in his two appearances since he was sent back down
AJSS is 20 years old and hasn’t pitched in less than 45 total professional games. I’m sure they’re really, really down on him.
AJSS I think is going to get the Spencer Strider treatment this year. I think he’s going to be a pen arm for them as the season winds down.
They aren’t down on him. I do think they are down on Shuster. He won the starting job out of spring training and has done nothing but pitch poorly all season across both levels.
EM41
No, it doesn’t mean the Braves don’t have confidence in AJSS or Shuster, the Braves are looking after them in the right way as far as innings pitched and getting them more experience on the things they have to refine at AAA.
What a great story. Looking forward to hearing it on the broadcast.
It’s going to be on Big FOX.
Hello,
The braves have multuble players at triple A that are our for the season that they can recall and place on 60 day injured lists. These players include Eli white.
“Upvoted multuble.”
Bringing somebody on the 40 Man up would necessitate a 26 Man move, their clock would start/resume and they’d be accumulating MLB time, you’d be paying (White in this case) at a MLB rate plus you would “waste” an Option year if they still had all 3. Add these multiples up and you see the sum total why teams don’t do this.
> Reply to Fan1234556545:
Wow, are there … um … (comma, comma, comma … squinting) …
1,234,556,545
Are there really one billion two hundred thirty four million five hundred fifty siz thousand five hundred fourty five … of you?
That rules them out from being a Rockies fan! >.<
Barely.
To go on the 60 day injured list and have your 40 man spot available you have to go the major league roster injured list.
Are you suggesting calling players up just to put them on the IL?
Are you Eli White?
I’m glad to see Winans get a shot he has been the most consistent pitcher in AAA. I think the Braves have lost confidence in Shuster and Dodd and I think they want Smith-Shawver to get more seasoning and not use up service time and keep him as a rookie for next year perhaps. Also could see Smith-Shawver being used as a 2006 Adam Wainwright type of prospect being used out of the bullpen for a playoff run.
Remember when the Mets used Nolan Ryan out of the pen in ’69. The Braves certainly remembered that in the playoff.
Congrats to Winans, welcome to The Show
I’m guessing Guthrie for DFA
Maybe dfa Guthrie. I believe they will move someone else. Maybe even put Jesse on the 60 IL and back date it. So many players in AAA on the 40 that are on the IL it is a bit crazy. It seems the Braves gained an extra year of control over Ian and Ynoa among others.
His last name is not pronounce like “winnin”, so if he doesn’t do that on Saturday don’t go whinin’ about it.
Whyyyy Nans, why?
Oh no. What ever will the Braves do if this one particular prospect doesn’t work out? Guess we should just trade everyone off and rebuild.
Wall is toast.
How do you toast a wall?
With a flame thrower? =}
Little-known Winans sibling whose singing career stalled because AyAy sounded much less cool than BeBe or CeCe.
Hilliard most likely transferred to 60 day IL if he isn’t already.
With a heel bruise?
Either that or DFA
Why on earth would you DFA Sam Hillard he has played fantastic in limited work and is a good base runner and defensive replacement outfielder
Because you don’t need him on the roster when you already have Pillar and Wall behind Rosario.
He’s been terrible except for a 3 game run against Miami (iirc) he’s striking out at a +40% clip
He’s got one thing going for him. Former Mets prospect, so you know Lady Luck is on his side already. Glad you escaped New York, Snake.
Pretty sure it’ll be Lucas Luetge winning the DFA Lottery again. He’s already won it once this season.
I can’t imagine the Braves DFAing a healthy reliever.
Leutge stays on the MLB roster.
He’s got an 8.49 ERA and they outrighted him in June.
Max Fried was scheduled to start at Gwinnett tonight (7/20),but was rained out! Now, Winans scheduled to start 1st game of dbl header tomorrow (7/21). So, does this mean Fried joins the MLB Team and Winans stays at Gwinnett? Or does Fried need 1-2 more rehab starts? They wanted Fried to throw 5 innings today, so why not make it count in a MLB Game!
No it means Fried plays tomorrow night and he is going to get another start after that maybe 2 starts
Bob Nightengale refuses to say BRAVES in any of his reports so we can only assume who he’s talking about.
Bob can be such a Florence.