The ATL Thread: The Debut of Mike Minor

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shite. i just made an ATL thread

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The Debut of Mike Minor

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Minor, who will start in place of the injured Kris Medlen, is hoping he has the type of outing that he showed during his time with Triple-A Gwinnett. In six starts before being called up to the big leagues, Minor was 4-1 with a 1.89 ERA and 37 strikeouts in 33 1/3 innings.

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There’s plenty of reason to believe Minor will have a successful debut. He’s pitched in far more pressure situations than your typical kid with only 25 minor league starts under his belt.

People forget that he was the ace of a United States amateur team that included Stephen Strasburg, among others. During the 2007-2008 summers, Minor went 8-2 record with a 1.17 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 69 innings for that team.

He pitched in the SEC, which is a consistently higher level of collegiate baseball than most other conferences.

He pitched in the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League after the 2009 season at Single-A Rome, and did well enough to get a starting assignment in the AFL All-Star game. (By the way, don’t forget that at Rome last season, after signing a bit late, in four starts he posted a 0.64 ERA with 17 strikeouts and no walks in 14 innings. Some draft experts didn’t know quite what to make of that at the time.)

He’s changed opinions in the past year by piling up 163 strikeouts with 46 walks in 134-1/3 innings of minor league ball at Rome, Double-A Mississippi and Gwinnett.

The Braves insisted all along that he had much better stuff than some draft analysts gave him credit for a year ago. Now, you’ll see some of those same analysts saying that he’s throwing 90-93 mph instead of 87-89 mph, that he must have added a few ticks by cleaning up his mechanics, etc., etc.

He’s a slender, boyish-faced, 6-foot-3 lefty with a lot of poise, a little like Hanson in that regard. Minor doesn’t throw quite as hard as Hanson or have his nasty slider, but he does have good command of his fastball, quality curveball and changeup.

He’s more polished than most rookies, and don’t be fooled by the quiet interviews and seemingly shy demeanor. I met the guy out at the Fall League when I went out there to write about him and a few others (including Heyward, who by then had gotten hurt and come home).

The first thing I noticed about Minor was that he had confidence bordering on cockiness, in a good way. He’s not brash and loud, the way I remember Josh Beckett being when I went out to Beckett’s home in Texas to do a story on him when he was the big bonus baby bringing in with the Marlins.

But Minor is just as confident, I sensed. Just doesn’t show it outwardly. But it’s there. You spend any time with him and that’s obvious. He knows he’s good, and believing that only makes him better.

He took all those comments – he did hear them, read them – after he was drafted and used them to motivate himself even more in the Fall League and, I’d imagine, right up till now.

He told me as much in Arizona, how he knew what people were saying about him being drafted seventh overall, how he couldn’t believe that a guy who’d done all that he’d done in college and in the summer with the national team would be questioned, while kids drafted out of high school, who’d done nothing comparable to what he’d done, were praised because of their potential.

You all are going to like this guy, I’m fairly certain. Now let’s all sit back and watch how he handles things, because it’s tough to predict how it’ll go for a kid when some adversity pops up, when he gives up a homer or a couple of runners get on base and the crowd is making a lot of noise (it can still get loud inside Houston’s dome, even when the team isn’t what it used to be).

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