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Atlanta Braves Top Ten Prospects for 2017

By Benjamin Chase

Mar 15, 2015; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; The Atlanta Braves logo painted on the field during a spring training baseball game at Champion Stadium. The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves 10-5. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 15, 2015; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; The Atlanta Braves logo painted on the field during a spring training baseball game at Champion Stadium. The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves 10-5. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /
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Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports /

10. Rob Whalen, RHP

Birthdate: 1/31/94 (22 years old)
Level(s) Played in 2016: AA, AAA, MLB
Stats in 2016: 120 IP, 2.40 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 8.87 BB%, 22.58 K%

We’ll start right off with the guy you likely won’t find on another top 10 list for the Braves this offseason. While guys like Austin Riley, Touki Toussaint, Patrick Weigel, and others could have an argument for this spot, I went with Whalen.

Whalen was acquired by the Braves in the summer of 2015 from the Mets along with John Gant for Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson. Whalen only made a few appearances for the Braves’ high-A team before shutting down for the season in 2015 to have knee surgery.

Whalen is a guy who has a four-pitch mix, but the way he manipulates his pitches, it can appear as more like a 6-, 7-, or 8-pitch mix

After a rigorous recovery over the offseason, Whalen started his season at AA in 2016. His performance was excellent, earning a promotion to AAA, and even a promotion to the major leagues before his long offseason of rehab left his legs “feeling like Jell-O”. He was put on the DL to finish the year, but it was due to the fatigue of the continuous offseason of rehab and the most innings he’d ever thrown in a season, not an injury.

Whalen is a guy who has a four-pitch mix, but the way he manipulates his pitches, it can appear as more like a six-, seven-, or eight-pitch mix to the opposition in the course of a game. He is a very heady pitcher, often setting up a hitter for the next at bat with his approach in a previous one.

While he doesn’t have an upper-90s fastball or ankle-snapping curve, Whalen does throw his sinking fastball in the lower-90s consistently with tremendous sink that generates plenty of swings and weak contact.

He’s able to manipulate his curve in multiple ways to have a hard-breaking curve that mimics his slider, but with more front-side loop, and also a more traditional multiple-plane curve. Add in a hard slider with some slurve action to it and a change that he can manipulate to pair with his four-seam fastball when thrown up in the zone and with his two-seamer when down in the zone, and you can understand why hitters had a tough time with Whalen this season.

In talking with Whalen last offseason, he reported that he’d never been healthy as a pro due to these knee issues. Now that he’s fully healthy and able to use his tremendous mental makeup on the mound along with his wide blend of pitches, he could have a solid career in the middle/back-end of a rotation.

Next: #9

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