There are probably a lot of opinions out there about who should be the Atlanta Braves fifth starter to open the season. Braves beat writer Mark Bowman gives us his opinion:
But if pressed for a guess right now, I'll stick with Brandon Beachy winning the fifth spot.
My reasoning for Beachy hasn't changed. The Braves paid Mike Minor a big bonus and his upside is tremendous. Thus with just 134 career Minor League innings under his belt, the Braves need to maximize their investment by giving Minor another month or two in the Minors to work on his secondary pitches.
Consider this account of the last spring start by each pitcher:
Minor surrendered five hits and four runs -- three earned -- in six innings against a group of Nationals Minor Leaguers that didn't include Bryce Harper. At the same time, Beachy was about 20 miles away, limiting Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera and the rest of the Tigers' lineup to one hit over five scoreless innings.
Admittedly, Minor was working on developing his curve ball, so he threw it a lot in predictable situations and the Nationals hitters caught on. But that's just it, he's still "working on" things and "developing." Hard to believe that a guy who was undrafted out of college might beat out a guy who was the seventh overall pick who signed for millions. Beachy has even made fewer minor league and Major League starts than Minor, and yet it's really anyone's guess as to who the fifth starter job will go to.
I like Bowman's reasoning above.