Braves Tentatively Set Mississippi Rotation

According to Twitter the Braves roster plan for minor league assignments has started to break. Specifically the AA Mississippi rotation has had some names come out as (currently unofficial) members, and there are some surprises.

One of the biggest surprises according to the Twitter account of a former coach in Canada is Mike Soroka skipping from Low-A to AA. Soroka is just going to be 19 this season and hasn't pitched above Low-A, but despite being a cold weather prep arm from the 2015 draft he did come with significant experience related to his time with the Canadian National Junior Team.

Soroka isn't the only one making the jump from Rome, as Kolby Allard will be following the same path. Allard is a surprise considering he will be 19 this year and pitched just 87.2 innings last year between Low-A and short season. While it's a surprise, he's not quite as surprising as Soroka as he was long known to be a very advanced arm and if not for some injury questions never would have dropped to the Braves in the 2015 MLB Draft.

They'll be joined there by a pair of guys who also pitched in Rome last year, but guys who are slightly older and weren’t big surprises with their AA assignments- Max Fried and Patrick Weigel. Weigel made three starts for Mississippi late in the season last year and had success in his small sample. While Fried has never pitched above Low-A, he is going to be 23 this year and needed to make an aggressive jump at some point now that he is healthy following Tommy John surgery.

The fifth starter for Mississippi appears to be Jesse Biddle, the former Phillies first round pick who was claimed off waivers last year despite him having to sit out as he recovered from Tommy John surgery. The lefty has some AAA experience back in 2015, and although it didn't go well he may not have been at full strength. Biddle was once a Baseball America Top 100 prospect and is a rebound candidate for the Braves.

The big news here is that Soroka and Allard are skipping over High-A right to AA. It's not a huge stretch for either of them since they had real success in Rome last year and are both advanced for their age, but it's very rare for a teenager to be ready for AA even though Ozzie Albies did it last year. For reference Albies was 5.1 years younger than the average player in the Southern League last year.

The other effect here is that this should clear up space in the High-A rotation for guys like Touki Toussaint, Luiz Gohara, and Ricardo Sanchez among others. That's a better situation for everyone involved than potentially piggybacking starters in shorter stints to get everyone regular innings.