In an ideal world, the players that excel with the Atlanta Braves do so over a long period of time. One of the hallmarks of this current run the Braves are on is that more often than not, Atlanta has picked the right guys to invest their money and time into and those guys have formed the core we see today. From homegrown guys like Ronald Acuna Jr, Austin Riley, and Ozzie Albies to players acquisitions like Max Fried, Matt Olson, and Sean Murphy, the Braves are very good at hitting the right long-term notes.
However, the Braves as a franchise have also been the beneficiaries of plenty of short-term performances. In fact, Alex Anthopoulos alone has shown an affinity for signing guys that can help the team to one year deals with a pretty high success rate along with a few duds as well (Cole Hamels comes to mind). The best teams are the ones that have a sustainable and talented core that also get unlikely contributions from unlikely sources
There are a few ways to look at one-hit wonders when it comes to the Braves. Some would say that the player should have only played for the Braves for one year to qualify. Others would say that a player could be around for a while, but they could have only had one good season with the Braves (or perhaps even one good season period). This list is going to have a healthy mix of all of them along with at least one player where we had to fudge things a little bit.
One note here is that these are all of these players are from the modern era. Is it cool when some guy named something like Water Can McCracken threw 30+ complete games in the 1890’s? Sure, but we had to draw the line somewhere and baseball was SO different back then that it is almost a completely different game. Anyways, on to the list of the biggest one-hit wonders with the Braves in no particular order.
Mike Foltynewicz – 2018
Oh, Folty. When the Braves acquired Foltynewicz in the trade that sent Evan Gattis to Houston, the hope was that he would be a big part of the Braves’ future in the starting rotation. For a little while, it looked like that would actually happen, too, as he dominated in the minor leagues with his blend of power stuff. His first couple of years in the big leagues were fairly unremarkable until we got to 2018.
The 2018 season was a magical time. It was the beginning of this run of division titles for Atlanta and Folty played a huge role that year. In 31 starts, Foltynewicz posted a 2.85 ERA with 202 strikeouts in 183 innings of work on his way to a top 8 Cy Young finish. Unfortunately, that was his best season by a mile as he regressed back to being a mid-4 ERA pitcher the next season and then only made one start in 2020 before getting designated for assignment. He would play one more bad season with the Rangers in 2021 before pitching his way out of the league.
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