Which pitcher or pitching prospect failed to live up to high expectations?
The Braves have had a lot of highly-rated pitching prospects through the years. Some have made it. Some have made it really big, like Hall of Famer Tom Glavine.
And then again, some have not.
Steve Avery had a very nice career, but if you had asked some people 30 years ago, like me, we might have said it would be Avery who would be in Cooperstown.
Avery had injury issues and never matched what Glavine and fellow teammate John Smoltz could do. He still won 96 games in the big leagues, with a 4.19 ERA in 297 games. Avery won 72 games while i a Braves uniform.
It's hard to say Avery didn't live up to expectations, but the expectations were so high when he first came up in June 1990. Most believed Avery was the best prospect in the sport at the time, and it's possible he was the best Braves pitching prospect in the team's history.
Some others who failed to live up to high expectations include Jo Jo Reyes and Kyle Davies, two players in the 2000s who were highly rated and later traded away. What about the late Jose Capellan, who was a hard-throwing right-hander but got traded away for Dan Kolb.
Not all pitching prospects make it, and you have to know that going in. But it's always disappointing when someone you have high expectations for falls a bit short.
That's baseball.
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