While the two appearances in Atlanta weren’t great, Winans put together another very successful minor league season.
He may not have had the sexiest of seasons, especially when up with the big league club, but Allan Winans continued to be a useful arm in a really solid Gwinnett rotation. Unfortunately, his two starts in the majors were really bad.
How acquired
The 500th overall pick back in the 2018 MLB amateur draft, Winans ended up being scooped up by Atlanta from the Mets in the minor league phase of the 2021 Rule 5 Draft.
What were the expectations?
Given everything about him, Winans started the season as Triple-A depth — he was never really in the running to win a spot in Spring Training. Still, Winans had a pretty nice MLB debut season in 2023 for the Braves: a 120/95/91 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) across six starts / 32 1⁄3 innings of work. That suggested he could be a pretty good spot starter fill-in guy should injury strike.
2024 Results
Winans did make it back to the majors in 2024, but his two starts for the Braves were somewhere between “forgettable” and “downright painful.” In early April, he had a horrible outing against the Mets that turned into a 16-4 loss, giving up a homer and posting a poor 1/2 K/BB ratio. He did last five innings, but that was the only positive there. The Braves then threw Winans against the Reds as part of their post-All Star Break “even more rest for everyone” scheme, and he was once again blasted, this time to the tune of two homers and a 3/2 K/BB ratio while getting just eight outs. In the end, those two starts translated to -0.3 fWAR and a 367/218/139 line. While you can’t say all too much about just two starts, Winans walked two or fewer batters in each of his six starts for the Braves in 2023, and also struck out four or more, which was a pretty good path to success. Meanwhile, walking as many guys as you strike out… isn’t.
On the flip side, Winans wasn’t horrible for the Stripers in 24 games (16 starts), but he also wasn’t as good as he was in 2023 in pretty much the same span of innings and type of usage. In 2023, Winans’ Triple-A line included a 3.87 FIP and 4.16 xFIP. In 2024, those numbers ballooned to 4.52 and 4.50, respectively. His strikeout rate fell by quite a bit, and his walk rate dipped just a bit, not enough to compensate. About four percent of his balls in play transitioned from grounders to flies, which was the other ding on his 2024.
What went right?
At best, Winans still put together a very solid minor league season. While you wish his spots starts went better so that you could say he played his role in the organization perfectly, he provided a ton of stability for the Stripers rotation and provided an arm in Atlanta a couple of times when needed.
Presumably for his availability and consistency, all of this good work in the minors lead to Allan winning his second consecutive most outstanding pitcher award by the Stripers back on September 13th.
Please join us in congratulating Allan Winans on being named as your 2024 Gwinnett Stripers Most Outstanding Pitcher! pic.twitter.com/zlO8kG6qT1
— Gwinnett Stripers (@GoStripers) September 13, 2024
Winans didn’t just find success on the baseball field, as he and his wife welcomed Murphy Lee Winans into their family as well.
What went wrong?
Well, it’s fair to say that what really went wrong in Winans’ season were his two big league appearances. But, the minor league performance was also kind of disappointing, in that it knocked down his outlook from “hey, maybe this guy can bamboozle even big league hitters for a bit” to “well, he pitched like a generic Triple-A arm.”
Ahead of the 2024 season, there was some slight amusement in the fact that ZiPS had Winans projected for 1.6 WAR over 120 1⁄3 innings, basically placing him in the same fourth starter tier as a bunch of the Braves’ pitching prospects of yesteryear. Safe to say, he’s probably going to be projected a lot closer to replacement level going forward, given his Triple-A performance in 2024.
2025 outlook
2025 will be Winans’ third year in the organization and his role is pretty well understood, at this point: a great minor league veteran who provides MLB depth when necessary. Winans has been a good performer in the International League and there is no reason to believe he won’t be able to do it again next season. At 29 years of age, there’s also the chance the he wants a more legitimate opportunity to pitch in the majors, and the Braves could let him find a new home. But, if he’s within the Atlanta organization, it’s safe to assume Allan Winans will be one of the top performing pitchers on the 2025 Gwinnett Stripers staff.