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If you missed the news, this is happening Monday in Houston:

The Braves are still reeling a bit from the news their ace Spencer Strider is out for the season after elbow surgery and haven’t fully reset their rotation yet. Initially it was Allan Winans who got the call, the next man up will be Darius Vines.

Braves fans will remember Vines as one of the many arms that came up last summer to fill in all those inning when Atlanta was down Max Fried and Kyle Wright for most of the 2023 season. And Vines did pretty well. He made two starts last season, both six inning starts and in both he only gave up two earned runs with a total of 10 strikeouts vs just three walks. And while his fastball is certainly not one to remember, he averages around 90 mph for his four-seamer, the one pitch all Braves’ fans should remember is his change-up.

Vines’ change-up is one of the best pitches in Atlanta’s entire organization and its how someone who only throws 90 mph can post an ERA in the 3’s against major league hitters. Over the 20 innings that Vines covered in 2023, he threw 76 change-ups and opponents had just a .276 xwOBA against it, easily the best among any of his offerings. That change-up posted a 32% whiff rate late, a tremendous mark, and when opposing batters did put it in play, they only produced an 81 mph average exit velocity against it, which is ridiculously weak contact for major league hitters.

Vines has no trouble throwing it against RH hitter or LH hitters, which is pretty much a must when you only throw your fastball 90 mph.

This is vs RH Brenton Doyle:

This is vs LH Ryan McMahon:

You can see how much it breaks:

Vines also has some versatility with the pitch. He can throw one version that breaks straight down, almost like a curveball, like he did here to Jordan Walker:

And another type that has more horizontal movement, like this one to Jeimer Candelario:

Here are some more just for fun:

And of course, all of these are from 2023, because that’s the only sample of major league pitching we have from Vines but he’s continue this same level work early into 2024 with Triple-A Gwinnett, specifically with the change-up. And because Statcast and Baseball Savant now allow us to track Minor League pitching, we know Vines has thrown 53 change-ups in 2024 and gotten 18 whiffs out of those 53. A 34% whiff rate will work all day. He recently had a start for Gwinnett where he produced 23 whiffs in a single game, most of which were off of the change-up. Here’s some video evidence:

The video shows five of his seven strikeouts in the game, and all five in the video are whiffs off the change-up. Even the announcer comments on how frequently that’s the pitch he goes. It’s his primary weapon.

Of course, Vines is coming up at a time when Atlanta needs help. By ERA, they’ve had one of the worst rotations in baseball the first two weeks, with Strider going down for the season, Max Fried getting off to a terrible start, and Charlie Morton looking shaky early on. The one-game Allan Winans experiment was a disaster, as he got rocked by the Mets. They need Vines to come up and contribute. I’m not saying they need him to be the Bryce Elder of last year after Fried and Wright went down, though I won’t turn it down if he’s willing, but they do need him or someone to start producing out of the rotation. The offense can’t bail them out all year long like they have been the first two weeks.

If Vines is able to help, it’ll be off the back of that change-up. We’ll find out quickly, as his first start is against Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, Kyle Tucker and the rest of the Houston Astros Monday night. Go get’em kid.