![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/dc_venters-e1416681471617.jpg\")
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As if the Braves couldn\u2019t do anything else to make me want to dislike them more, they had to go and designate for assignment (cut)<\/a> pretty much my favorite pitcher in the world, Jonny Venters<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, I understand crystal clear the logic behind this decision, and if it were like Antonio Bastardo getting cut by the Phillies or Sergio Romo getting cut by the Giants, I wouldn\u2019t have given two shits, but it happening to Jonny Venters, and I\u2019m now a little emotional about it.<\/span><\/p>\n Venters was hurt.\u00a0 And then got hurt again.\u00a0 In the worst kind of way, tearing a ligament in his elbow, while he was already rehabilitating from a torn ligament in his elbow.\u00a0 Long story short, he had to undergo the dreaded, career-altering Tommy John surgery for the third time, after he hadn\u2019t yet fully recovered from Tommy John #2.\u00a0 Very few pitchers come back from Tommy John surgery twice, and even fewer return from a third.\u00a0 From the business sense, it\u2019s obvious and logical to why the Braves had to release Jonny Venters, and once again, I say that if it were anyone other than Jonny Venters, I probably wouldn\u2019t have cared.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But seriously, Jonny Venters was pretty much my favorite pitcher.\u00a0 After John Smoltz left the Braves and ultimately retired, there wasn\u2019t really a pitcher that I was really a fan of, on my own freaking team.\u00a0 The Braves Way was always to get \u201ccost-efficient\u201d stopgaps and hope that the legions of pitchers that the team drafts and develops, actually matures into something spectacular.\u00a0 And based on the successes, and lack thereof, over the last years, it\u2019s safe to say that there hasn\u2019t really been anything to be that genuinely excited or impressed over.<\/span><\/p>\n But then in 2010, this kid named Jonny Venters was called up, and before anyone knew it, he was pretty much dominating the major leagues, in a relief capacity.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always been fascinated with relievers in general, but it was really an awesome thing to see that my own team had this reliever that was pretty much going gangbusters on everyone he faced, with this gigantic high-90s fastball, and this absurd sinker; and it should be worth mentioning that he threw left-handed, so such an arsenal coming from the left side wasn\u2019t something that most people were particularly used to seeing.<\/span><\/p>\n Venters finished out his rookie year with an ERA of 1.95 (really good) and had a strikeout ratio of 10.1 (also really good).<\/span><\/p>\n But then in 2011, Jonny Venters somehow managed to perform even better than his stellar rookie season, when he lowered his ERA to 1.84, en route to making the National League All-Stars, which was kind of a big deal, because middle relievers like Jonny Venters often go ignored, overshadowed by the litany of starting pitchers and hotshot closers that tend to take up the pitching slots.<\/span><\/p>\n Long story short is that I was a gigantic Jonny Venters fan.\u00a0 I loved watching him pitch, even when my general enthusiasm about the Braves and baseball itself waned.\u00a0 I was so incensed when the Atlanta Braves team store did not have a Jonny Venters shirsey for sale, that I went online and paid out the nose to have a Venters #39 shirsey made, which I managed to actually flag him down and show him whilst in Washington D.C. once, hoping to impress him.\u00a0 When I used to write for Talking Chop, and the writing staff would divvy out players for end-of-the-year reviews, I was adamant and made sure that nobody but me would write about Jonny Venters<\/a>.\u00a0 Basically, my attempts to spread the word about just how awesome Jonny Venters was inspired me to really expand my horizons with baseball statistics into sabermetrical analysis, and I think I did a pretty decent job of relaying to our readership that Jonny Venters was pretty fucking good at baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n And since I\u2019m such a Jonny Venters fan, this is where I\u2019ll say that we\u2019ll never say never, and hope that in spite the magnanimous odds in front of him, I hope Jonny Venters can find his way back in the Major Leagues someday.\u00a0 But until that happens, it\u2019s only in memories can Venters fans like me can remember the good times, of Venters owning batters like this:<\/span><\/p>\n As if the Braves couldn\u2019t do anything else to make me want to dislike them more, they had to go and designate for assignment (cut) pretty much my favorite pitcher in the world, Jonny Venters. Now, I understand crystal clear the logic behind this decision, and if it were like Antonio Bastardo getting cut by … Continue reading Nails in coffins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,66,79,45,15],"class_list":["post-40023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-cashmoney","tag-fail","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40025,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023\/revisions\/40025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/assets.sbnation.com\/assets\/633336\/vent.gif\" "\\"jonnyventers\\"")
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