Atlanta Weather

| Traffic

Search
Furman Bisher

From 22nd round to top prospect, Hanson learned art of pitching

6:58 pm July 3, 2009, by Furman Bisher

If I’m wrong about Tommy Hanson, I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna have a lot of company. And leading the parade will be Frank Wren, now feeling the heat easing off from his clearing the Braves roster of the other Tommy (Glavine) to make room for this Tommy.

Get in line to join in the apologia. Not to say that just because this tree of a kid has beaten the Yankees and the Red Sox in a row that they’re dusting off a corner of Cooperstown to make room for him.

There is a lot of pitcher in that body of his. In the first place, he’s constructed like a pitcher, but even more than that, he manages his game like a pitcher who has been doing it since Cy Young. Six-feet-six, lean and lithe, expressionless, never giving vent to distress and equipped with an above-standard collection of pitches in his arsenal. But, let’s get back to the beginning.

He came out of a community college in Riverside, Calif., and could have had a scholarship to Arizona State. Here the Braves intervened. They drafted him, top-line, you’d say. Instead, they were able to hold off until the 22nd round before they moved. Twenty-second round, mind you. This is spot usually reserved for afterthoughts, maybe a nephew of the owner. Still, the Braves thought enough of Hanson to give him a $350,000 bonus to sign.

Now you wonder how a 22nd-round draftee could wind up beating both the Yankees and the Red Sox, one after the other, four years later. And if he was that good, how was it that he was still there after 21 rounds?
By that time he was in a community college, where he had picked up on some of the benefits of the breaking ball. And there, too, he came under the discerning eye of the Braves’ area scout, Tom Battista. It was Battista who would sign him, at the same time cementing his position in the Braves’ scouting order in Southern California. By springtime this year, Hanson had vaulted to the head of the list among Braves prospects, as rated by Baseball America, and fourth best in all the majors.

From 22nd-round draftee to No. 1 prospect. Somewhere in between, Hanson had made some new discoveries in the art of pitching. It is generally accepted that he had the good fortune to land on the farm at Myrtle Beach and there came under the patient hand of Bruce Dal Canton, who, sorry to say, passed away last fall. Dal Canton had once pitched for the Braves, but for 10 years had been pitching coach on the coastal farm club.

“Tommy just never had a good breaking ball until he was in college,” Roy Clark, director of the farm system, said. “For a long time we’ve said that if we could hold a kid together long enough to get him to Bruce, he could turn him into a pitcher.”

So there was a noticeable uptick in strikeouts, and Hanson, the thrower became Hanson, the pitcher. He had a no-hitter at Mississippi last year, but it was in the Arizona Fall league that he found his game.

His record was 5-0, and he was dominant in every pitching department, and with an earned-run average of 0.63, he was the only pitcher in the 17 years of the league who won the most valuable award. So he was shined and polished, ready for the Braves, except for the brief detour to Gwinnett.

He survived the dust storm that caught Wren in the middle when the GM rejected Glavine to make room for Hanson, but not to be presumptuous, Hanson still keeps his place in Lawrenceville and commutes.
“Just didn’t want to do all that moving around,” he said. Offhand, I’ll be presumptuous enough to suggest that Hanson’s moving days are over.

  • Print

32 comments Add your comment

Sam Everyman, Citizen Journalist

July 3rd, 2009
7:53 pm

Whatever happened to that pitcher from St. Simons Island? Are there any more like that down there, Furman? You could go a long way toward “cementing (your) position in the Braves’ scouting order” in South Georgia if you could find a Wainwright the Braves could sign.

130on2

July 3rd, 2009
9:24 pm

Hanson is definitely terrific, but Glavine was given the shaft. They should have let Glavine pitch this year even if they had to use a pitcher as a pinch hitter occasionally.

Tron5000

July 3rd, 2009
11:31 pm

130on2, if Glavine had come back instead of the Braves promoting Hanson, do you think the Braves would currently be 2 games back in the division? Would Glavine have gone 4-0 with a sub-3 ERA in his first 5 starts (all wins)? They made the right decision. Granted, from what I know it could have been handled in a manner more respectful toward Glavine, but you put on the field the 25 players who will give you the best chance to win. Glavine was, unfortunately, not one of those 25 men. Tommy Hanson most definitely is.

130on2

July 4th, 2009
5:17 am

Tron500. I didn’t say not to bring up Hanson. I just said they should have somehow allowed Glavine the chance to see what he could do. He has been injured one time and they mislead him then drop him. You say they have plenty of starters now, I agree, so what happens when Hudson is ready to come back. Are they going to get rid of him too. He also has been injured only one time. Management expects and appreciates players ‘going the extra mile’, but management sure doesn’t reciprocate.

Michael Smith

July 4th, 2009
8:39 am

130on2 wrote:

“He has been injured one time and they mislead him then drop him.”

How, exactly, did the Braves “mislead” Glavine?

Was Glavine promised a spot on the major league roster regardless of circumstances, regardless of who else might be ready for a spot and regardless of what the Brave’s scouts thought of Glavine’s velocity and ball movement in his rehab starts? I don’t think any such promise was made — otherwise there would be no reason for Glavine’s deal to include a bonus for making the roster.

Here is what I think happend: As a pro-union employee, Glavine assumed that “seniority” would rule the day when a decision had to be made between he and Tommy Hansen. He was wrong — so, in effect, he mislead himself.

And by the way, judging from the fact that no other major league teams have come calling for Glavine, it seems that everyone else’s scouts shared the Brave’s opinion that Glavine would no longer be effective at the major league level.

Mad Dog

July 4th, 2009
9:54 am

It was not either Glavine or Hanson. There was never a question of who was the best prospect. Glavine should have been allowed to pitch. He could not have performed any worse than some of the other starters at the time. The organization owed Glavine that chance. The fact that the Braves are playing good baseball right now does not detract from my opinion that Wren is a twit.

hmmmm.....

July 4th, 2009
10:24 am

Glav got his. from union rep to the mets. we still could use a bat and need to get kakawami(?) out of the rotation. maybe they’re trying to wait for hudson to take his spot

hmmmm.....

July 4th, 2009
10:27 am

i saw glavine get punched in the face at american pie. he got smart with the doorman and said he was f$#!ing tom glavine and pop goes the weasel

Chris

July 4th, 2009
10:32 am

Why does everyone seem to think the Braves owe Tom Glavine? First, he is the one who didn’t show loyaly and left for greener pastures 6 years ago. Second, mad dog, our pitching staff has been one of the best in the NL. So if Glavine had been allowed to return it would only have brought the staff down and we certainly wouldn’t be 2 games out of first. While I think letting him go could have been handled with more class such as maybe offering him a pitching consultant position or a spot in the booth, I do think the right baseball decision was made. This was a move to help the team win. We haven’t won the division in 3 years and haven’t been won a playoff series since 2001. We need to stop living in the past. Let the future come now. It’s time to start a new streak.

IZZY

July 4th, 2009
10:57 am

great journalisim! Hanson is the braves ace next season, when hudson gets back the rotation will be a very formidable Jurgens, vazquiz,hanson,hudson. that sounds pretty good the braves need to keep those bats hot!!!
folks, we really have a legiet chance of winning our divison this year,with our rotation and some fresh young players (hanson,prado,Mclouth etc…)we are headed in the right direction. the 2nd half of the season is gonna be very interesting!

dcbrave

July 4th, 2009
12:25 pm

Three points:
1) Hanson is a stud. He will have a number of great days with the Bravos (knockin’ on wood) and he will likely have a few not-so-great days on the mound here and there, but overall he is a guy whose time is now and we are fortunate to have him in the rotation. Tommy Hanson is a better pitcher these days than Tommy Glavine and the Braves did the right thing by making that baseball move.

2) That issue is separate and distinct from the way that the Braves handled communicating the very wise decision to release Glavine, both to the fans and to Glavine himself. We can bicker all we want about loyalty, greed and union stuff, but in the end, Glavine is a HoF pitcher who spent, what, 17 years as a key contributor to the Braves success. A class organization would acknowledge these contributions and at the least give him the opportunity to exit gracefully (or stay on as a consultant). As a life-long Braves fan, my personal opinion is that we owed Glavine that because of the eight innings of one hit ball he threw in late October of 1995. That one World Championship rests on his and David Justice’s shoulders. But whether he is “owed” anything or not, there is a right way to handle these things and a wrong way and the Braves handled this one the wrong way. Frank Wren is very good at doing that, as it turns out.

3) And much more importantly, this version of the Braves is starting to shape into a competitive team. The line-up is no longer historically terrible. There are actually worse line-ups than McClouth, Prado, Chipper, McCann, Escobar, Anderson / Diaz. The back third needs some help, but fortunately the Braves rotation is very, very good: Lowe, Jurjjens, Vasquez, Hanson and Kawakami (on his day, at least) is very strong. Add Tim Hudson over the last 8 weeks of the season and you have a legit stopper taking the mound every day of the week and some bullpen depth with Medlin, Kawakami, Moylan, O’Flaherty, Gonzo and Soriano.

There are better teams in baseball than the Braves (though as far as I can tell, not the NL East), no doubt, but with one big bat and a little luck (and good health), that list could be much shorter in September than it is in July.

Just one guy’s take, of course. Looking forward to seeing the Braves in person tomorrow, thats for sure! Come on, Tommy Hanson!

Bubba

July 4th, 2009
12:34 pm

If this is truly about putting the best team on the field, then even Glavine would have to admit that, pitch for pitch, Hanson was the better choice for the job at the time.

Fans – and I am one – are sentimental. It’s part of what makes this game so great. But, the Braves are a business, both owners and players. If the Braves win their division, the success of their decisions combined the performance of the players will outweigh the hurt feelings the fans will feel.

Glavine repped the players. He fought hard for their interests. He’s a CyYoung winner, a 300-gamer, a World Series Champion. He will be a Hall-of-Famer. No one can take that away from him. He’s earned every accolade he has and will receive.

But the business of baseball says, “Win today, win now.” Frank Wren – really, any general manager who knows the job – understands this. Who helps this team win: a legend rehabbing an injury trying one more time or a whippersnapper full of vinegar? Wren made an unemotional choice in the interests of team. Thus far, it’s been a good choice.

varodrunner

July 4th, 2009
3:15 pm

Glavine???? He is gone!! Get over it, it was the right move. Everything was fine when he went to NY. These people that won’t look forward and continually lok backward are just ignorant to baseball.

Boog Sciambi

July 4th, 2009
5:14 pm

Alright guys, enough about Glavine. He didn’t think twice when he took an extra million per year to go to the NY Mets 6 years ago. Let’s not get teary eyed over a smart business move that Glavine would have done in the same position – for us, more wins should equal more fans, and we are better off the the young Tommy on the hill

Jeff

July 4th, 2009
6:09 pm

No question Hanson is for REAL!! Glavine had his day in the sunshine…..getting PAID last year 8 million for NOTHING. Bobby did IT again by pulling Hanson who was DOMINATING the Nats today……Bobby needs to get on his tractor and RIDE into the SUNSET!!!

Dave

July 5th, 2009
7:44 am

I really think those who were criticizing Frank Wren for a lot of things owe him an apology now. Bringing up Hanson and cutting 43 year old Galvine was the right thing to do. Not signing a 43 year old Smoltz was the right thing to do. Wren was half right on not bumping his offer for Furcal who is currently hitting .240, but making him an offer to start with was probably the wrong thing to do.

Hillbilly Deluxe

July 5th, 2009
1:47 pm

As with any young pitcher, the true test will be when the hitters have had a chance to learn him and adjust to him. Then how he adjusts will be the key. He certainly has the talent to succeed for a long time.

Jack P

July 5th, 2009
2:01 pm

He’s no Tom Seaver and never will be. As for Glavine, he is washed up and has been for several years. The Braves did the right thing getting rid of him. Instead of Glavine retiring with dignity, he chose to push his luck and became an embarrassment to the Braves. Move on Tom. You are a has been.

Number Seven

July 6th, 2009
5:14 pm

The Braves owe Glavine nothing. He, and Smoltz, for that matter, were paid quite handsomely over the years.

Deborah Arthur

July 6th, 2009
7:15 pm

Hello Mr. Bisher,
T

Deborah Arthur

July 6th, 2009
7:19 pm

Hello Mr. Bisher,
Great article on Tommy. Love to get the deeper details of how these young guys get here. When you get an opportunity, I would love to see an in depth article on Kris Meddlin also. He is pitching very well and he has been put in a closer role since coming to Atlanta and doesn’t get to pitch more than once a week. He and Tommy are roommates and he is a really interesting and well spoken young man. Thanks for listening.
Deborah

Mitch C

July 7th, 2009
4:54 am

Furman, I dont often agree with you, and I’ll admit that I was one of the grumblers when the Braves let Glavine go, and brought up Hanson. Now, after what I’ve seen, I’ll admit I was wrong, and that Hanson should, barring injury, have a bright future.

Tommy is very young, but knows how to pitch. His stuff is positively electric. I keep hoping, in time, that maybe he will become a John Smoltz type strikeout pitcher.

Bringing Hanson up was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise mediocre season fot the Braves so far. Hopefully, Mr Tommy Hanson will be around here working his pitching magic, for, oh, a decade of two, like men named Niekro, Glavine, and Smoltz.

Mitch

o-me

July 7th, 2009
9:03 am

We still talking about Glavine….get a life. He’s dead wood.

DaveDawg

July 7th, 2009
1:20 pm

I agree with DCBrave’s points 1 & 2. Glavine and Smoltz deserve respect. By the way, why all the love for Maddux, who of the three never really considered Atlanta home. In fact, while Glavine and Smoltz put down roots here, Maddux kept his home in Vegas. Don’t get me wrong, I like Maddux just as much as the other two, but it didn’t really bother him to leave the Braves and the fans love him while it’s clear that Glavine and Smoltz did want to retire as Braves but the fans have turned on them. I guess there’s a valuable – yet sad – lesson to be learned about loyalty. Smoltz turned down big money from the Yankee in the late ’90s to stay here, and Glavine turned down an extra $7 million in guaranteed salary to leave the Mets and return here last season, but NO ONE talks about that. If I were a player, the lesson learned here would to take the biggest payday, like Texiera.

Mr. Touchdown

July 7th, 2009
8:51 pm

If Glav should be pitching, then why isn’t he pitching? First Wren said no, then the marketplace said no.
Nuff said.

Braves Fan since 1966

July 7th, 2009
11:33 pm

“Disappointment” or “Surprise” can be defined as an unexpected outcome to an expected, predictable event.
Tom Glavine should neither have been disappointed or surprised when he was shown the door by the Atlanta Braves.
Look what this club has done to Hall of Fame and near Hall of Fame playesr in the past:
1. Babe Ruth-cut, fired, and never got a chance to manage
2. Eddie Mathews-traded and wound up with Detroit in the AL
3.Hank Aaron-traded to Milwaukee, again totally out of the league
4. Phil Niekro-traded and wound up with the Yankees, in the other league
5.Dale Murphy-dumped to the Phillies (at least he stayed in the NL)
6.Dave Justice-the only true sprirt in the World Series braves clubhouse was traded to the Yankees
7. Greg Maddox- dumped, wound up in San Diego
8. John Smoltz- dumped, but got more money with Boston
9. Tom Glavine– he thinks he will be treated diffently? He is suprised?

The point is, a baseball team is a business (regardless of what the Supreme Court says in the antitrust decisions), and, like any business, the Braves wants the best results for the least expenses. Ergo, Glavine is gone. That is the way it has been over 100 years (no, I did not go back to Bobby Lowe!), and that is the way it is now: Do the job or out you go. That is why the Players have a Union. If Glavine feels he was somehow wronged, he can file a grievance, or pitch for another team and beat the Braves on the field. Or, he can do both.
If he does neither, then he can retire quietly, and sit in the stands with the other spectators.
(Full disclosre: I attended the first official Braves game in 1966-they lost to the Pirates despite Torre’s 2 HR’s and Clonninger’s extra inning complete game- but when there was no World Series, I dropped out. When the Players Union and the Owners managed to stop post season when even Hitler couldn’t, that was it for me. That and $4 cokes and $5 hotdogs.)

Ken Stallings

July 8th, 2009
8:22 pm

Bruce del Canton and Bobby Dewes represented a core group of scouts and coaches throughout the Braves organization that transformed drafts into a regular supply of young and talented players. It was a conveyor belt the envy of baseball. Their passing is not mere coincidence with the relative downturn in that supply chain.

Tommy Hanson has poise and isn’t intimidated one iota by the upgraded surroundings he finds himself in. In that regard he reminds me of another young phenom with a tommahawk across his chest. That man’s name was Tommy Glavine.

Thing is Hanson has better overall stuff. Glavine was a change of pace artist with pinpoint control. Hanson has what Don Sutton terms the “double overhanded yellow hammer!”

He has an excellent fastball to go with it, and a good change up and slider.

The only sad aspect of the whole deal is that Hanson directly supplanted another Braves icon in Glavine, who’s pinpoint control was only exceeded by his stubborn confidence in himself regardless of the situation. That made him a warrior on the mound, but it was predictable that his retirement would initially go down bitter. I expect it will sweeten over time.

Hanson’s performance has done one immediately beneficial thing. It has immediately answered the question, “Why Hanson and not Glavine?” The record of achievement is short but spectacular. It answers the immediate question. Whether Hanson’s career will follow the path of Glavine or be more in line with that of Steve Avery is yet to be seen.

History says, baring injury, Atlanta may be enjoying this Hanson kid for a long time to come.

Notty Dred

July 9th, 2009
4:42 pm

STEWEY AWARDS! STEWEY AWARDS! JULY 11TH AT THE W. MIDTOWN. FOR TICKETS AND INFO GO TO http://WWW.2LIVESTEWS.COM. COME SEE AL HORFORD, D. HALL, CRAIG SAGER, BIG BOI FROM OUTKAST, KID CAPRIS, AND MANY MORE CELEBS AND ATHLETES! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE 790 THE ZONE FOUNDATION. STEWEY AWARDS. ROO ROO

antonucci

July 10th, 2009
6:41 am

Bisher–stop eating all that acid, dude…

Acworth Don

July 10th, 2009
7:53 am

Wow! I’m with Bish on this one (and a lot others) because after watching MLB for about 60 years
you can learn about “that look” of a ball player. We are fortunate it has worked that we have Tom.
In fact, I actually like the “look” of the Braves right now. It may be that we now have a team that
will compete again. Especially with our new 2nd baseman Conrad. Give Bobby some time and things will look good again for Atlanta, for sure!

RD

July 10th, 2009
3:40 pm

Don’t forget Glavine and Smoltz chose to leave the Braves for more money. Why are the Braves the bad guys when they make a business decision? The Braves don’t owe Smoltz and Glavine ANYTHING, they were paid very well to play a game and that should be enough.

John Spangler

August 21st, 2009
12:48 am

I hate to be the bearer of bad news Furman Bisher, but you have little to no idea what your talking about. You make the following claim that, “Instead, they were able to hold off until the 22nd round before they moved. Twenty-second round, mind you. This is spot usually reserved for afterthoughts, maybe a nephew of the owner. Still, the Braves thought enough of Hanson to give him a $350,000 bonus to sign.” First off, when a team waits to this point it is usually because the ball player has been in contact with a few clubs and has decided that he has a specific path that he would like to follow. Meaning Tommy most likely told the Braves that he had serious interest in their organization, as well as serious interest in ASU. This was most likely an interest he did not have with many other major league clubs. Thus leaving the Braves with the following decision, take Hansen in the 22nd round and try to work a deal out. This happens every year with hundreds of talented players that for one reason or another may not be completely interested in playing pro-ball. Thus leaving an educated man to assume that these ball players taken in the middle rounds have top 10 round talent, but slip because or an oppinion or ideal. See each major league team has the option to have up to 50 picks in the draft. I said it 50 rounds, yes some may think is a bit excessive, but those taken that late are a mixture of players. Some have little to no talent and will have a career as short as minor league spring training, but some are great talents coming off of surgery or other injuries. Some are not sure if they want to graduate from college or persue a boy-hood dream.
Now this writer, who played college baseball at a top 25 school, knows that you don’t give a 22nd round pick $350,000, which would lead me to believe that the braves were on a very short list of teams that this giant wanted to play for. Lets be serious Hansen sits at a cool 6′6″ and with a mid 90’s fastball he is exactly what pro scouts are looking for in a big leaguer. You can always develope talent but you can’t teach 6′6″ and you can’t teach 90 mph. However the rest of the article/blog was pretty good, but heres another piece of info you missed; other players of relevance from the 2005 MLB draft:1st round – Joey Devine (later traded to Oakland), 2nd round – Yunel Escobar, 3rd round – Jordan Schafer, 17th round – Clayton Caulfield, and 33rd round – Tyler Flowers.