See also: Index of Best Braves by Uniform Number
There have only been two Braves to don the 7-3 on their backs. The first was right-hander Kyle Wright, who wore #73 when he made his major league debut in 2018 and pitched six innings. After a dalliance with #65, Wright has now settled in with #30, and time will tell if he will usurp the title of best Brave to wear that number from Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.
The second Brave to wear #73 is right-hander Huascar Ynoa, who at the time of this writing has 25 major league innings logged.
Ynoa (pronounce the “Y” as a long “E”) was a 2014 amateur international signee by the Minnesota Twins out of Puerto Rico, following in the footsteps of his older brother Michael Ynoa, who at the time was a prospect in the Oakland A’s farm system. Huascar (pronounced to rhyme with “NASCAR”; take away the “N” and replace with “wh”) spent parts of three seasons in the Twins rookie leagues, making his way to Elizabethon of the Appalachian League before he was traded in 2017 to Atlanta for veteran starter Jaime Garcia.
As a trivia note, this was the last veteran-for-prospect trade for Atlanta in their rebuild that started before the 2015 off-season. Starting in 2018, the Braves would go on a three-year (and counting) NL East Division winning streak.
Ynoa has made a relatively quick climb through the Braves organization since finishing out the 2017 season with Danville, and by 2019 had made his major league debut, an impressive two innings of relief against Philadelphia. In the shortened 2020 season, Ynoa appeared in nine games, including five starts. Ynoa also made his post-season debut, throwing a crucial four shut-out innings in Game 3 of the NLDS after Wright and left-hander Grant Dayton were lit up for 15 runs in the first 3 innings, saving the Braves bullpen.
On the surface, his 7.30 career major league ERA isn’t anything to crow about, but Ynoa will still only be 22 years old on Opening Day of 2021 and he is neither a finished product as a pitcher nor is his future role with the team etched in stone. What is undeniable is that he has some of the nastiest stuff on the team, and if he can become a key member of the Braves pitching staff.
Below is some video I took in 2017 in Elizabethton, by luck capturing Ynoa while he was still in the Twins organization. Below that is some of his work for Atlanta in the playoffs this year. He’s come a long way already.
Who Is the Best Ever To Wear #73?
The best to wear #73 is former Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Oakland, St. Louis, and New York Met left-handed reliever Ricardo Rincón. In an 11 year major league career, Rincón pitched to a 3.59 career ERA, pitching only 444 innings in 565 appearances as an exemplar of late 20th/early 21st century LOOGY usage. To show how much managers loved their left-handed relief specialists, Rincón was once traded straight-up from Pittsburgh to Cleveland for outfield Brian Giles, who had just posted a .269/.396/.460 season for the Indians. Giles would go on to hit .308/.426/.591 with 165 home runs for the Pirates over the next five seasons.
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