There was a tweet that dominated baseball discourse yesterday, and it wasn’t necessarily a positive one.

EJNave on Twitter/X introduced us all to Francisco Vicioso, a pitcher who is currently in the Atlanta Braves system. Down in the Dominican Summer League, Vicioso is having a stat line for the ages.

Vicioso is straight up not having a good time with the Atlanta’s Dominican Summer League affiliate, the DSL Braves. This season alone, Vicioso has appeared in 7 games, but has only made it through 2.2 innings.

It’s not velocity that is the problem for Vicioso, who has shown he can hit the upper 90s. His control is the main issue; over his career, he has a BB/9 figure of 57.4. He has walked 28 batters over his 3.0 innings of work in both last season and this season.

In 2024, Vicioso has put up the following numbers:

• 7 games, 2.2 innings
• 23.63 ERA, 7 earned runs against
• 7.125 WHIP
• 17 walks, 5 strikeouts
• 18 wild pitches

If there’s any silver lining for Vicioso, it’s that despite his struggles this season, it’s already a massive improvement from his swift and spectacularly bad 2023 season, also in the Dominican Summer League with the DSL Braves.

Last year, these are what his numbers looked like:

• 3 games (2 starts), 0.1 innings
• 351.00 ERA, 13 earned runs against
• 33.000 WHIP
• 11 walks, 1 strikeouts
• 17 wild pitches

Twice last season Vicioso appeared and failed to record even a single out in a game. He was credited with back to back losses in his first and second game, which saw him play as the starter for the DSL Braves.

This season, however, the coaching staff down there has been using him out of the bullpen. Vicioso has not started a game this season, with his earliest appearance in a game coming in the sixth inning back on July 11th.

Here’s a look at the unfortunate struggles of Vicioso on the mound. This is from his July 5th appearance against the DSL Giants Black (Dominican affiliate of San Francisco). Vicioso issued 3 walks, was charged for 2 earned runs, and fired multiple wild pitches. He also tried to pick off a runner at first, which missed the first baseman and allowed the runner to advance.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vBZnNHrox2M%3Fsi%3DlFWgzGUtEZdUPDW8%26start%3D11832

This game was his only credited loss of the season to date; the DSL Braves were up 2-1 when Vicioso went into the game. After he gave up the lead, he was pulled from the game without getting a single out.

However, through all this negativity and honestly laughably bad stat line, there’s an ultimate underdog story in there.

Look, it can’t possibly get any worse for Vicioso. There’s nowhere to go but up.

Sports also often makes us forget how young prospects really can be. Vicioso might be seen as an awful arm on a rookie league team, but he’s also just a 19-year old kid from the Dominican Republic just chasing big league dreams. There is still so much time for him to turn things around and bounce back.

Like I mentioned earlier, velocity isn’t the main concern with him. He can get some speed behind his pitches, it’s just a matter of getting literally any of them over the plate. The biggest reason that Vicioso has only allowed a pair of hits against him this season is because he hasn’t thrown anything that is hittable.

And in fairness to Vicioso, he is not the only person on this Atlanta affiliate team that is struggling. The DSL Braves are 9-22, one of the worst records in the DSL and in second to last place in their West Division.

Over half their pitching staff has an ERA over 4.50, and the team has wasted a lot of their rare decent pitching performances with a lack of good bats.

Nevertheless, Vicioso is a name to watch in the near future. He’s coming off his first complete inning pitched, a July 16th outing that saw him pitch 1.0 innings and hold DSL Reds batters to just 1 earned run. It was the first time in his career that he struck out more batters than he walked (Vicioso struck out a pair and issued a walk once).

Can that serve as the turnaround for him? Or will he revert to his other look in following appearances? Regardless of which outcome happens, Vicioso will be a fascinating player to keep an eye on.

(Featured photo by Brandon Sloter/Getty Images)