State of the Braves Rotation: Pre Spring Training edition
The Atlanta Braves have largely declined to add to their major league rotation in free agency, although they sport plenty of minor league and depth options. Is it enough to get through the season?
I’m hesitant to write this because the Braves are (supposedly) trying to trade for Dylan Cease at this exact moment.
It’s one of the few acquisitions that I personally think would make sense at this exact moment. The Braves are currently (hashtag) blessed with an exceptional amount of depth for their rotation, even with Connor Gillispie and Allan Winans being lost on waivers after being DFA’d.
(Side note, that’s also why I don’t expect Atlanta to add anyone on a major league deal until they’re able to put Joe Jiménez on the 60-day IL to make a 40-man roster spot. The earliest that can happen is Wednesday after he reports with the rest of the pitchers and catchers.)
But as far as top-end quality, that’s where the team is a bit more shaky. In the last few postseasons, there’s been an open question as to who would get one of the first few playoff starts because guys have either gone down with an injury (Sale and Strider in 2024, Morton in 2023, etc) or the team had to use so many top end starters in the final week of the season just to get in the postseason (thinking about the need to start Schwellenbach in game 161 last year here) that there was an open question as to who would start game one of the postseason.
But the Cease trade hasn’t happened yet and pitchers and catchers report to North Port today for the start of spring workouts. Let’s look at the rotation as of now, denote who is currently and who could turn into a postseason-caliber starter during the season, and guess who is likely to under or overperform their common projections for the 2025 season.
(For projections, we’re using the FanGraphs Depth Charts, which is a combination of ZiPS and Steamer projections for each player crossed with their playing time projections to get a year-end prediction.)
Chris Sale gets a workhorse prediction
2024: 29 GS, 18-3, 2.38 ERA in 177.2 IP w/ 11.4 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 6.2 WAR
2025: 31 GS, 14-7, 3.03 ERA in 182 IP w/ 11.07 K/9, 2.30 BB/9, 4.6 WAR
Last year’s Cy Young winner is expected to take a small step back in the ERA department and a much larger step back in WAR.
Some of this might be due to the inherent conservatism present in projections systems - only one pitcher in baseball, Detroit’s Tarik Skubal at 5.5 WAR, is projected to exceed even 5 WAR when eight did it last year1 - but it’s still interesting.
There’s a lot of public chatter about “injury concerns” with Sale that I want to address, by the way. There’s a very vocal subset of Braves fans that think there’s no way for Sale to make a full season of starts because he’s “injury prone” and “unreliable”.
Here’s the truth of the matter: Pitcher health is inherently risky on its own and almost every pitcher is at risk of injury virtually all the time, with just a few very notable (and highly-paid) exceptions. But let’s break down Sale’s missed time because you’ll notice a trend when you actually look at it:
July 2018: Left shoulder inflammation - happens to a lot of pitchers; Atlanta sent four arms to the IL in 2018 with shoulder inflammation
Aug 2019: Elbow - resulted in Tommy John surgery
Mar 2020: Elbow - missed while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery
Feb 2021: Elbow - returned from Tommy John surgery in August
Sept 2021: COVID-19 - there were 186 IL placements under COVID-19 protocols in 2021, per the Baseball Prospectus IL Tracker
April 2022: Ribs - right rib stress fracture, prior to spring training, while throwing live batting practice at Florida Gulf Coast University during the lockout.
July 2022: Finger and Wrist - comebacker to the hand broke his left pinky finger and then he fell off a bicycle and broke his wrist while on the IL.
June 2023: Shoulder - stress reaction in shoulder blade
Sept 2024: Back - back spasms, although Sale reportedly would have been available for the NLDS had Atlanta advanced out of the Wild Card round versus San Diego
It’s admittedly a lot, but many of those are fluky. A broken wrist from falling off a bike? A stress reaction in his shoulder blade(2), which is essentially a bone bruise that’s usually seen more in legs than shoulders?
Let’s put it this way. Unlike the catastrophizing subset of Braves social media, I’m not worried about Sale any more than any random pitcher. The biggest injury risk from pitching is, well, doing the dang thing in the first place. But Sale showed last season that he’s capable of getting through mostly an entire season both healthy and effective.
Prediction: OVER on the WAR and another #1 starter-type campaign
Reynaldo López is a regression candidate
2024: 25 GS, 8-5, 1.99 ERA in 135.2 IP w/ 9.8 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 5.1 WAR
2025: 31 GS, 11-7, 3.56 ERA in 173 IP w/ 9.6 K/9, 3.02 BB/9, 3.1 WAR
Took an entire newsletter in December to talk about this, but López is the biggest concern from a regression standpoint simply because of how he overperformed his peripherals last season.
The gaps between 1.99 ERA and the combo of his 2.92 FIP and 3.94 xERA were some of the largest in the majors.
That being said, I still think this ERA projection for him is a bit too conservative. I like ReyLo to come in around a 3.00 ERA, easily #3 territory and solidly in the “postseason starter” bucket. The workload increase from 135 innings to “ERA title qualifier” also goes a long way to replace (and improve on) what Charlie Morton has given you the last few seasons.
Prediction: UNDER on the ERA and solidly a postseason starter-caliber campaign
Spencer Schwellenbach might take a leap
2024: 21 GS, 8-7, 3.35 ERA in 123.2 IP w/ 9.2 K/9, 1.7 BB/9, 2.7 WAR
2025: 29 GS, 12-8, 3.71 ERA in 165 IP w/ 8.68 K/9, 2.08 BB/9, 2.7 WAR
lol this projection is NOT a believer in Schwelly and I think he’ll significantly outproduce this (barring injury, of course).
An underrated aspect of his 2024 season is that, when you include what he did in the minors, he actually threw 168.2 innings across the year. While it felt to me like that jump in workload (he had only 65 in 2023) manifested in his elite command getting a bit more shaky late in the year, he held up surprisingly well for a guy who had only been a full-time starter for a little over a year when he debuted in the majors.
Also, Schwelly’s final season numbers were skewed by his early struggles as he adjusted to seeing major league hitters two and three times in the same game. In his first six starts, he was 1-4 with a 5.68 ERA but from July through the end of the season, Schwelly went 7-3 with a 2.54 ERA and only once allowed more than three earned runs in any start.
Prediction: UNDER on the ERA and OVER on the WAR, solidifying himself as a #2-caliber starter in MLB
Opening Day rotation favorites: Ian Anderson and Grant Holmes
Anderson has no MLB statistics for 2024, but 2025’s projection is 28G (16GS), 6-5, 4.24 ERA in 96 IP w/ 7.79 K/9, 3.65 BB/9, and 0.8 WAR
Holmes:
2024: 26G (7GS), 2-1, 3.56 ERA in 68.1 IP w/ 9.2 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 1.1 WAR
2025: 45G (15GS), 6-5, 3.99 ERA in 114 IP w/ 8.66 K/9, 2.94 BB/9, 1.2 WAR
As of now, the favorites for the final two spots in the rotation are Anderson and Holmes, as both pitchers are out of options and need to make the roster in some capacity, be it relief or rotation.3
I have a ton of confidence, perhaps irrationally, in Holmes next season. Anderson’s a bit of a question for me. When he was at his best, in that 2021 season where he made 24 starts with a 3.58 ERA and even took a no-hitter into the 5th inning of the 2021 World Series4, he was getting fantastic results on both the fastball (+12 Run Value, 89th percentile) and changeup (+5 Run Value, 90th percentile).
In 2022, some of that 2021 overperformance (a 4.27 xERA versus his actual 3.58) regressed to the mean and he got whacked around a bit despite velo, locations, etc all being roughly the same. His walk rate did tick up a bit, but anecdotally it felt at the time more like he was deliberately trying to throw his fastball more in the shadow of the zone versus attacking hitters, simply because he knew it was getting whacked.
(In reality, he was getting more of the plate with the fastball in 2022 than he was in 2021 owing to slightly lower velocity and a little more horizontal run than he was seeing in 2021.)
Which Anderson do we get? That’s the big question that he needs to answer in the affirmative this spring to capture a rotation spot instead of being relegated to a long relief role.
Next Men Up: Bryce Elder and AJ Smith-Shawver
When we talked to manager Brian Snitker at the Winter Meetings, he told us that the plan is to have seven pitchers stretched out for five rotation spots coming out of spring.
Bryce Elder and AJ Smith-Shawver are those final two and they couldn’t be more different.
Elder, while an All-Star in 2023, is a low-ceiling sinker/slider guy who relies on inducing weak contact with his slider (versus lefties) and changeup (versus righties).
It didn’t work in 2024 - in his ten starts, he came in at a 6.52 ERA while averaging just under five innings an outing. His performance against both lefties and righties regressed from the respective .241 (LHB) and .248 (RHB) in 2023, but it was most notable in the almost 100-point jump in batting average allowed to lefties (.336).
Elder’s slider was the culprit here. It picked up 68 points of batting average and 200 (!) points of slug year over year, although the expected stats said it should have been ‘only’ roughly 100 points. I’m still trying to figure out why, honestly. He added 1 mph to it, which gave it a bit less (but still an above-average amount) of drop and more (but still below-average) horizontal movement.
Smith-Shawver, by comparison, is a high-octane super athletic flamethrower - his fastball averaged 95 last season and reportedly touched 100 - who sometimes struggled with consistency of his locations. The resulting inefficiency means that he can’t go that deep into games. Of his eight pre-injury starts last season in Gwinnett, only three of them went into the 5th inning and none made it to the 6th.
I think AJSS may have turned a corner down the stretch, however. After returning from the IL for his oblique injury in early July, he found a groove for the Stripers. Of his final six starts in AAA, all of them were five innings or more, with two quality starts, another full six-inning outing, and one seven-inning start where he was racking up strikeouts (11 against Nashville) while not allowing many baserunners (three hits and three walks total).5
The 2025 record and ERA projections for the two are remarkably similar, actually, despite coming about them in wildly different ways.
AJSS: 43 G (8 GS), 4-4, 4.17 ERA in 74 IP w/ 9.37 K/9, 3.62 BB/9, & 0.5 WAR
Elder: 21 G (6 GS), 3-3, 4.16 ERA in 51 IP w/ 7.58 K/9, 2.98 BB/9, & 0.4 WAR
Give me AJSS outperforming the projection, while Elder underperforming. I guess this is a “Stuff over Sequencing” pick, but I’m comfortable with AJSS surviving at the MLB level more than I am Elder just based on the quality of what they’re throwing.
Spencer Strider’s expected to be pretty good
2025: 21 GS, 9-6, 3.24 ERA in 119 IP w/ 12.04 K/9, 2.82 BB/9, 3.0 WAR
I have no idea when Strider actually returns (he says it’ll be “soon” after the season starts), but the projection systems have him coming in just off his career norms - a 13.5 K/9 and a 3.0 BB/9 - while coming close to matching his two-season WARs of 3.8 (2022) and 3.3 (2023).
If that happens, it’s a huge boost to Atlanta’s chances of having enough postseason-caliber starters when October rolls around.
The rest of the options
The Braves have a few other starters in camp, all from the 40-man (the NRIs all project to be relievers), but there’s little belief among projection systems that Atlanta will get that far into their minor league depth for starts in 2025.
The other two to even get a projected start via FanGraphs are Hurston Waldrep (three starts, 4.43 ERA) and prospect Drue Hackenberg (2 starts, 4.54 ERA).
Again, as we’ve discussed in detail, Atlanta’s used between 10 and 13 traditional starters ever season of the last four.
From that December newsletter:
Seems like a safe bet that ten is the minimum again in 2025.
To get those ten (or more), Atlanta will once again dip into the depth they’ve built over the offseason. The other options not accounted for in the projections are Davis Daniel, Royber Salinas, and any prospects other than Hackenberg that get called up this year (like Lucas Braun or Ian Meija, among others.)
And any acquired frontline starter that AA gives up prospects for, of course.
Tarik Skubal and Hunter Greene at 6.3, Chris Sale at 6.2, Zack Wheeler at 6.1, Paul Skenes at 5.9, Erick Fedde at 5.6, Seth Lugo at 5.3, and Reynaldo López at 5.1
Jacob DeGrom suffered this same injury in 2022 and Michael Wacha had one in 2014, but those two are the only prominent examples I can find in baseball.
We’ve seen Holmes pitch in the bullpen already - he was 1-1 with a 3.12 ERA across 34.2 relief innings last year - but there are no career relief appearances on the books for Anderson in either the minors or majors.
I was fortunate enough to be at that game and it’s my fondest baseball memory.
He still allowed four runs in that game because of one mistake - after a single and two walks, he left a fastball over the plate that Wes Clark launched for a grand slam.