Do You Know How Good the Braves’ Rotation Is Going To Be? Because I Don’t

What follows is a brief summary of the modern history of the Atlanta Braves: six straight division titles from 2018 to 2023. That includes a World Series championship in 2021 and back-to-back 100-win seasons the following two years. I was tempted to caveat this by saying all this would’ve looked even more impressive if the Dodgers hadn’t ruined the curve, but in the 2020s, the Braves have been right there with them. Here’s a coincidence that’s nonetheless useful from a literary perspective: Brian Snitker is now one spot ahead of Bobby Cox on the career managerial winning percentage leaderboard.

In 2024, the Braves were still good, but not quite as good as before. There were reasons for this. After years of unusual lineup stability, everyone got hurt except for Marcell Ozuna, Matt Olson (who had a down year by his standards), and Orlando Arcia (who had a down year by Yuniesky Betancourt’s standards). Still, the Braves finished six games behind a Phillies team that came out of the gate like the 2001 Mariners but ended the season like, well, pick any subsequent Mariners team. The Braves needed a Game 162 win to grab a Wild Card berth, and didn’t do much with it, bowing out in straight sets to the Padres.

Will the Braves bounce back in 2025? I imagine so. If they get even 130 or 140 games out of Ronald Acuña Jr. instead of 49, that’d claw back most of that six-game deficit right there. But it’s not a certainty. I worry that the injury problems that plagued Atlanta last year were the start of a trend, rather than a fluke. (Recent developments surrounding Sean Murphy suggest this might be the case.)

The competition is stronger than ever. The Phillies remain as before. The Mets signed the best free agent on the market. Even the Nats showed signs of competence in 2024 and will only improve as their rookies sprout into the big league lineup. And with as many as four good teams in the NL West, there are suddenly not enough playoff berths to go around.

Given the relatively narrow margin for error in the NL pennant race — even for a team as loaded as the Braves — I wanted to point out something that startled me a little. Grant Holmes is currently listed as the Braves’ no. 4 starter. Holmes, who turns 29 at the end of the month, finally made the majors as a swingman last season and pitched pretty well (3.56 ERA and 3.20 FIP in 68 1/3 innings), but he’s not the kind of no. 4 starter a team gets when it aims to win 100 games.

Behind him: Ian Anderson, whom you surely remember as the youthful changeup-slinging monster who helped the Braves reach the NLCS in 2020 and win the World Series in 2021. Unfortunately, the 2021 World Series is the last time Anderson pitched well in the majors, and he hasn’t pitched in the big leagues at all since 2022. Nevertheless, he’s given reason for optimism in his two Grapefruit League starts so far.

If you’re bullish on the Braves this year, you’re probably wondering why I’m starting with the back of Atlanta’s rotation and not the front. Because Holmes or Anderson probably isn’t going to start a hypothetical playoff game. You know who would? Reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale. Spencer Strider, who’ll be back from internal brace reconstruction of his UCL sometime later this spring. Reynaldo López, whose conversion to the rotation last year was such a success he made the All-Star team. And Spencer Schwellenbach, who has the makings of a mid-rotation workhorse with so many effective pitches his catcher’s PitchCom needs to have an external keyboard plugged into its USB port.

You could argue that if Holmes and Anderson have the inside track on a rotation spot now, it’s because they’re both out of options. Meanwhile Atlanta’s two best remaining starting pitcher options might be AJ Smith-Shawver, the no. 40 prospect in baseball, and 2023 first-rounder Hurston Waldrep, whose splitter has driven me to fits of verbosity in the past.

But even if you accept that every rotation in baseball has concerns about injury or consistency, to a greater or lesser extent, Atlanta’s has a wider variance than most.

Last year, the Phillies had four starting pitchers reach the 150-inning mark. If you put together every starting pitcher in the Braves’ organization, you’d only be able to find four 150-inning major league seasons in the past six years: One each for Sale, Strider, Bryce Elder, and López, who last hit that mark with the White Sox in 2019. Can any of these guys be counted on to throw big innings in 2025? Smith-Shawver, Anderson, and Waldrep all have massive upside, but they combined to pitch just 11 1/3 innings in the majors last year, and Waldrep got crushed in both of his starts at the major league level.

That uncertainty is fascinating, especially in the context of the NL East race. Here are the top eight starting pitchers for the three teams most reasonable people expect to contend for that division. The stats are from this year’s ZiPS Depth Charts projections, and pitchers who are currently injured or being slow-walked into the season are highlighted in red.

The Phillies’ rotation was one of the strongest units in all of baseball last season. Sánchez might be taking another leap, Luzardo might be fixed, and the top pitching prospect in the game is on pace to join the team halfway through 2025. The Mets’ rotation has a load-bearing David Peterson.

Where do the Braves fit in that pecking order? Well, if Strider’s healthy, Sale and López repeat what they did last year, Anderson rediscovers his schwerve, and Smith-Shawver and Waldrep finally click at the big league level, Atlanta’s rotation ought to be just as good as Philadelphia’s at the top and deeper at the back end. If none of that happens, the Braves’ rotation could be just as shaky as the Mets’ staff.

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