So, I guess they’re really doing this, huh? We’ve been hearing more and more from the Braves (particularly President of Baseball Operations/GM Alex Anthopoulos) about how the club is reportedly pretty confident in their internal options and are willing to let the fifth spot in the rotation be an open competition instead of going out and snapping up another starting pitcher, either via trade or free agency.
It would be understandable to think that this might be a GM-speak smokescreen of sorts since
I’m certain that the Braves wouldn’t be the only team looking to give their rotation a last-minute boost at this stage in the baseball calendar. Well, apparently it’s not a smokescreen and this is just the way it’s going to be. Gabe Burns of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that one name that the Braves were previously linked to was actually a bit overblown. Lucas Giolito’s name has been associated with the Braves for long portions of the offseason and as it turns out, you should probably hold off on getting your Giolito jerseys any time soon.
There have been reports linking the Braves to free-agent starter Lucas Giolito, but any connection between the parties has been overstated, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned. The Braves haven’t been involved in Giolito’s market.
That also explains why the Braves didn’t exactly go hard on pursuing Chris Bassitt before he got picked up by the Orioles. Here’s more from that article from Burns:
The Braves also didn’t seriously pursue veteran Chris Bassitt, whom many speculated was a logical fit and would’ve been welcomed in the clubhouse.
The only conclusion to make here is that the Braves are likely dead serious about feeling confident in their internal options. The natural thing to do next is to mosey on over to FanGraphs to take a look at what the Braves depth chart is looking like when it comes to their rotation. You’ve got the four names that the team has mentioned since spring training began: Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Reynaldo López and Grant Holmes. Then you have the fifth spot, which is projected to be filled by none other than Bryce Elder, himself.
Again: As long as Elder isn’t at the top of the “Innings Pitched” leaderboard for this team, this might end up being fine. If Elder stays in that fifth spot and can simply eat innings while (hopefully) avoiding his habit of grooving at least one or even two pitches right down the middle for them to get hit to the moon then this should be fine! However, if the rotation continues to struggle with health like they did last season then there’s a very good chance that this could come back to bite this ballclub in the butt. Again, the internal depth for this pitching staff isn’t exactly encouraging and it surely doesn’t help quell any anxiety to see guys like Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep go down this early in the season’s calendar.
Perhaps that explains why the team didn’t get aggressive in pursuing starting pitching in free agency. I suppose they figure that as long as both Schwellenbach and Waldrep have a smooth recovery and that the rotation stays healthy then this will be a perfectly fine rotation. To be fair to the front office, things did work out with the pitching staff as recently as 2024, which the GM will be quick to remind anybody who asks that they led the league in ERA (ERA-, FIP and FIP- as well) during that campaign. From that 2024 rotation, Chris Sale is still here alongside Reynaldo López and (hopefully at some point) Spencer Schwellenbach will be able to contribute as well.
With that being said, banking on a repeat of 2024 would be about as risky of a bet as saying that the entire rotation is going to get seriously injured yet again. The hope is for this part rotation to land somewhere in the upper-middle portion between those two extremes and if things go right as far as health is concerned, that could very well be the case.
Still, I really don’t think it was the best idea to simply run it back with the internal depth instead of seriously pursuing some outside options. Of course, I’m just a blogger and for all we know, the Braves may have simply just hit their ceiling as far as the budget is concerned (which is not the same as being cheap — again, this roster was shooting for a Top 5 payroll and very nearly reached that space) and the corporate overlords running the team simply weren’t willing to move the ceiling any higher. That could also explain why the team went to arbitration with Dylan Lee over $200 thousand but that’s another story for another day.
I think we’re all hoping that it works out with this rotation but if it doesn’t then your concerns are totally valid! We’ll see what happens, y’all.
