In what promises to be a uniquely challenging winter, the Atlanta Braves will once again be in the market for starting pitching. Whether Alex Anthopoulos chooses to address the need for innings via free agency or trade, the Braves simply cannot afford to let this box on their offseason shopping list go unchecked.
Before we get started, let me be clear: pitching is not this club’s only need. A large portion of blame for the Braves’ most recent October ouster should be placed at the feet of a largely
unproductive lineup. That is a group with its own set of needs and questions to answer.
Where will the Braves rotation get its innings from in 2027?
While Atlanta routinely finds ways to cover innings in the regular season, the rotation was routinely undone by untimely injuries in each of its past five trips to the postseason. There is no way to prevent or even predict the injury issues, but recognizing the possibility is essential. Failing to add proven reinforcements has certainly contributed to this annual issue.
After mixing and matching their way through bullpen-heavy usage this October, the Braves’ rotation situation moving forward appears to have reached a tipping point due to the uncertainty about several of their internal options and the lack of proven veterans after ace Chris Sale.
Anthopoulos stated his desire to add a playoff-caliber starter last winter. That need is once again front and center as the club looks to build a World Series contender.
On the surface, it would be fair to say Atlanta got more than adequate production from its rotation in 2026. Braves starters finished sixth in Major League Baseball with a 3.76 ERA, ranked 11th in innings pitched with 839.1 IP, and produced a composite 10.7 fWAR, which ranked 16th in baseball – Sale (5.8 fWAR) accounted for more than half of that, however.
Of course, Atlanta seems to traverse each winter with an ever-present uncertainty about the names that will comprise their starting five. The current lack of clarity underscores their need for continuity, consistency, production and upside. All of the above in some order.
Atlanta has a bevy of rotation candidates but just as many questions surrounding where the innings will actually come from and just what the quality of those innings will be. We’ll delve into roughly a dozen names, but many, if not most, come with conditional concerns.
The Braves simply cannot count on several of the in-house options that have been unable to stay healthy and contribute.
The Veterans: Chris Sale, Bryce Elder, Grant Holmes
Everything good about the Braves rotation starts with Chris Sale. They’re just hoping it doesn’t end there. Sale has been everything Atlanta could have imagined and then some since coming over from the Boston Red Sox in a trade in the winter of 2023.
In three seasons in a Braves uniform, Sale has pitched to a 2.36 ERA – tops in MLB since 2024 – while posting a 15.9 fWAR in 76 starts. Only Tarik Skubal (18.0) and Cristopher Sanchez (17.4) boast a higher fWAR, with each throwing significantly more innings than Sale (466 IP), who missed a couple of months in 2025 after suffering a fractured ribcage while diving to make a play. Sale, who is MLB’s all-time leader among pitchers with at least 2,000 innings with 11.1 K/9 during his 17-year career, has been even better with Atlanta. His 11.39 K/9 trails only Garrett Crochet (11.82) and Dylan Cease (11.59) over the past three years.
Sale led the Braves with 162.2 IP last season and will enter his age-38 season in 2027. While he is showing no signs of slowing down, can Sale continue to produce at a Hall of Fame level as he continues a career that should lead him to Cooperstown? Atlanta certainly needs him to.
Beyond their ace left-hander, the Braves received 300.2 IP from the righty combo of Bryce Elder and Grant Holmes. Holmes (151.2) actually ended up finishing second on the team in innings, due in part to Elder’s late-season knee surgery. He finished with 149 IP as a result. The two provided a 3.77 ERA across 55 starts, but that came along with a 4.68 FIP and 7.0 K/9.
Holmes chose to rehab the torn UCL that ended his 2025 season in July rather than undergo Tommy John surgery that would’ve sidelined him for up to 18 months and cost him the chance to pitch at all last year. It would appear that decision was a sound one, but will he continue to hold a spot in the rotation for another full season?
Elder has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride since debuting in 2022. At his best, he’s a capable starter who takes the ball every fifth day and keeps the rotation on track. Unfortunately, the results aren’t always there and his performance can swing wildly from effective to erratic. Over the past two seasons, Elder led all Atlanta pitchers with 305 innings but turned in a 4.72 ERA and 2.1 fWAR in 54 starts.
Atlanta expects Elder to be ready to pitch in Spring Training, so he will likely factor into the plans in some form or fashion. Despite having surgery in September to clean up some bone fragments that caused swelling in his right knee, Elder was hoping to pitch again in 2026 had the Braves continued to advance in the postseason. Whether or not he would have is unclear and ultimately a moot point.
When he’s operating at the back end of the rotation, Elder is a serviceable starter for the most part. Where the team and Elder seem to run into trouble is when he is forced into a larger role.
The Unknowns: Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Reynaldo Lopez
Easily the most frustrating aspect of Atlanta’s rotation issues is the fact that two All-Stars and a third pitcher who was well on his way to establishing himself as a front of the rotation arm are all facing significant questions about their futures.
Spencer Strider, now 28 years old, was supposed to be well into his prime years as a staff ace. After an incredible rookie season, Atlanta signed Strider to a six-year, $75 million contract extension that runs through 2028 and includes a club option for 2029. He rewarded the club by winning 20 games in 2023 and leading the major leagues with 281 strikeouts – a new Braves franchise record. Strider appeared poised to lead the rotation for the remainder of the decade.
All of that momentum came to a screeching halt in 2024 when he was forced to undergo elbow surgery in April to correct an issue with his previously replaced UCL. Strider made just two starts that season and then missed an entire year. He returned in April of 2025 but has been enigmatic at best. With his arsenal clearly not playing the same, Strider has struggled to regain his form and avoid various injuries that cost him even more time over the past two years.
Last season, Strider made just eight starts and pitched to a 5.31 ERA. He allowed nine home runs in just 39 innings while posting a career-worst 4.6 BB/9. Strider’s fastball has become more hittable over the past three seasons as velocity dipped, leading to a decrease in four-seamer usage and reliance on secondary pitches that have not made up the difference in whiff rate.
Strider made his final start on June 12 against the Mets at Citi Field. He was rocked for seven earned runs and three homers in just three innings of work. He was pulled from the game after his fastball velocity suddenly dropped into the high-80s. Strider was examined for both elbow and shoulder soreness but no structural problems were found. He was placed on the injured list but eventually resumed throwing bullpen sessions by season’s end according to Anthopoulos.
After missing the final 3 1/2 months of 2026 with elbow inflammation, the questions surrounding Strider are louder than ever. What version of Strider will we see going forward? Can he finally get his career back on track? How much can the Braves bank on his contributions in 2027?
Those same questions surround the future of Spencer Schwellenbach.
The talented right-hander quickly established himself as one of the best young pitchers in baseball during his 2024 rookie season and appeared to be taking his game to the next level in 2025. Over the course of 234 innings in his first two years, Schwellenbach posted a 3.23 ERA (3.27 FIP) and fanned 235 batters while issuing just 41 walks.
Schwellenbach works with a six-pitch mix, one of the many impressive things about the way he carved up opposing lineups. With his four-seamer touching 100 mph as 2025 wore on, it truly appeared everything was coming together for Schwellenbach. Then a fractured elbow put him on the shelf for the remainder of that season and kept him off the mound again in 2026.
After rehabbing the fracture, Schwellenbach encountered issues with the elbow again in Spring Training. He underwent surgery to remove bone spurs in February and encountered more pain when he ramped up throwing later in the season. After a lost season, Schwellenbach ultimately had a screw surgically inserted in his previously fractured elbow. This is a procedure that very few pitchers have returned from. That places even longer odds that Schwellenbach can resume his promising career.
Alex Anthopoulos had the following to say when updating the status and expectations for Strider and Schwellenbach as the team makes its pitching plans this winter.
“I think from a planning standpoint, I don’t think it’d be responsible to sit here and say those guys are going to start 30 games and throw 180 innings. So, that’s something we’re definitely going to have to account for and talk about where we’re going to get our innings for next season,” Anthopoulos said.
“I remember telling Grant Holmes last offseason at the beginning, how he progressed was going to tell us what his potential role would be and how we would bank him and so on in terms of anything. So, if you sit here today, I don’t think you’re going to see us come in and say that we expect [Strider and Schwellenbach] to be locks in the rotation with Sale.”
Another arm that the Braves cannot count on is Reynaldo Lopez. He turns 33 years old in January and enters the final year of a re-worked contract and is due $8 million next season.
Lopez underwent shoulder surgery after making just one start in 2025. Upon returning this year, he struggled to regain his velocity, often citing mechanical adjustments as the main culprit. While Lopez occasionally showed flashes of the pitcher who turned in a 1.99 ERA in 25 starts during his All-Star campaign in 2024, he did not enjoy that kind of success.
After just five starts last season, the Braves shifted Lopez to the bullpen for two months. He returned to the rotation in late June and finished with a 4.54 ERA in 79.1 IP. The fastball velocity that was once routinely in the high 90s dipped to a career-low 94.4 mph on average with opponents batting over .300 against the pitch for the first time in his 11-year career.
Could he start for Atlanta in 2027? Sure, he could be asked to do so. Whether or not he should start may be the better question. If Lopez moves back to a relief role, there is a chance he could provide more benefit to the pitching staff. A successful reliever for several years before signing with the Braves, Lopez expressed a desire to start again and Atlanta was open to the idea and rewarded with a fine season in 2024. Given the shoulder surgery, lost time and inconsistent results that followed, Lopez simply may not be able to recapture that magic.
We’ll have more to talk about in a follow-up piece to this article tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.
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