This rotation has the potential to brilliant. It also has the potential to have a collective rapid unscheduled disassembly. Sure hope it’s the former!
The starting rotation in 2025 for the Atlanta Braves figures to be incredibly fascinating. It’s probably the positional unit on this team with the biggest possible variance of results heading into this season. If all goes well, it’s going to be another year of seeing Atlanta’s rotation putting the rest of baseball in the Cobra Clutch. If things go wrong then, well, the offense is going to have to score a whole entire bushel of runs this season and we might be looking at the opposite of what happened last season in order for the Braves to stay in the race for October relevancy.
Let’s not waste any more time and get right into looking at the starters for the Braves because there’s a lot to talk about with this collection of pitchers.
Chris Sale
Last season was simply incredible for Chris Sale, as the veteran hurler immediately found success in Atlanta following his trade from Boston. It was one ting to have hope that Sale could simply be a reliable arm in the rotation — it was a completely different thing to see him reach back and grab some of what he had back in his prime. Partly thanks to having a fully healthy offseason and spring training for the first time in what feels like ages, Sale was able to eventually get into a serious groove and the rest is history. Just as a reminder, Sale finished 2024 with an ERA of 2.38, an ERA- of 57, a FIP of 2.09 and a FIP- of 53 — all of those numbers were at or near the top of baseball’s leaderboards and close to career lows for Sale as he took home plenty of individual hardware in the Fall.
With Sale, there’s two big questions: Can he keep this going and can he stay healthy? While it may be a bit harsh to question him after such a strong season, he is heading into his age-36 season and he does have an extensive injury history. With that being said, we’ve seen a handful of pitchers in Sale’s generation figure out a way to defy Father Time much longer than expected and maybe Sale will be the next one to do so. Sale should also have some motivation to do it all over again after his 2024 season had such a bitter ending with the back spasms that kept him out of the final part of the season.
I’d imagine that it’ll all come down to whether or not he can stay healthy. He’s proven that if he can stay healthy and cross the 150 IP mark then he’ll be among some of the top pitchers in all of baseball. If he stays healthy then the rest will come along and we won’t have to worry about whether or not Sale can keep it up.
Spencer Strider
I was thinking that maybe I could just post this video and let y’all decide whether or not he’s going to be good or not once the season rolls around. Y’all would be good with that, right?
We do need to chat about him, though. Having Spencer Strider back and healthy should provide a huge boost to this rotation. When we last saw Strider on the mound, he had just got done having a season where he recorded a 3.86 ERA, an 87 ERA-, a 2.85 FIP and a 67 FIP- for a grand total of 5.5 fWAR on the season. That was after he fully emerged onto the baseball scene and finished his rookie season with 4.9 fWAR. This may come as a shock but I think this fella is pretty good at throwing the baseball, y’all.
Just like Chris Sale, the main question with Strider is whether or not he can stay healthy. If he can stay healthy, then watch out. If they both stay healthy, then watch out — especially in October as this would serve as an extremely imposing 1-2 punch in a Postseason scenario. It’ll be very intriguing to see how they handle his return, though. You have to imagine that the Braves are definitely going to try to ease him back into things without expecting him to just go full tilt right out of the gate. With that being said, he’s already back to hitting near-triple digits on the radar gun and could eventually return to reaching back and throwing 100-mph once he’s fully healthy again. Either way, the expectations for Strider are lofty but if there’s anybody who’s itching to meet those expectations then it’s certainly Strider.
Reynaldo López
While it may not have been on the level of Chris Sale’s re-emergence as an elite pitcher, Reynaldo López certainly opened up plenty of eyes across the baseball world with his performance last season. Despite having not been a regular starter since 2019, López delivered what was easily the best season of his career with a 1.99 ERA, an ERA- of 49 (!!!), a FIP of 2.92 and a FIP- of 74. Needless to say, a repeat of that performance here in 2025 would be absolutely fantastic for the Braves and they’d take it 10 times out of 10.
While injuries and general healthy may not be as big of a question for López as it is for the other two pitchers that we’ve mentioned so far, the big question with López is whether or not he can prove that 2024 was just an otherworldly season for him. Based on Atlanta’s track record of developing pitchers and getting the best out of them, I’m willing to believe that López will continue to be a reliable option as a starter going forward.
They’ll apparently be giving him a longer leash and more opportunities next season, as he’s publicly stated that his goal in 2025 is to make 30-35 starts and get 200 IP under his belt. If he can continue to miss plenty of bats with his four-pitch combo that he utilized to great effect last season while ramping up in terms of innings pitched, he could be in line for a great season. I think we’d all be satisfied with him simply getting close to what he did last season but if he can meet his self-imposed high expectations then this is just yet another effective rotational arm to rely on going forward.
Spencer Schwellenbach
Just like the other Spencer in this rotation, Spencer Schwellenbach is entering his second season looking to improve upon an absolute banger of a rookie season. Schwellenbach finished 2024 as one of the top rookie pitchers in all of business and for a hot second it seemed like Schwellenbach could actually go stride-for-stride with the likes of Paul Skenes. While Skenes hit a new level and won the NL Rookie of the Year with relative ease and was even a finalist for the NL Cy Young, Schwellenbach had to “settle” for simply being one of the top five rookie pitchers in all of baseball according to fWAR (2.6).
With that being said, the main question here is one that every once-promising rookie has to deal with as they enter their sophomore season: Can they do it again? Personally, I think that he’s the real deal and a lot of it has to do with the fact that he’s also one of the more unpredictable pitchers in baseball due to the fact that he’s got such a deep bag of tricks when it comes to his pitching arsenal.
Good luck to opposing batters who have to face this guy knowing that he could throw you any one of six pitches at any given moment — with all of those pitches either having a neutral Run Value of zero in 2024 (his four-seamer and sinker) or a positive Run Value above zero (his slider, cutter, curveball and splitter were all labeled as plus pitches last season). He’s also tough for opposing batters to deal with since he very rarely walks opposing batters. It can’t be fun dealing with Schwellenbach as a hitter, which is why I’m thrilled that he pitches for the Braves.
The fifth (and sixth) spot
This is the part where things start to get especially intriguing because these spots could go to any one (or two) of four pitchers. It may not be Ian Anderson, however — while Anderson has been doing an incredible job of walking the tightrope here in spring, he’s still having noticeable issues when it comes to his command and walking batters. While it could be down to him simply using spring training to work out some of the kinks, a 9.53 walks per nine innings rate and a 24 percent walk rate is absolutely wild to see in spring training and it’s the type of thing where if he gets into that type of trouble in the regular season against big league lineups, he’s going to get lit up.
Still, Anderson’s out of options and the Braves don’t seem interested in letting him go so it seems like he’ll get a chance to figure it out in the rotation. The Braves have been known to zig when people expect them to zag and this could be an example.
Grant Holmes is also out of options but he feels a bit more reliable and stable option to be the fifth starter than any of the contenders for that spot. It’s pretty safe to assume that they’ll be leaning on him as the fourth starter until Spencer Strider returns from injury. You can do better than having Grant Holmes in that role but you can certainly do a lot worse than having a guy who just got done having a season where he finished with an ERA of 3.56 (85 ERA-) and a FIP of 3.20 (81 FIP-) as your fourth starter for maybe a month or so. He’s also extremely adaptive and has done a good job of stepping into any scenario that the Braves throw him into and I’d imagine that’ll continue here in 2025.
AJ Smith-Shawver may have been given a bit of a raw deal over the past couple of seasons by having been thrust into the pressure cooker that is Postseason baseball with a very limited level of big league experience (much less playoff experience!). He had a perfectly fine outing against the Cubs during his only regular season appearance in 2024 but based on what he’s done so far in spring training, it’s evident that he appears poised to actually show what he can really do on the mound once he gets a chance that’s more amenable to success. It’s safe to assume that we’ll see him getting starts for the Braves this season — the only question is whether or not he did enough to join the team once Opening Day rolls around.
Bryce Elder certainly hasn’t had the best spring training in the world and he certainly qualifies as a rank outsider to make the Opening Day roster based on how he’s fared in Florida so far. With that being said, it’s easy to envision him making some starts for the Braves this season if the rotation starts feeling it as far as injuries are concerned. THe good news is that he’s added a bit of velocity on his fastball but the bad news is that he’s having issues locating it (and the rest of his arsenal), so it’s a mixed bag for Elder as a result. The guy just can’t stop being a baseball enigma.
Outlook
I know that was a lot but this rotation really does have endless possibilities — both in a good way and in a bad way. It’s easy to see this rotation being dominant once again and it’s just as easy to see it all blowing up in Atlanta’s face. This is the part where I say that the Braves probably should’ve done a better job of guarding against volatility by going out and finding a proven rotation arm on the free agency or trade market — especially with Max Fried and Charlie Morton both leaving town to head to the AL East.
Still, the Braves appear confident in their internal options and the players themselves all feel like they’ve got something to prove. It’s going to be incredibly interesting to see how this crew fares going forward and here’s hoping that this ends up being another great season for this collection of hurlers.