The Braves are set to promote right-handed pitching prospect Spencer Strider to the Majors this weekend, as first reported by Eric Cole of Talking Chop. He’ll work out of the Atlanta bullpen and give the Braves a highly intriguing postseason option. More specifically, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets that he’ll be added to the big league roster today.
It’s the culmination of a remarkable, meteoric rise through the Braves’ farm system. Strider, 22, was selected in the fourth round of the 2020 draft and barely pitched in 2020 due to the NCAA shutdown and the canceled minor league season. He opened the 2021 season with the Braves’ Low-A affiliate but has skyrocketed to the Majors with outrageous strikeout numbers across four different minor league affiliates. The Clemson product pitched to a 0.59 ERA in Low-A, a 2.45 ERA in Class-A Advanced, a 4.71 ERA in Double-A and recently struck out the side in his Triple-A debut.
While the combined 3.64 ERA doesn’t necessarily jump out, Strider’s power arsenal certainly does. He’s punched out 153 batters in 94 innings this season — 39.3 percent of the 389 hitters he’s faced overall. David O’Brien of The Athletic tweets that Strider’s fastball was up to 101 mph in his recent Triple-A debut.
In the long run, the Braves will likely give Strider the opportunity to continue developing as a starting pitcher. That Triple-A debut this week was the lone relief appearance of the season, as all 21 of his other outings have been starts. That said, Baseball America noted when listing Strider sixth among Atlanta farmhands on their midseason rankings that because of his Tommy John surgery in college, a relatively slight size (six feet tall) and below-average command, he may ultimately settle in as a power reliever anyhow.
For now, Strider gives Braves fans even more to be excited for over the final weekend and gives manager Brian Snitker a potential relief weapon that postseason opponents won’t have had a first-hand look at. He’ll technically require commissioner approval to be added to the postseason roster as an injury replacement, because he wasn’t on the 40-man roster on Sept. 1. However, such replacements are reasonably common, and it seems unlikely the Braves would’ve called Strider up for the final three games if they weren’t at least contemplating him as an option for the looming NLDS.
EXCELLENT! Yea!
Is this the guy who the Braves got a lot of flak for drafting because at the time he had only had 1 good college season and it was the shortened season? I remember there was some guy the Braves took between 2 and 4 in that draft who always had nasty strikeout stuff about also always had huge ERA’s because he couldn’t stop walking guys. Then in the shortened college season he just stopped walking guys almost altogether and his other stuff was still really nasty so he finished the season well with a ton of strikeouts and very few walks. A lot of people blasted the Braves at the time because I think his collegiate ERA was over 6 or something. I didn’t think I was too bad at the time though because that was only caused by all the walks and he didn’t do that anymore. I know a lot of people thought the sample size was way to small to outweigh his career college numbers but when a developing pitcher whose only real problem is walks fixes that problem it seemed like he was evolving to me. If this is the same guy it seems the Braves were right and the reach worked. I think it was only a 5 round draft that year and this guy wasn’t projected to get drafted at all. It’s a risk AA likes to take though when a pitcher has a breakout year with a high strikeout/low walk percentage. The risk didn’t pay off with the acquisition of Smyly but this seems to have paid off so far and I think he made this move around the same time he did it with Smyly.
no joke, I got a pro debut card of this dude the other day and was legitimately confused as to who he was. but those Minors numbers are…interesting.
I’ve been following this kids progression all season. In A ball and AA, it wasn’t even fair. He was clearly THAT much better than his competition. Let’s hope that continues!
his ERA was near 5 in double A not that dominant
Drink that koolaid!
Yeah. Now that I’m looking into this is the same guy I mentioned above. The Braves got absolutely blasted for drafting him by some analysts but right now it looks like he really did finally learn how to pitch his last year in college like the Braves hoped. He just could not stop walking guys in his first college years but his last year he finally did it. It seems like the Braves definitely believe in him but I haven’t checked out his minors stats since he was drafted. Does anyone know if he has continued his trend of keeping walks under control or did he revert back to his old earlier college ways with a ton of walks? That’s really the only question with this guy. The massive strikeout numbers are definitely going to be there if he stays healthy. He could turn into a dominant TOR ace with his stuff or he could end up taking the Luke Jackson rout. It all depends on the free passes. Strider and Jackson both remind me of the guy the Braves took in the 1st round of the most recent draft. It seems like they are taking risks but going with pitchers they think have really high upside. Either way this goes down, like you said, at the very least it should be very interesting. A pitcher who throws 101+ with a boatload of strikeouts is always interesting. It’ll be the good kind of interesting if he minimizes his walks. It’ll be the bad kind of interesting if he doesn’t. I just hope he doesn’t get the butterflies from making it to the show by trying to be too perfect. That’s how you get in trouble with bases on balls. With the stuff this guy has he should really just be trying to make certain every pitch is a strike and let them hit it if they can.
He had some issues with walks early in his AA promotion, but he worked on that issue and went on to have a 2.85 bb/9 for the last 2 months(excluding a AA postseason start). I hope he keeps that up and limits not just the walks but also the homers.
is there risk of lingering injury though? cant help but be concerned given he played very little at Clemson and throws the ball super hard.
Even more reason to use him now instead of waste him on getting “seasoning”.
Interesting, kinda odd that he wasn’t brought up prior to get some kind of experience before being thrown to the wolves in the pressure packed playoffs. Will be interesting to see
He is probably just here to play the Mets.
Not to be confused with Spence Olchin, 153 wiffs in 94 innings – hell yea, give this boy a shot!
I mean, he helped Mississippi win a champ, plus this is really his first year. He’s looks lights out. Throws gas
Considering the MiLB season is over, this is a way to continue Strider’s development on a club that needs some IP in the ‘pen and could benefit from someone with swing and miss stuff. Considering Newcomb was sent down to make room for Strider — I have a lot more confidence in Strider than Newcomb — but that’s not saying much. Ballsy move, but imagine the confidence that could be gained (or shattered….) pitching meaningful IP…and a club that believes in you to do it.
“Below average command”
The trademark of Braves pitching prospects.
I wish him well. It would be good to have a reliable flamethrower in the pen.
His “below average command” was during his time at Clemson.
You could say that about 98% of the pitching prospects in MiLB. They often get drafted because of their raw stuff, then harness it along the way. The rare breeds are the ones going in the top-10 that have already shown glimpses of that against inferior batters. The true test is does their stuff play and how well they can make adjustments.
Not every guy can rock a mustache at age 22 but Spencer does, so I like him.
Josh Tomlin has a doppelganger. Hope he’s his replacement.
This is kinda surprising but I’m glad he’s getting a look.
Saw him pitch earlier this year here in North Augusta. His stuff was nasty.
Nice! They announced Bryce Elder as the Braves minor league pitcher of the year, but I was really rooting for Strider. Looks like he got something better than an award…he got the call! Hope those gaudy strikeout numbers play.
I thought Strider would have made a good Ranger.
The joke I came here for, bravo!
Yeah. SoCal Brave is right. In the shortened season before the Braves drafted this guy his walks all but disappeared. All his numbers on the season looked pretty stellar as a result. When they drafted him a lot of people said it was too risky due to the small sample size but the Braves said they believed he had made a change and they were getting in early because they believed that was a start of a complete change in his career trajectory. So far it looks like they were right because he hasn’t really had any issues walking batters since at least 2019. My guess is Strider is just here for the Mets even though he’s playoff eligible. If I were them I would just give him the start tonight. Let Strider, Smyly, Touki, Tomlin and maybe Newcomb try to eat up all these innings in the last 3 games. Let’s keep Fried, Morton, Anderson, Ynoa and all the other bullpen guys fresh for the Brew Crew. Let all the infielders get the next couple games off as well. The Braves have the hardest working infield in baseball. Albies has played the least of any of them and he’s still only missed a few games. He would lead most teams in games played even though he’s the Braves least playing infielder. I think Swanson, Riley and Freeman have only missed about 5 games combined so give them rest too. At one point less than a month ago it was actually looking more likely than not Swanson would play every single game this season. Freddi and Riley I think have each only missed about 2 games apiece. Rumor has it Freeman wouldn’t let anyone take a day off unless they were actually injured. He said if you’re sore you’re not injured but just hurt. He said if you’re a starter and the injury won’t get worse if you play you have to play because the starters at 80% are better than the backups at 100%. I think Swanson only missed 1 game and Snitker had to call Freddie at 1:00 in the morning to tell Freddie not to be too hard on him for the one game because Snitker made the call and was forcing him to take the day off. Freddie still took Swanson’s jersey off the wall in the clubhouse and told him he could put it back up after he started his next game. I have a link to an interesting article about it if anyone is interested. It’s on Yahoo Sports and written by a girl named Hannah something.
When I see strikeout-to-innings ratios like that I cringe a bit. I just hope the kid can stay healthy and free of future TJ surgery. I’d like to see him have a solid career.
Hopefully he wasn’t rushed. While it’s cool he’s made after 1 season, this seems like it could go horribly wrong. Good luck to him though.
Has a crazy, Trevor Bauer look about his eyes.
“pitched to a 0.59 ERA in Low-A, a 2.45 ERA in Class-A Advanced, a 4.71 ERA in Double-A
and struck out the side in his Triple-A debut.”…
I wish Steve Adams had led with the more statistically based accomplishments the next paragraph. Then the quoted above. Because I kept re-reading the above a dozen times trying to figure out what was significant about it to deserve promotion, thinking I had missed something. Then the next paragraph explains why.
Yeah buddy! Shuster had the same concerns and has been looking great since signing. Edit: Shuster has had HR issues butt form what I’ve seen it’s less control issues and more development issues (new league/working on pitches)
Haha “butt form”
Fun with typos
“he may ultimately settle in as a power reliever anyhow.”
That’s the Kieth Law/Baseball America “secret” to projecting pretty much all pitching prospects. Turns out to be true lots (most?) of the time. But it does always kind of strike me as a CYA take.
oh, it’s a huge cop out imo.
What’s crazy is the Braves entire 2020 Draft could reach the majors, albeit it was only 4 picks (lost 2nd rd pick for signing Will Smith). But still: Bryce Elder was 2021 Braves MiLB pitcher of the year, Strider is coming up, Shuster was the 1st rd pick, Jesse Franklin has looked good.