Braves righty Spencer Strider is going to start the season on the injured list due to an oblique strain, manager Walt Weiss announced to the team’s beat this morning (via Mark Bowman of MLB.com). The team hasn’t provided a formal timeline, but even Grade 1 oblique strains can sideline players for around a month.
Strider, 27, last pitched a full season in 2023. He made only two starts in 2024 before requiring UCL surgery that would sideline him into the 2025 campaign. The rehab from that surgery, combined with a hamstring strain, limited Strider to 23 starts last year. He pitched 125 1/3 innings but worked with diminished velocity and overall stuff, leading to a 4.45 ERA and rate stats that were markedly worse than their pre-injury levels.
The hope had been for a healthier Strider to bounce back closer to his brilliant 2022-23 form. Instead, he’ll be the latest addition to a list of key players who are unavailable to begin the year. It’s been a nightmare spring for Atlanta. The Braves have lost righties Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep for months following surgeries to remove loose bodies from their elbows. Left-hander Joey Wentz tore his ACL and is out for the season. Shortstop Ha-Seong Kim suffered a hand injury in a fall before even reporting to camp and will be out for more than a month to begin the year. Left fielder/designated hitter Jurickson Profar was suspended for the entire season following a second positive PED test.
Atlanta’s lack of pitching depth has been a story throughout camp. With Strider headed to the injured list, the Braves will open the season with Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez and Grant Holmes as their top three starters. Lopez pitched only once last year due to shoulder surgery. Holmes suffered a UCL tear last summer and rehabbed it without surgery.
Plans beyond that top trio are murky for the time being. Right-hander Bryce Elder and left-hander José Suarez are out of minor league options and will presumably both make the roster, though either could be bound for the bullpen. Bowman calls Suarez a “likely” starter to begin the season and adds that the club could consider selecting the contract of non-roster veteran Martín Pérez, who’d previously been informed he was not making the club. Right-hander Didier Fuentes is still ticketed for the bullpen, Weiss tells Bowman.
It’s a paper-thin rotation group at this point, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos make some form of addition to further stockpile some depth. There ought to be several veterans opting out of/being released from minor league deals in the final days of camp, and arms of varying quality will be designated for assignment due to the annual Opening Day roster crunch.
It’s almost like AA should’ve added more depth…
As a Blue Jays fan I assure you, he’ll eventually trade all your prospects for some guys near the end of their career. Give him time.
The cupboard is already bare.
Ironically, JR Ritchie should step in quite nicely.
He’s been here 9 years. How much longer?
Let’s be real, he couldn’t have covered this even if he had added depth.
This coming from someone that is not an AA fan. You can’t build two full rotations, which at this point is pretty close to what some of you are saying about needing to add depth.
Should he have added one or two guys? Yeah but our position would still be pretty bleak even with those extra adds.
More importantly though, even if the team had stayed healthy, this isn’t a WS caliber team and needs to enter a rebuilding phase.
You keep blowing that same horn. Give it a rest.
It’s confusing to me that AA doesn’t take durability into consideration when building a pitching staff. I realize Cease was a bit expensive but Bassitt would have been an excellent signing in my opinion. Hoping and praying that Sale can keep his 37 year old body upright for six months.
No more diddling with Didier.
Eternal 2025
Hopefully this is the reason for his loss of velocity?
Didi
Gregorius. Well that’s not what you meant but the Braves could always use a new middle infielder.
Forget infielder, Braves might need him to pitch…
Cant throw 100 and a 90 slider every other pitch.
Early in his career, he modeled his approach after deGrom, who was regularly throwing his 101 mph fastball / 94 mph slider combo.
They all learn the hard way, eventually. And then they’re forced to *try* to learn how to pitch (not throw) post-surgery. If that is unsuccessful, then they learn a new career. Spencer’s lifelong dream of owning a business giving mustache rides to his community may come to fruition sooner than he expected.
Thank you expert. If only 1/3 of what you spit were true we’d all be surprised. But at least Braves fans have another built in excuse to explain failure of their pathetic team and they can keep racism going in the park.
Never Remember seems like an angry, bitter person. He also doesn’t tolerate people with differing opinions, as evidenced by his muting of me.
The AI touch on this comment is a little too heavy
Didn’t know those cause oblique strains. Did you even read the injury?
Braves2032:
Yes, I read the story. Last year’s hamstring injury and now the oblique is correlated to learning how to pitch and not throw, post-surgery. His lowered arm slot, 2-3 mph velocity dip and loss of induced vertical break on his fastball have resulted in the degradation of what was once a uniquely elite fastball to something closer to a league average offering. He’s fundamentally a different pitcher, but at least he has a sick mustache, bro.
2025 part 2: Electric Boogaloo
We still don’t need any pitching depth, we’re in a great spot smh….Out 6 weeks best case? This stinx.
Now who wants to throw away Elder???
He shouldn’t have been an option to begin with.
Elder will be the Braves #2 starting pitcher by June. You heard it here first.
Me! Me! MEEEEEE!!!! Didier, JR pounding on door. No reason Didier should be a long RP for even the first 13 games with Strider down.
Lucas Giol….nah why bother – won’t happen.
I was expecting to hear Lopez on the IL with his velocity being down. I guess that’s next week…
Yup. I’ll give him 2 starts then he’s done.
Yikes! Thats a shame.
Just sign Giolito already with their pitching staff someone is always bound to be hurt.
Giolito was injured at the end of last season and didn’t appear in the playoffs… after of course missing all of 2024. Not sure adding that track record to the Braves injury mix really helps all that much given that his medicals are probably a big part of the reason why he doesn’t have a contract already.
This is starting to look like the 2025 season on repeat…
Only if the Braves start 0 and 7
1st we all knew this was coming. They kept “hiding” strider on the backfields vs televised games. 2nd AA is crushing us by not going to get depth with a rotation that the entire world knew was a question mark just on their health alone. Sale, Strider, Holmes, Lopez, SS, were all GIANT questions marks and Waldrep should have been also with the most inning he ever threw last season. Throw in Wentz with the ACL and it’s a nightmare situation that a little depth could have gone a long way. 3rd Lopez’s velo was down 5-7 mph this weekend. Now they still made him throw 80 pitches but that’s a HUGE red flag. Hopefully they told him to dial it back 75% for that start just in hopes to prevent an injury, but expect him on the IL soon. If he goes down, now you can expect Elder to not only be our staple of health and #3, but possibly our # 2 if Holmes elbow (which was recommended to have TJ) goes out…. Nightmare situation AA. Do something
Perfect assessment of the state of their pitching staff.
I’m curious how this works. They lost 4 SPs. So does that mean they needed to have 4 extra SPs on the 26? So 9 SPs and 4 RPs? Or would the extra 4 SPs just be on the 40, but just minor league level talent?
No they phantom IL starters in a staggered fashion like the Dodgers do lol…Have 8 SPs that rotate on and off. Works for them pretty well.
The Dodgers’ phantom IL stints are not talked about enough. They had one player, Yamamoto, throw more than 100 innings last season.
As much as I like complaining about AA ignoring the rotation every off-season; if us keyboard warriors can assess the obvious then I’m sure AA knows the same and more….There has to be a reason he’s not allowed to sign FA starters we aren’t privy too. Only thing I can come up with is that they draft so much pitching he’s forced to pick from that pool. ‘Spend all this draft capital on pitchers you better use them’? Backed himself into a corner, who knows.
Anyone who says Giolito isn’t an upgrade now is just being stubborn, just sign the guy
It’s too late. Giolito is an upgrade over Martin Perez. But at this time it would be at least 2 or 3 weeks before he can start
Have you ever wondered why NO ONE has signed him?
JR Ritchie and Didier not working at long RP > Giolito
That’s ok AA still like the Braves playoff rotation
Looks like this rotation is officially in the dumpster. Stinky. Headed by a 56 year old Chris Sale, and good lord if he goes down. This organization just can’t avoid embarassment and disappointment atp.
The definition of a poverty franchise. Once heralded for their pitching reduced to a bottom 5 rotation in baseball. Sad.
The Braves are nowhere near a poverty franchise. That’s the most ridiculous statement especially since they’ve only had one losing season since 2017
This rotation is dead. Braves fans must hope that this injury makes AA want to sign Giolito or someone.
Everyone still avoiding the rebuild????
Keep delaying it and let your denial compound this into a longer stretch than necessary
Because of course our opinions affect what Anthopoulos does.
Of course
I ,a supporter of undogs, declare the Braves my choice to win their division.
Giolito would probably take several weeks to get game-ready, so he isn’t the solution.
Either way is going to take him several weeks to get game ready. Whether they sign him today, 6 weeks ago, or a month from now. We keep saying that over and over as an excuse to not sign him. At some point they’ll need another arm or two or three.
A little of topic but how many teams are in the same situation. And baseball wants expansion? Are there enough “quality” pitchers to staff the teams today?
It doesn’t help that MLB cut 59 minor league teams and shortened the draft.
Correction: 43 teams.
Filing them in the seller column before the season even begins.
Even rays & dodgers have never had such bad luck with SP… the f is happening in atlanta??
Performance enhancers causing accelerated breakdown of muscle, tendons and ligaments.
Are the Braves snakebit or are they not handling young pitchers well? It seems like a lot of their young pitchers have great years and are soon suffering significant injuries.
Bryce Elder will once again be the Braves internal CY Young winner LOL
You’re severely undervaluing Carlos Carrasco’s value to this pitching staff. His “great clubhouse guy” metric will surely make him this year’s staff mvp.
I can’t even hit my own weight which is not much, and I couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn, but I could’ve been the highest paid person in major league baseball if I had only went to medical school and became The Braves team doctor. Business is always booming whether it be in season or in the off season.
Very unfortunate, as a Mets fan I would have liked to face them at their best. Nevertheless, injuries are part of the game and we do know about that as we started last year in the same boat as the Braves. This is the time to allow those young prospects to shine at the MLB level and just maybe they can overcome those injuries.