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Braves To Place Max Fried On Injured List

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Braves’ manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including David O’Brien of The Athletic) that ace Max Fried will go on the injured list as he manages a hamstring problem. Fried exited his Opening Day start after just 43 pitches. It seems the team is in no hurry to make the move official though, and may wait until Fried’s next spot (Wednesday against the Cardinals) to finalize the move.

While the news that Fried is IL-bound is never positive, there’s still nothing to suggest his injury is any more or less concerning than when Snitker initially indicated he’d probably head to the IL after his start. Snitker indicated at the time that Fried may only miss one start, so unless anything changes there seems to be a good chance that Fried only misses the mandatory 15 days. Since up to three days of backdating can be attached to IL placements, Fried’s placement might technically begin on April 2, assuming he is indeed officially sent to the injured list on Wednesday.

A short trip to the IL is undoubtedly positive news for Atlanta, but it’s always a tough blow to lose the ace of the staff early in the season. Fried has been exceptional in the past few years, working to a 2.69 ERA across 407 innings between 2020-22. The best of those years came last season when he finished second in NL Cy Young voting to Miami’s Sandy Alcantara on the back of 185 1/3 innings of 2.48 ERA ball, which included an elite 4.4% walk rate.

It’s unclear yet who the Braves will turn to in Fried’s place on Wednesday, and their rotation picture has been muddied a little by the spring injuries to Kyle Wright and Mike Soroka. Wright is on the IL while Soroka is at Triple-A building back up after only getting one start late in spring training. Wright can’t return until April 11, and MLB.com’s Mark Bowman reports that Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder are options to take Fried’s spot.

Braves Notes: Rotation, Soroka, Shewmake, Grissom

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Braves ace Max Fried strained his hamstring during his Opening Day start, and manager Brian Snitker has already indicated the southpaw is likely to land on the 15-day injured list. Atlanta hasn’t made that transaction yet — IL stints can be backdated as many as three days — and the rotation plans for next week remain uncertain. Mark Bowman of MLB.com unsurprisingly tweets that right-handers Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder are under consideration to take the ball next Wednesday against the Cardinals in what would’ve been Fried’s spot.

Anderson and Elder entered Spring Training as the presumptive favorites for the fifth starter job behind Fried, Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton and Kyle Wright. Neither ended up securing the job out of camp, as prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd jumped them on the depth chart. Both Elder and Anderson were optioned out; Shuster and Dodd each were penciled into the season-opening rotation when Wright started the year on the IL.

With Fried likely to join him, the Atlanta front office could have to choose between Anderson and Elder to fill in. The latter got the Opening Day start for Triple-A Gwinnett today, allowing four runs in six innings. He’d be lined up on standard rest for Wednesday’s outing if the Braves wanted to go in that direction.

Dodd, meanwhile, is listed as the probable starter for Tuesday’s matchup in St. Louis. That’ll be his major league debut, and the Braves will have to make a roster move before then. Atlanta has yet to select the southpaw onto the 40-man roster, preserving some flexibility in that regard until he’s tabbed to take the mound. The Braves’ 40-man is at capacity and the club doesn’t have any obvious candidates for a move to the 60-day injured list, so they could be faced with a DFA decision early next week.

Deeper on the rotation depth chart, Michael Soroka is slated to take the ball for Gwinnett on Tuesday in what’ll be his season debut. The righty was optioned after getting a late start in camp thanks to a hamstring issue. Soroka hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since 2020 because of a pair of Achilles ruptures. His 2022 campaign consisted of 25 innings between High-A and Triple-A.

Soroka tells Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal Constitution he’s likely “to be limited to about three or four innings (per outing) for a little bit.” He’ll work both in the rotation and out of the bullpen with Gwinnett as he and the club explore ways to gradually build his workload. Soroka indicated he’d be open to pitching in relief to get back to the MLB level if the team felt that the best course of action. He noted the club doesn’t currently feel low-leverage bullpen work is the best way to get him back to pre-injury form. Soroka started 37 games between 2018-20, throwing 214 innings of 2.86 ERA ball before his 23rd birthday.

That minor league experimentation isn’t limited to the pitching staff. Atlanta is using Braden Shewmake at second base in Gwinnett, as Burns writes in a separate piece for the Journal Constitution. The former first-round pick has only started nine games at the keystone — all last season — in his minor league career. The rest of his innings have come at shortstop, where he was competing for the MLB job this spring. Both Shewmake and Vaughn Grissom lost out to veteran Orlando Arcia in the camp battle, leading the two younger players to be sent to Gwinnett.

Grissom will get the majority of the shortstop reps there. Shewmake is regarded by evaluators as the superior defender of the two, while Grissom has a higher offensive ceiling. The Braves seem comfortable with Shewmake’s glove at shortstop as is, reasoning that giving the tougher reps to Grissom will hopefully lead to him taking a step forward. Whether the 22-year-old is up to the task defensively was a storyline of the offseason once it became clear the Braves would look internally for Dansby Swanson’s replacement.

Braves, Charlie Culberson Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have agreed to a minor league deal with free-agent utilityman Charlie Culberson, as first indicated on the MLB.com transactions log. Culberson, a Ballengee Group client, opted out of a minor league deal with the Rays earlier this week. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett.

It’ll be an overwhelmingly popular move among Braves fans, many of whom grew to love Culberson during his 2018-20 stretch with the club. The versatile infielder/outfielder has spent more time in a Braves uniform than any other in his 10-year career. In 230 games, he’s tallied 473 plate appearances and batted .265/.314/.454 with Atlanta. The best season of Culberson’s career came in 2018, when he set personal highs in games played (113), plate appearances (322), doubles (18) and home runs (12).

The past three seasons, including his brief final showing with Atlanta, have seen a pronounced downturn in Culberson’s production, however. Dating back to 2020, he’s slashed just .244/.289/.371 in 402 trips to the plate. The bulk of that action has come with the Rangers, for whom he played in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Culberson has appeared at every position on the diamond other than catcher and center field in his decade-long career, including 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball in mop-up duty (albeit with just one strikeout). Third base has been his primary position in the Majors, but he has more than 400 innings at second base, at shortstop and in left field as well. Culberson has generally struggled against right-handed pitching (.217/.277/.348), but he’s a .285/.313/.431 hitter against lefties in his career.

The Braves currently have Ehire Adrianza on the big league roster as a utility infielder, but Culberson could work his way up to the big league club in the event of injuries in the Atlanta infield.

Braves, Scott Blewett Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves agreed to a minor league contract with Scott Blewett yesterday, according to the right-hander’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’ll be assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett.

Blewett, 27 next month, pitched in five big league contests with the Royals between 2020-21. A former second-round pick of Kansas City, he changed organizations for the first time last year. Blewett signed a minor league deal with the White Sox, spending most of the season in Double-A. He started 22 of 24 appearances, working to a 5.03 ERA with a 20% strikeout rate across 111 innings. Blewett never got a big league look in Chicago and returned to minor league free agency over the offseason.

The New York native will try to work his way back to the MLB level in Atlanta. He’s surely a fair ways down the depth chart after a middling showing in Double-A, but he’ll add some organizational depth as the Braves navigate a number of rotation injuries. Kyle Wright opened the season on the injured list, while Michael Soroka started the year in Gwinnett after a hamstring issue set him back in Spring Training. Atlanta already tabbed a pair of rookies, Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd, for season-opening rotation spots.

The injury troubles continued today, as ace Max Fried appears ticketed for the IL after straining his hamstring during his start against Washington. Blewett’s signing predated the Fried injury and is unrelated, but the Braves now look likely to count on one of Bryce Elder or Ian Anderson to temporarily step into the rotation alongside Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton, Shuster and Dodd.

Max Fried Likely Headed To IL Due To Hamstring Strain

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Braves left-hander Max Fried departed today’s Opening Day start after throwing just 43 pitches over 3 1/3 innings. The club would later announce that he was removed with left hamstring discomfort. After the game, manager Brian Snitker told reporters, including Mark Bowman of MLB.com, that Fried will likely go on the injured list. Snitker also said Fried has a hamstring strain, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

To this point, there’s nothing to suggest Fried’s injury is particularly significant. Snitker said that Fried would miss at least one start, per David O’Brien of The Athletic, but would likely go on the injured list. IL stints for pitchers have a minimum stay of 15 days, so it seems that the club is expecting Fried to miss an amount of time that’s roughly in that ballpark.

Though it’s possible his absence may be on the short side, it’s still not ideal for any team to lose its best pitcher on the first game of the season. Fried has been one of the better pitchers in the league over the past few years, coming into today’s action with a career ERA of 3.09,  23.8% strikeout rate, 6.6% walk rate and 52.8% ground ball rate. He’s coming off the best season of his career, as he made 30 starts last year with a 2.48 ERA, getting his walk rate all the way down to 4.4%. He finished second in National League Cy Young voting to Sandy Alcantara.

An injury to a player of Fried’s caliber would be problematic at any time but the rotation has some moving parts at the moment. Spring injuries to Kyle Wright and Michael Soroka, as well as underwhelming performances from Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder, mean that the club is planning to get starts from rookies Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd early in the season. Wright is expected back after a minimum stint on the injured list, but Fried’s absence will give the club an extra rotation hole to patch over for at least one turn in the rotation and perhaps a couple weeks.

Braves Select Four Players, Place Three Others On 60-Day IL

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The Braves announced today that they have selected infielder Ehire Adrianza, outfielder Kevin Pillar, right-hander Jesse Chavez and left-hander Jared Shuster to their 40-man roster. In corresponding moves, right-hander Huascar Ynoa and left-handers Kolby Allard and Tyler Matzek were placed on the 60-day injured list. The Braves already had a couple of vacancies on their 40-man roster, so these IL placements open up three more spots for the four selections and their acquisition of Richard Lovelady from the Royals.

Shuster, 24, will be making his major league debut once he gets into a game. The club came into spring with four rotation spots taken by Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton. It was believed by many that the final spot was going to be a battle between Michael Soroka, Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder. However, Soroka got delayed by an injury and the latter two were simply out-pitched by Shuster and Dylan Dodd. Anderson and Elder were optioned to the minors, then Wright was also delayed by injury. That will seemingly allow for both Shuster and Dodd to crack the rotation early in the season, though Dodd still hasn’t been added. Shuster posted a 3.29 ERA between Double-A and Triple-A last year then a 1.45 ERA here in the spring.

Pillar, 34, has been a glove-first outfielder for most of his career, most of it with the Blue Jays. He was drafted and developed by that club while Alex Anthopoulos, now Atlanta’s president of baseball operations, was with Toronto. Last year, he only got into four games with the Dodgers before a shoulder fracture ended his season. He and Sam Hilliard should serve as reserve outfielders on the bench in Atlanta.

Chavez, 39, is a veteran who will be appearing in his 16th season once he gets into a game. He was twice acquired by the Braves last year and ended up posting a 3.76 ERA over 60 total appearances for three different clubs. He’ll give the club a veteran arm for its relief mix.

Adrianza, 33, is a veteran utility infielder who has played for Atlanta in each of the past two seasons. He’s a career .239/.309/.354 hitter in the big leagues. The club recently decided to option its young shortstops Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake for more seasoning in the minors. That left Orlando Arcia as the starting shortstop and bumped Adrianza up to a bench role.

As for the IL placements, none of those comes as a shock. Ynoa and Matzek both had Tommy John surgery late last year and will be out for most of this season. Allard, meanwhile, suffered an oblique strain a few weeks ago.

Royals Trade Richard Lovelady To Braves

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The Royals have traded left-hander Richard Lovelady to the Braves in exchange for cash, per announcements from both teams. Lovelady, who is on the 40-man roster, has been optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett.

Lovelady, 27, hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2021 due to Tommy John surgery. He made it back to the mound for four minor league innings in 2022 and posted a 9-to-1 K/BB ratio during that time. He was terrific this spring, tossing eight shutout innings with only five hits allowed, no walks and 10 punchouts during Cactus League play.

Prior to undergoing surgery in 2021, he’d given Kansas City 20 2/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball with a 27.4% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate and excellent 56.6% ground-ball rate. In 110 2/3 career innings at the Triple-A level, Lovelady has a 2.44 ERA, 26.1% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate. He’s in his final minor league option year and can be controlled through at least the 2027 season, as he currently has one year and 26 days of Major League service time.

Braves To Extend Orlando Arcia

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The Braves and shortstop Orlando Arcia are reportedly in agreement on a three-year, $7.3MM extension that includes a club option for the 2026 season, according to Robert Murray of FanSided. The deal replaces Arcia’s previous contract, under which he was set to earn $1.3MM in 2023 with a $2MM club option with a $100K buyout for next season. Instead, Arcia will earn $2.3MM in 2023 and $2MM in each of 2024 and 2025, with a $1MM buyout on the 2026 option, which Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports is worth $2MM.

Arcia’s new deal will cover his age 28 through age 30 seasons, with the club option giving the Braves team control through age 31. That’s two additional years of team control for the Braves, who had already added an extra year of team control with Arcia’s previous contract, signed in 2021. With an AAV of just $2.43MM, Arcia’s new deal should have minimal impact on Atlanta’s luxury tax standing going forward, though it does actually slightly raise the club’s 2023 luxury tax payroll, as Arcia’s previous deal held an AAV of just $1.5MM.

Since the Braves acquired Arcia from the Brewers early in the 2021 season, he’s acted in a part-time utility role for the club, slashing .237/.308/.398 in 99 games while logging time at shortstop, third base, second base, and in left field. In 2023, Arcia enters the season as the club’s everyday shortstop following the departure of Dansby Swanson, with youngsters Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake waiting in the wings at Triple-A. Either could realistically supplant Arcia as the starter at shortstop in 2023, pushing him into his more familiar bench role.

Prior to joining the Braves, Arcia had previous played for the Brewers on an everyday basis from 2017 to 2020, though he slashed just .248/.297/.367 in his 483 games across those four seasons, good for a wRC+ of just 72. Over that time, Arcia was generally solid with the glove, though defensive metrics were mixed on his performance on a season-to-season basis. While he combined for +5 DRS and +8 OAA in those four seasons, that includes highs of +7 DRS and +8 OAA in 2018 and lows of -6 DRS and -5 OAA from 2019-2020.

Judging by his previous work in a full-time role with the Brewers, Arcia figures to be a below-average bat with an above-average glove at short for the Braves this year. That being said, there were positive signs in Arcia’s 68-game performance in 2022 that could indicate a new level of offensive production closer to average. In 2022, Arcia slashed .244/.316/.416, good for a slightly above average wRC+ of 104 despite a depressed BABIP of just .278.

Those gains came on the back of improvements to both his walk rate and ISO compared to his 2017-2020 seasons with the Brewers. His walk rate jumped from 6.5% over that time to 9.0% last year while his ISO jumped from .119 to .172. That latter feat is particularly impressive given his full-time role with the Brewers came in a particularly high-scoring run environment compared to the 2022 season. If Arcia’s 2022 improvements hold over in a larger sample this year, he could prove to be an above-average two-way regular for the Braves in 2023. Should that not prove to be the case, the Braves will still have a long-term, quality bench option at their disposal going forward who’s still on the right side of 30.

Kyle Wright To Begin Season On 15-Day IL; Braves To Use Jared Shuster, Dylan Dodd In Rotation

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10:51AM: In related Braves roster news, right-handers Nick Anderson and Michael Tonkin will both be in the team’s Opening Day bullpen.  (Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was among those to report the news.)  Anderson and Tonkin will take over the roster spots created with Wright and Raisel Iglesias slated to start the year on the IL.

8:59AM: The battle to decide the Braves’ fifth starter has ended in something of a draw, as now both Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd will be making early turns in the rotation.  According to MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (Twitter links), Kyle Wright is getting some “extra time” to fully prep for the season in the wake of some shoulder soreness, thus creating an opportunity for both Shuster and Dylan to make starts.  Wright will go onto the 15-day injured list, The Athletic’s David O’Brien notes, but it seems possible that Wright will leave the IL when first eligible.

Wright’s usual offseason routine was interrupted in January when he received a cortisone shot in his right shoulder.  That delayed Wright’s normal plan by roughly three weeks, and he didn’t make his first Spring Training start until last Monday.  The Braves intend to give Wright an outing in minor league spring camp, and then a Triple-A start before bringing him onto the active roster.  Counting the three days of IL backdating, Wright is seemingly in line to make his 2023 debut during the Braves’ series with the Reds from April 10-12.

Atlanta opens its season on March 30, has an off-day on March 31, and then has a game every day until April 13.  This busy early schedule creates an early need for a full rotation, though Bowman writes that Dodd may not officially break camp, as the Braves will wait to call him up until his planned start on April 4 in St. Louis.  That will give Atlanta a little more time in figuring out its 40-man roster maneuverings, as neither Dodd or Shuster are currently on the 40-man.  (Other non-roster invitees like Jesse Chavez, Ehire Adrianza, and Kevin Pillar also look like solid bets to make the team, creating more need for extra space.)

Shuster seemingly has the slight edge over Dodd in the race to stick in the rotation, but now both southpaws will get a further opportunity to audition on the big league stage.  It is a somewhat surprising outcome that didn’t appear to be on the radar when Atlanta started Spring Training, given that Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder, and Michael Soroka were the likeliest contenders to be the fifth starter.  However, Shuster and Dodd both pitched so well that the Braves narrowed the field down to the two rookies, who will each be making their Major League debuts.

Braves Option Michael Soroka

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The Braves announced Thursday afternoon that right-hander Michael Soroka has been optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett. That was generally expected considering a hamstring injury knocked him out of the race for the fifth starter’s role out of camp.

An All-Star and Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2019, Soroka is looking to return to a big league mound for the first time in nearly three years. A ruptured Achilles tendon three starts into the 2020 campaign required surgery that came with a year-long recovery process. As he was nearing a return to game action, the Achilles blew out again and put his rehab back at square one.

Soroka was able to make it back at the tail end of last season but wasn’t in position to be thrust into the middle of a pennant race. The Braves gave him five starts in Gwinnett before shutting him down with some shoulder fatigue they attributed to the long layoff. He was generally seen as one of three candidates for the #5 starter role entering camp — Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder being the others — but hamstring soreness shut him down for the first couple weeks.

The 25-year-old returned to the mound yesterday, going through the Tigers’ batting order once in Grapefruit League play. It’s a positive step but certainly not the endpoint, as he’ll continue to build pitch counts in future appearances. Atlanta will send him back to Gwinnett to do so with an eye towards a potential midseason call.

Anderson and Elder have been healthy this spring but were outpitched in exhibition play by prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd. The Braves optioned both Elder and Anderson last week, leaving the #5 job to one of the hurlers who have yet to make their MLB debut. Manager Brian Snitker didn’t tip the organization’s hand on that camp battle this morning, praising both pitchers and noting the club still has yet to make that decision (link via Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

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