The Braves are heading into an offseason where caution has to override wishful thinking, and Alex Anthopoulos made that plain in his exit interview with Braves beat reporter Mark Bowman. After a year shaped by injuries in the rotation, the front office isn’t treating Spencer Strider or Spencer Schwellenbach like sure things for next season.
“I think from a planning standpoint, I don’t think it’d be responsible to sit here and say, ‘OK, 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.
He also pointed back to how the club handled Grant Holmes last offseason, when his progression helped determine what role he might fill.
“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 [Chris] Sale.”
That reluctance comes with good reason. Strider has not looked like himself since his 2024 InternalBrace surgery, with his fastball and slider lacking the same life that once made him one of the most dominant young pitchers this league has ever seen.
The team hoped a healthy offseason could help him rediscover the version of himself it saw in 2023, but that never happened. His stuff stayed underwhelming and ineffective, and he was eventually shut down for the year with another elbow injury.
Schwellenbach’s situation is even more troubling. He didn’t throw a pitch all season after what had been an eye-opening run in 2025, when he looked like the next ace in Atlanta with a fastball reaching 100 MPH, a legitimate six-pitch mix and command of the zone.
Then came the fractured elbow that ended everything. The injury still hasn’t healed properly, and it got to the point that he needed a screw inserted in the elbow, leaving real doubt about whether he’ll pitch in a Braves uniform again, much less anchor the rotation.
For Atlanta, the message is clear: neither pitcher should be counted on until they prove they can return. Anthopoulos left the door open, but not wide enough for any assumptions.
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