May 19: The Braves announced this morning that Strider has been reinstated. Dodd was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move.
May 18: The Braves optioned right-hander Bryce Elder to the minor leagues to call up southpaw Dylan Dodd earlier this weekend. The 2023 All-Star had a middling 4.50 ERA and 4.92 FIP in eight starts in the majors to this point in the season, so the club’s decision to send Elder to Triple-A is hardly a shock. That said, it’s still notable given that it opens up a spot in the rotation behind Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Grant Holmes.
At first glance, Dodd seems like the obvious candidate to take that role considering that the lefty has started seven of his eight MLB appearances so far in his career. Dodd has moved to the bullpen full time at Triple-A this year, however, and Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported today that right-hander Spencer Strider is actually the one who will take Elder’s spot in the rotation after he’s activated from the injured list on May 20.
The 26-year-old missed nearly all of last season after undergoing internal brace surgery on his UCL early last year. The righty made it back to the big league mound just over a month ago and struck out five across five innings of one-run ball, but suffered a hamstring injury shortly thereafter while playing catch in preparation for his second start of the season. Rather than take any chances with Strider pitching on a balky hamstring, Atlanta placed him back on the injured list, where he’s remained for the past month.
Now, it appears Strider is finally poised to take his second start of the 2025 season. It was reported last week that Strider was scheduled to throw a 70-to-75 pitch simulated game in preparation for his return to action, at which point the club would decide whether to send him on a short rehab assignment or activate him directly off of the injured list. It seems they’ve opted to go with the latter option in order to get Strider back to the majors as quickly as possible. A disastrous 0-7 start to the season has become little more than a bad memory, as the 24-23 Braves are just four games back of a playoff spot and five games back of the Mets in the NL East.
That’s hardly an insurmountable deficit, particularly for a club that’s hoping to get a healthy, vintage performance from Strider the rest of the way. The hard-throwing righty was among the best pitchers in baseball in his first two MLB seasons as he posted a 3.36 ERA with a 2.43 FIP and a 37.4% strikeout rate from 2022 to 2023. If he can offer anything close to that sort of a production for a rotation that already features the reigning NL Triple Crown winner in Sale and a pair of electric young arms in Schwellenbach and Smith-Shawver, Atlanta should be a force to be reckoned with moving forward this year before even considering the fact that Ronald Acuna Jr.’s own return may be just around the corner or that All-Stars Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II have yet to produce offensively this year.
Elder had 4 QS in his last 5 games. With the other being a 5ip, 2er effort vs the dodgers.
Him and AJSS are the only pitchers and Schellenbach that was options. Everyone else is old. They’d send Grant Holmes down if he wasn’t going to get claimed.
Holmes to the pen
That appears to be the plan. They have an off day every week for the next 3 or 4.
That is actually likely a big reason why Elder was sent down. The off days make a 6th starter even less relevant. But they are not going to a 4 man rotation. Besides they just played 17 days in a row so the off days are helpful to those pitchers.
Elder should go into the rotation for now
and move Holmes to the bullpen. Holmes seems
to take a dive after 2 times through the order.
Elder holds up a little better. There are 2-3
guys in the pen now that you can either send
down or just cut them loose! Dodd was just
sent down to create a roster spot for Strider,
but they will still need another spot for Kimbrel.
To be a punchline for this and other sites,
Scott Blewett has been pretty damn good with the exception of one outing! He had some big time appearances in a couple extra inning games in which he got well deserved wins! I wouldn’t miss Montero or De Los Santos myself. Somebody has got to go, unless there is somebody on the active roster with minor league options. Hate to just lose a pen piece outright, but AA will find another one in the DFA bargain bin! BTW, AA..I dare you to sign David Robertson! A 3.00 ERA in ’24 in 68 games, 72 innings with 99 strikeouts!
@AL B
I agree Elder has been pitching well lately, but I don’t know that I completely agree with your take on Holmes.
His last 3 starts: VS Boston he gave up 2 runs in the 3rd but went 6 innings. Vs the Nationals he gave up a solo hr in the 4th but went 6 1/3 innings. Vs the Reds he gave up 4 runs total, 2 in the 1st, 1 in the 3rd, and 1 in the 4th and still pitched 5 1/3 innings. I think Holmes has actually pitched pretty good lately as well.
I think right now they want to stick with a 5-man rotation and keep all 6 stretched out and ready to go so when they have another long stretch of consecutive days, they can then use a 6-man rotation.
Why is MLBTR treating this like breaking news? Bowman reported this over a week ago.
They were so behind that they actually suspected they would be sending Elder down for Dylan Dodd to take his rotation spot. I mean Dylan Dodd is a bad starter. Why would they send anyone down for him let alone a guy pitching well?
Dylan Dodd was moved to the pen in Gwinnett recently. He no longer figures in the Braves rotation plans. W/the exception of his first pen outing, he’s been effective w/a rise in fb velocity and better command. Seems that MLBTR is unaware of this.
Bringing up Bryce Elders FIP is an exercise in futility as he obviously is never gonna have a very good FIP because he is a groundball pitcher who strikes few guys out and gives up homers a good bit when he misses location.
So what you are saying is he isn’t a very good pitcher.
Not necessarily. I’m saying FIP isn’t a very good stat. And the only people who think it is are people who don’t think much but think they do. In general I don’t think he gives up a lot of homers but the last year he has been in the majors. So he doesn’t walk many and gets a lot of ground balls. I am basically saying he doesn’t strike guys out a lot.
I’m fine with looking at it (I guess) but when the only analysis outside of era is the stat which obviously least favors the pitcher, and you try to dismiss his performance (he’s been very good the last month) and suggest it was possible he was being sent down for Dylan Dodd to take his spot…I think thats a bit bias. Dylan Dodd is the type of pitcher you are thinking of. An incredibly bad one with weak stuff. Elder is merely a man in the wrong era.
I have actually taken a great interest in Elder as a contrarian pitcher. I see a guy with excellent command who can work both sides of the plate and has a very good Maddux like 2 seamer. I think if given a full season he would be very decent. The homers I think are reflective of the main issue which is worrying too much about being perfect so you aren’t sent down again. Once they kept him up and sent Smith Shawver down instead he was very good. Not all “junkballers” are created equally and we have even seen a velo increase recently and more strikeouts followed. I think it’s rare for a pitcher to be able to work both sides of the plate with multiple pitches and be efficient.
Elder changed the grip on his slider a few weeks ago—when they sent AJSS down. Took his fingers off the seams. Has enabled him to throw the pitch w/much better command and control. Hitting corners w/it now instead of hanging it over the middle. If he’ll stop throwing his awful 4 seam fb he’ll reduce his homer run rate. Don’t know why the Braves would ever want him to throw it when his 2 seam has such good movement. He should be a 2 seam, slider heavy pitcher and just use his cb and change as show me pitches. Stop throwing that gopher ball 4 seamer.
Only thing I would say in defense of the pitch is he is getting it up to even 94 occasionally lately but that it also allows other pitches to work better off of it. His homers are usually big location misses. The two seem pitch is to fool people. It would be less effective if he were working off it.
never gonna have a very good FIP because he is a groundball pitcher who strikes few guys out and gives up homers a good bit when he misses location.
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A lot of HRs and not many strikeouts is generally not a good pitcher.
I agree but the homers seem to be an anomaly.
XFIP normalizes his HR/FB rate and that pegs him at 3.84 xFIP.
Elder feels like a fine ground ball back end starter but I’m glad they didn’t snip AJSS after he’s looked so good.
For all those saying he is overrated he has a 20 win season which is very good and rare these days
So did Kyle Wright.
I remember when wright won 20; all I was saying is people were saying he was overrated yet in today’s game you have to be doing a lot of stuff right to win 20 games. I think if he is returning healthy even if he is only 75-80% of what he was this year that is a huge boost to the braves
The Braves had a good team; yet other elite style teams like the dodgers with that offense haven’t had a 20 games winner since 2014.
Strider had to be doing something right in order to win 20 games. We can call some of it luck etc but he stuck around in games: went deep enough to qualify and kept the Braves in games enough for him to have 20 games won. Which is rare nowadays
That offense hit 307 home runs and as a team slugged above .500. Two things that are the best ever in baseball. Iirc Strider benefited greatly from that.
He had a 20 win season on a team with an all time great lineup. Similar to former Brave Russ Ortiz winning 20 games tho obviously one is better than the other
Strider did lead the league in FIP.
Striking out 280 goes a long way towards leading the league in FIP. Aaron Bummer led the league in FIP last year and he is average. Again he’s up there this year. Anyone who watches him pitch closely can see he’s nothing like that FIP. And he’s an extreme case in that he also has a very high grounder rate that isn’t even factored into FIP. He is a metric darling.
So Spencer is making Strides is he
Elder will be back, this was just a move to get an extra bullpen arm till Strider came back.