Anthopoulos: Braves can’t expect anything from Spencer Strider or Spencer Schwellenbach

There were plenty of encouraging developments for the Braves’ pitching staff this year — but also a few supremely disappointing ones, almost all of them driven by injuries.

Spencer Strider hasn’t looked like himself since undergoing InternalBrace surgery in 2024. He’s lost a ton of life on both his fastball and slider, going from one of the most dominant young pitchers this league has ever seen to just another arm.

There was hope entering this season that a full, healthy offseason might bring back something closer to the pitcher we saw in 2023. It never came. The stuff remained wildly underwhelming and ineffective — and he was eventually shut down for the year with yet another elbow injury.

Even more discouraging: Spencer Schwellenbach didn’t throw a single pitch all season. Midway through 2025, he looked like the next ace in Atlanta — humming it 100 MPH with a legitimate six-pitch mix and total command of the zone. Then he fractured his elbow, ending his season, and the injury still hasn’t healed properly. It got bad enough that he needed a screw put in the elbow, which casts real doubt over whether we’ll ever see him pitch in a Braves uniform again, let alone lead the rotation.

Alex Anthopoulos essentially confirmed as much in his exit interview with Braves beat reporter Mark Bowman, acknowledging the club can’t go into next season expecting much from either Strider or Schwellenbach given their injuries.

“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.

“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.”

I’d take it a step further: the Braves shouldn’t be counting on anything from either of them. Strider, even when healthy, has been a below-average pitcher for multiple years now. Schwellenbach — if he’s even ready by Opening Day — will not have started a game in nearly two years. As beloved and talented as both were before the injuries, they should be penciled in for nothing until they prove otherwise.

Expecting production from them would be a gross miscalculation — exactly the kind of mistake the Braves can’t afford to make two years in a row.

—

Photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire