NORTH PORT, Fla. – A year ago at Atlanta Braves spring training, AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep were the buzzed-about pitching prospects expected to make an impact at some point during the 2024 season.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, the rookies with a combined 3.42 ERA in 193 innings were Spencer Schwellenbach and Grant Holmes.
Schwellenbach, a former college shortstop who had never pitched more than 65 innings in a season at any level in his life, totaled 168 2/3 innings in 29 starts between two minor-league levels and the majors, and went 8-7 with a 3.57 ERA in 21 starts for Atlanta. He surpassed all expectations.
And Holmes, who toiled for a decade in the minors before making his debut in June as a 28-year-old rookie, posted a 3.56 ERA in 26 games for Atlanta including seven starts, with 70 strikeouts and 15 walks in 68 1/3 innings. From journeyman to “How did he not get called up for a decade?”
AJ Smith-Shawver spent the offseason working out at home in Texas with former Braves reliever A.J. Minter. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Braves manager Brian Snitker has seen similar stories play out before and said he and general manager/president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos discussed this week how it’ll probably happen again this year — one or more Braves no one is expecting to play a significant role will end up doing precisely that.
“I told Alex, there’s somebody we’re not even thinking about right now that’s going to have an impact on us this year, whether it’s a guy from over there (minor-league camp) or somebody from another (team), or whatever,” Snitker said. “You just never know what’s going to happen and who’s going to pop and when and who you’ll need.”
That brings us back to Smith-Shawver and Waldrep, who begin spring training without as much attention or outside expectations as they had a year ago, while Schwellenbach is already entrenched in a rotation spot.
Holmes and Ian Anderson are favorites to win the last two spots in the season-opening rotation, both out of minor-league options and Anderson with a lot of experience and a track record before Tommy John elbow surgery kept him out the past two major-league seasons.
Spencer Strider will take one of those two rotation spots when he returns from a year-long elbow surgery rehab as soon as late April, at which point the Braves will have a formidable first four, barring injury, of Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Schwellenbach and Strider, in no particular order other than Sale at the top.
While fewer folks are talking this spring about Smith-Shawver and Waldrep, both appear to have improved chances of making an impact this year with Atlanta than they did in 2024.
Both feel like they’re more ready, after dealing with injury and disappointment, and after learning more about themselves along the way. Smith-Shawver has pitched in seven regular-season games (six starts) and two postseason games (one start) for Atlanta in the past two years, but still is only 22. He debuted at 20 because the Braves had a desperate need in 2023.
Waldrep, a first-round draft pick in 2023, will turn 23 on March 1.
“You can’t really take it all in, at the moment,” said Waldrep, who was admittedly overwhelmed when he debuted in June, less than 12 months after pitching for the University of Florida in the College World Series.
He got roughed up for nine hits (three homers), 13 earned runs and eight walks in seven innings of his two major-league starts in June against the Washington Nationals and Tampa Bay Rays, then spent a month on the injured list for elbow inflammation.
Waldrep pitched the rest of the season in the minors, making two rehab starts before posting a 3.18 ERA in his final seven starts in Triple A. He had just one start in Triple A before his big-league debut, so impressive was his Double-A performance early in the 2024 season and so great was the Braves’ need.
Waldrep was asked last week what he learned about the differences between college and professional baseball.
“Just how quick the game moves, how quick the year was, and everything that came with it,” he said. “Learning how to deal with how long the season is.”
He said he spent the offseason “just building back up and getting ready for this year” and resumed throwing his curveball. That’s a pitch he had put aside at the Braves’ request after being drafted because they wanted him to hone his slider to complement his vaunted split-finger pitch.
Now, he’ll resume throwing the curveball, which he said gives him another weapon against lefties and a complement to his fastball. “I feel really good with it,” Waldrep said of the curveball.
More important, he feels good about being prepared, knowing what it takes to get through a long pro season and what to expect when the Braves bring him back up. That could be to replace an injured starter, to plug in as a sixth starter and give the others extra rest, or perhaps as a reliever if the immediate need is the bullpen.
“Yeah, we were talking about that, too,” Snitker said of potentially using one of the extra starters in the bullpen, something the Braves did at the outset of both Max Fried and Spencer Strider’s major-league careers. “If that’s where we see that it helps us. We’ve got to start somewhere. And that’s not all bad for guys to break in out of the pen.”
Asked if he feels like the game has slowed some for him mentally, Waldrep said, “Absolutely. In just kind of having an understanding of how everything goes, how a season goes. You can’t predict everything, but you just have a little better understanding, a little better feel for how your body is going to take the season and take the workload of the season, and just prepare for it.”
Smith-Shawver was the Braves’ top prospect for a couple of years, ranked No. 42 in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects before the 2024 season. The golden-armed former Texas high school quarterback has not lived up to the lofty expectations. But if some outside the organization have written him off, the Braves have not.
Nor has Waldrep lost any of the high-ceiling potential that Braves officials talked about when he was drafted.
“Oh, no,” Snitker said when asked if the outlook changed for either of the hard-throwing youngsters. “And from what I’ve heard from some of the catchers that had (Waldrep), there’s just a calmness this spring, now that it’s not such a ‘What’s going on here?’ (situation). And that’s why repetitions, innings, that’s what that’s all about.”
Smith-Shawver pitched 4 1/3 scoreless innings in a May spot start against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, a performance that could’ve earned him another start soon after if he’d not strained an oblique in that game. He didn’t pitch again until July 3, when he made one High-A rehab start before 12 Triple-A starts in which he had a modest 4.18 ERA, but a stingy .194 opponents’ average and .657 OPS with 69 strikeouts in 56 innings.
That work led the Braves, in another desperate situation after injuries and a season-ending doubleheader the day before, to start Smith-Shawver in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series at San Diego. He recorded just four outs and gave up four hits and three runs in that 4-0 loss, including Fernando Tatis Jr.’s long two-run homer in the first inning.
Besides studying video of his delivery to see if there was anything he could do to try to avoid another oblique injury, Smith-Shawver spent the offseason working out at home in Texas with former Braves reliever A.J. Minter, playing golf, and getting himself ready mentally for a season that could be important in his development and future with the Braves.
“Just do my thing,” Smith-Shawver said of his approach to the jobs battle. “You can only control one person. That’s kind of the way to look at it, I feel like. I mean, you want everybody to have success and be in a good situation. You just want to win games.
“Whatever that takes, whatever my job is for that, is kind of where my head is.”
(Top photo of Hurston Waldrep: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
