A lot of Atlanta Braves fans were lining up in the streets with their pitchforks, ready to barge into the home of general manager Alex Anthopoulos this offseason.
The team was coming off its first season without a postseason berth since 2017 and had been spiraling downward for consecutive years. It felt like this golden era of Braves baseball was slipping away at a rapid pace, and the only thing that could make fans feel even a little better was a blockbuster addition.
Atlanta wasn’t exactly frugal during the winter. They made several significant additions and brought back multiple key pieces. But the one area everybody expected them to address was the rotation, given the struggles of last season and the injury concerns heading into 2026.
Anthopoulos himself even stated it was the Braves’ top priority entering the offseason. Yet six months passed, and not a single notable rotation piece was added. Combine that with Hurston Waldrep, Spencer Strider, and Spencer Schwellenbach going down with various injuries right before the start of the season — nobody was satisfied with Atlanta’s lack of offseason movement.
Fast forward to today, and the Braves’ starting pitchers own the second-best ERA in all of baseball at 3.11. Adding even more excitement, Strider is set to make his first start after suffering an oblique injury during Spring Training. The group hasn’t missed a beat, and more reinforcements are expected in the form of Waldrep, who’s set to begin throwing in the coming weeks, along with potentially AJ Smith-Shawver and Schwellenbach in the second half.
Now, is all of this sustainable? Probably not, unless these arms returning from injury are able to find their form rather quickly. But if you’re hoping for external help to come walking through that door when the trade deadline approaches, these latest comments from Anthopoulos in an interview on 92.9 The Game are a reminder not to hold your breath:
“We checked in,” Anthopoulos said regarding the market for starting pitchers this offseason. “We checked prices and so on. We ultimately felt like with were things were going — it wasn’t because we just didn’t have the money — we just didn’t believe in the deals.”
This isn’t a new development for the Braves under Anthopoulos. They have never signed a free agent starting pitcher to a lucrative multi-year contract — not once in nine years. They’ve also never swung a blockbuster deal for a starting pitcher at the trade deadline. The closest either of those came to happening was their reported offer to Aaron Nola a few years back — a deal the Braves are undoubtedly thrilled never came to fruition, as he’s struggled mightily in Philadelphia ever since.
The economics behind Anthopoulos’ stance are fairly straightforward as well. Every team in the league, even struggling clubs, is interested in acquiring starting pitching. It’s essentially gold, which has created an incredibly inflated market where good deals are almost impossible to come by. The number of disastrous contracts handed out to starting pitchers each offseason is astronomical, and even just one of those can force an organization into uncomfortable conversations about players they might really want to keep.
Eventually, you would think Anthopoulos has to buck that trend. But if the past is any indication, this is the group the Braves are going to be rolling with for the remainder of the season.
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(Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)
