Prospect Spencer Schwellenbach captures final South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Week honor for 2023
The Rome Braves have announced that prospect pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach has received the final regular season South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Week award.
Schwellenbach, 23, was Atlanta's 2nd round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft out of the University of Nebraska. A two-way player in college, he was named Big Ten Player of the Year and won the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year award in 2021 after hitting .284 with six homers and 40 RBIs at shortstop while also going 3-1 a 0.57 ERA and 10 saves in 31.2 innings from the mound.
Schwellenbach needed Tommy John surgery after the draft and had a delayed start to his professional career, missing all of 2022. In 2023, he's pitched in both Single-A Augusta and Rome, going 5-2 with a 2.49 ERA in his sixteen starts, striking out 55 and walking 16 in 65.0 innings.
He capped his first professional season with six perfect innings against the Asheville Tourists (Astros), striking out six on 62 pitches. Rome went on to win the game 2-1.
Schwellenbach, who represented Atlanta's organization in this year's Futures Game, is ranked as the #3 prospect in Atlanta's system. MLB Pipeline, the league's official prospect evaluation and ranking arm, says he has "upside" and the hope is that he could take a "Jacob deGrom-like path as a two-way player who didn’t pitch much in college and had Tommy John surgery shortly after signing."
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