Braves Mailbag: Rotation Order, Max Fried's Free Agency, and Prospects to Watch For

The Atlanta Braves don't have a lot of questions entering the season, but you did

The Atlanta Braves don't really have a lot of pending questions left to answer prior to leaving North Port for Philadelphia.

Unlike most of baseball, the Braves have already made their roster moves and decided on their final position battles, with Reynaldo López winning the 5th starter's job and Forrest Wall winning the final bench spot by virtue of his performance in spring. 

But there are still things to know about, and thank you to everyone who submitted questions for the mailbag. It's always an ego-centric exercise, but I'm lucky to have the work. 

Do we know the rotation order for 2024? - David

Not officially, but yeah, we know the order for the first time through the rotation, based on when they've pitched in spring. 

#1: Spencer Strider - Opening Day starter (confirmed)
#2: Max Fried - pitched Monday, lining him up for this Saturday in Grapefruit League (home vs TB) and then game two against Philadelphia
#3: Chris Sale - pitched on back fields on Wednesday, lining him up for next Sunday (@ BOS) and then game three against Philadelphia  
#4: Charlie Morton - pitches today against New York, next Monday (vs MIN), and then game four (@ CWS)
#5: Reynaldo López - pitches tomorrow (@ MIN), Tuesday (also @ MIN), and then game five (@ CWS)

UPDATE: With rain in the forecast for Friday, Strider has been moved to this Saturday and scheduled for three innings. 

That'll have Strider going to close the series against Chicago and gives Max Fried the start for the home opener...and as a pending free agent, that's potentially his final home opener in Atlanta. 

Speaking of...

What are the odds Atlanta re-signs Max Fried after this season? - Kelly

I'd put it at less than 5%. The free agent class for this offseason has taken a significant hit with Zack Wheeler re-signing with Philadelphia. Fried's now the second-best starter and best lefty available in the free agent class, with most slotting him in right behind Corbin Burnes of the Baltimore Orioles. 

Remember that free agency is about leverage - the fewer options there are out there to pivot to someone else of comparable quality, the more a pitcher can command in either years or AAV (or both). 

And free agency traditionally hasn't been kind to the Braves - both Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson tested the market and ended up getting multiple offers that led to them leaving Atlanta. 

While Atlanta's $22M/year ceiling on the current roster isn't a hard and fast limit - they reportedly offered more than that to both Freeman and Aaron Nola before he returned to Philadelphia - it doesn't bode well for Atlanta's chances of meeting wherever the market settles for Fried.

I've seen projections of $28M/year for Fried already, before whatever he does this season is taken into account. And the important thing to remember here is that it's incredibly unlikely Fried's price will go down (barring catastrophic injury), but it likely goes up. If Fried has another Cy Young-caliber season like 2022 - 30 starts, 2.48 ERA, and 185.1 innings - I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up over $30M/year. 

And will Atlanta make an offer to retain the lefty? Of course they will. But if we learned anything from the Freeman and Swanson sagas, it's that Atlanta will have an upper bound to their offer that they won't cross. For Freeman, it was the sixth guaranteed year, which he ultimately got from Los Angeles. For Swanson, it was the dollars, with Atlanta's offer reportedly maxing out at $16.6M AAV while the Cubs went up to $25.29M (although Dansby got a seventh year from Chicago, as well.)

I'm just not optimistic, in a world where seven of the top ten average salaries belong to pitchers, that there's not a single team that's willing to significantly outbid whatever Atlanta is comfortable offering for Fried's services. 

How much leash does Reynaldo López have as the 5th starter? - Zac

Good question - he's not in any danger of losing a roster spot, given the contract, but the real question would be when he gets moved to the bullpen this season. 

I'm treating that as a foregone conclusion because his workload is going to be a concern - his two full years as a starter (2018 & 2019) saw him put up innings counts of 188.2 & 184.0, but his last three seasons as a reliever have him throwing a combined 189.0 innings. 

And so he's inevitably going to move to the bullpen at some point this season, but the question is when. And I think the timing of that move depends on what his outings look like - is he making it five innings (or more), or is he getting knocked out after three? Is he still competitive in his third time through the order? 

My guess, from where we sit in late March, is that he'll get at least two full months in the rotation before a change would be made, barring some sort of catastrophic Yamomoto-like start to his season. If everything goes right, I could see him moving to the pen around the midpoint of the season after racking up fifteen starts and 80 or so innings, with the plan to get him around 30 relief appearances in the back half of the season to keep him around 110 innings so that he's available in October.  

What Braves prospects are you watching this season, and what are you looking for? - Jake

Can I say all of them? My goal for this season is to see as many of Atlanta's prospects in person as I can, including visiting all four full-season affiliates. (I'll drop articles with my observations whenever I do, so be on the lookout for that.) 

But as far as what I'm looking for, here are the players on my short-list that I expect big things out of (and what those big things might be):

Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver: This one should be obvious

Infielders Nacho Alvarez and Sebin Ceballos: We've discussed before that this organization doesn't really have a ton of future MLB talent at the shortstop position, but Alvarez has settled there and Ceballos is reportedly going to spend more time at shortstop in 2024. If either one of them can show that they can handle the defensive demands of the position at the major league level, it bodes well for the future. 

Spencer Schwellenbach: After getting good results in 2023 and representing Atlanta in the Futures Game, a Braves executive said that Spencer's "on a similar path to AJ" (Smith-Shawver) after his 2022 season. I'm going to be watching both the initial minor league placement (I'd expect High-A) and the "stuff" for Schwellebach - specifically, I'm hoping for more swing and miss from the righty as he's now two years removed from Tommy John. 

Many of the pitchers will be a focus for me, honestly, with questions about what J.R. Ritchie looks like after returning from Tommy John, what Drue Hackeberg looks like with time to acclimate to the MLB ball (four of his six walks were in a single start in AA, the first time he used the MLB ball in a competitive game), and how Garrett Baumann holds up to his first full season of professional baseball. 

Also going to be watching some of the premiere international signees who have finally made it stateside, like Luis Guanipa, Mario Baez, and Diego Benitez. 

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