Bryce Elder is the Best 5th Starter in Baseball

Since being recalled last September and re-joining the Atlanta Braves starting rotation, Bryce Elder has been more than just a fifth starter, he's been one of the best starters in all of baseball.

Since being recalled last September and re-joining the Atlanta Braves starting rotation, Bryce Elder has been more than just a fifth starter, he's been one of the best starters in all of baseball. 

When the Braves drafted Elder in the final round of the 2020 MLB Draft - was only five rounds - out of Texas, scouts said they "love his mound presence, which adds to his chances of becoming a No. 4 or 5 starter."

That profile certainly fits for someone who relies more on deception than high velocity to get hitters out in today's game. 

And that's what Elder looked like in his first four big leagues starts when he had an ERA of 4.74, WHIP of 1.68, and only made it out of the fifth inning one time with 14 walks to just 12 strikeouts in 19 innings. And after he was sent back down to AAA, his numbers there resembled something more of a fifth starter with a 4.46 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 105. 

The one outlier at AAA that perhaps pointed to the type of breakout we've seen since returning to the big leagues, is a 1.19 WHIP and 2.7 BB/9. 

Things really changed for him last July when he posted a 2.48 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in 5 starts for Gwinnett. During that stretch, he went at least 5.2 innings in each start and allowed 3 earned or less in all of them. 

He returned to Atlanta in early August and made a relief appearance. 

But since then, he's made 11 starts for the Braves and has a 1.71 ERA over that stretch going at least five innings in each start and giving up one earned run or less in eight of those starts. 

I'll give you an extra second here to go back and read that again. 

Yes, you can point to the competition he's faced over that stretch as a reason why he's had so much success. Elder has faced the Marlins five times, the Nationals twice, and then the Cardinals, Reds, Royals, and Astros once each. 

It's still very hard to pitch in the big leagues, and you would think the more he pitches the more those teams would become comfortable against him or have more knowledge on how he likes to attack batters. 

Can Bryce Elder Keep it Up

If you look at his Baseball Savant page, it would have you believe that he won't pitch like a Cy Young contender all season. 

While his actual ERA this year is 1.75, his expected ERA is nearly 2.5 points higher at 4.38. And his FIP is much higher as well at 3.59. His .271 batting average on balls in play is not absurdly low indicating that perhaps he's had some batted ball luck. 

Elder does rank in the 9th percentile in exit velocity against at 92.2 MPH. But perhaps something the analytics aren't considering is a lot of that hard contact is coming with bad launch angles. 

The 23-year-old righty has the sixth-highest groundball rate among qualified pitchers this year at 57.6%. 

That's because of the movement he has on all of his pitches. 

His sinker ranks 32nd in vertical movement against the average and is tops on the Braves's staff. The slider has the most vertical movement among Braves' starters and ranks 13th among pitchers have thrown at least 100 sliders. 

And if that weren't enough, his change-up ranks 20th in vertical movement among pitchers who have thrown at least 50 change-ups this year. 

If you're noticing a pattern here, it's that all of his pitches are moving down -- and they're doing so in different ways.

The slider goes away from righties and in to lefties, while the sinker goes in on righties and away from lefties. And then the change-up has more straight down action, but also going in to righites. 

Yes, he's not throwing extremely hard, and all of his pitchers are within 8 MPH of each other, but it's really hard to square a pitcher up if you never know which direction the ball is going to break. 

Is Bryce Elder going to pitch to a sub-2 ERA all year -- no. But he has proven that when he can command those pitches with all that movement in the zone, he can have a ton of success at the big league level. 

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