Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said in November that starting pitching was one of the areas “we’re going to focus on” this winter, and such hurlers as Freddy Peralta, Zac Gallen, Chris Bassitt, and Lucas Giolito were linked to the team over the last few months. Apart from a few veterans on minor league deals (i.e. Martin Perez, Carlos Carrasco), however, Atlanta has yet to bolster its rotation in any meaningful way, and the internal mix took a hit since Spencer Schwellenbach will begin the year on the 60-day injured list due to elbow inflammation.
Speaking with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Chad Bishop and other reporters yesterday, Anthopoulos said his club continues to search “for a playoff starter,” as in a pitcher who can be comfortably penciled into a postseason rotation right now. “You can always make room for a front-line starter, right? That’s the one commodity or the one asset in this game that is not blocked. If you have five guys and you have someone that’s gonna slot in the top three, you make room for those guys. That was always the goal for us,” Anthopoulos said.
Since the Braves have yet to find anyone who presents a clear-cut upgrade over their current starters, the team has stood pat, since Anthopoulos feels comfortable with at least his rotation’s top four starters. Anthopoulos named Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Reynaldo Lopez, and Grant Holmes as “four guys [who] are set in our rotation,” and with Schwellenbach sidelined, the team will have various internal candidates like Perez, Carrasco, Hurston Waldrep, Bryce Elder, or Didier Fuentes all competing for the fifth starter’s role.
The situation is still fluid if Anthopoulos can find an acceptable trade for a pitcher who raises the rotation’s ceiling, but there’s enough depth on hand that the PBO isn’t too interested in adding another depth starter to just raise the floor. This is in part because Anthopoulos is loyal to his current starters and excited to see what they can bring to the table following an injury-marred season for most of the team. The health uncertainty that centered around Lopez and Holmes in particular has dissipated to some extent, Anthopoulos said, so the rotation needs that seemed like a must in November are less critical now that Spring Training is underway.
“We’re so much more removed now [from November],” Anthopoulos said. “We’re sitting here in the middle of February with those guys specifically, and we just know more about Holmes and Lopez, who we were checking on all offseason.”
Shoulder surgery limited Lopez to just one start in 2025. Holmes pitched well over 115 innings (starting 21 of 22 games) last season, but his year was ended in late July by a partial UCL tear, and Holmes is attempting to pitch through the injury without a Tommy John or internal brace surgery. Since Sale and Strider also have notable injury histories, adding even a depth arm would still seem like a worthwhile endeavor for the Braves, especially since acquiring a front-of-the-rotation arm is always difficult.
Anthopoulos is known for swinging surprise trades out of the blue, so we can’t close the door on the Braves’ chances of finding a prominent arm. That said, it’s particularly tricky at this stage of the offseason to think of pitchers who might both be realistically available in trade talks, and who might be the kind of postseason-caliber starters Anthopoulos is seeking. It is also fair to think that Anthopoulos is engaging in some gamesmanship by downplaying his team’s need for a back-end rotation type, if he is in discussions with rival clubs about such types of pitchers.
Of the aforementioned names on Atlanta’s target list, Giolito is still available, but Gallen has re-signed with the Diamondbacks, Bassitt signed with the Orioles, and the Brewers traded Peralta to the Mets. Gallen and Bassitt just joined their new teams within the last few days, and it isn’t known if the Braves were still pursuing either of those pitchers right down to the wire.