Atlanta Braves Seemingly Prepared to Promote a 5th Starter from Gwinnett

The Atlanta Braves may have finally decided on their fifth starter.

The Atlanta Braves lost top starter Spencer Strider to a UCL surgery that is going to knock him out for at least all of 2024. Naturally, this has led to questions about who is Atlanta going to use in the postseason as they attempt to get the "Philadelphia Phillies" monkey off of their back.

But it creates another issue, one more immediate: How do you replace those innings in the rotation for the regular season? Strider made 32 starts and pitched 186.2 innings last season, and someone has to cover those innings.

And the Braves might have just decided on Bryce Elder as Strider's long-term replacement in the rotation.

Elder, 24, was an All-Star for the first time in his career last season. Being called up after one minor league start, Elder put up a 2.97 ERA in the first half of the season, going 7-2 in 18 MLB starts. But in his first full major league season, the workload caught up to him, with the sinkerballer struggling down the stretch to the tune of a 5.11 ERA in only 13 starts.

Elder wasn't Atlanta's first option to replace Strider on a weekly basis, based on the schedules of when everyone pitched. Elder made a start for AAA Gwinnett the day after Strider's final outing, with Bryce going four innings against Louisville and getting a no decision. With the bullpen being taxed after Strider and Saturday starter Max Fried's abbreviated outings, the decision was made to call up the scheduled Sunday starter in Gwinnett, Allan Winans, instead of Elder in case Winans was needed out of the bullpen.

But Atlanta made it through the rest of the homestand without needing Winans to enter in relief, and so he took Strider's next turn through the rotation against the New York Mets on Thursday (and it did NOT go well). Darius Vines was the next AAA starter to be called up after Winans was sent down, and he was expected to follow the same pattern as Winans - be a relief option if necessary, and start if not needed before then when the team travels to Houston to take on the Astros early this week.

There's reason to believe that Elder's about to be called up by Atlanta, though - the first is that he was announced as the scheduled starter for Gwinnett in the team's postgame notes from Saturday's loss to Omaha, but was seemingly scratched, with Huascar Ynoa sent to the mound in his place.

And the second is Atlanta's announced rotation for the Astros series - they've pushed Reynaldo López back a day to Tuesday instead of Monday, his standard day out as he's usually following Charlie Morton, today's starter, in the rotation. Instead, Monday is listed as a TBA in the team's game notes.

It seems that one of two situations is likely here:

The first scenario is that Darius Vines is going to be used in relief today and then sent down to AAA Gwinnett after the game, with Bryce Elder being the corresponding move and starting Monday at Houston.

Looking at recent bullpen usage, using Vines today doesn't seem like an absolute necessity - Dylan Lee, one of Atlanta's two preferred multi-inning options, threw 35 pitches on Thursday and could be available today, although the Braves typically like to give him three days off if his pitch count exceeds thirty in an outing. Jesse Chavez, the other 'long man' in the pen, threw 20 pitches as part of a one-inning stint on Saturday and could throw again today, although I'm sure Atlanta would rather give him the day off and he's probably limited to one inning at most. Lee (35 pitches), Chavez (20), and Tyler Matzek (21) have all thrown 20 or more pitches in the last three days, typically an indication that a team would rather avoid using that reliever if possible. (Both Joe Jimémez and Raisel Iglesias, conversely, have not pitched since Tuesday and are almost locks to get used in some capacity today.)

The second scenario is that Vines will get the Monday start and then be sent back to Gwinnett, with the corresponding move being Elder's call-up. This feels unlikely, though, when you consider that Elder has not gotten an official appearance since April 6th, his last start in AAA. Would Atlanta really want to have him sit and not throw in a game until either his time in the MLB rotation came back around (which would be next Sunday the 21st, at home against the Texas Rangers) or push Chris Sale and Charlie Morton back again to use Elder on Friday night at home?

(Another possibility here is that Atlanta uses Vines on Monday, makes the roster move for Elder, and then starts him on Wednesday, pushing Max Fried back to Friday. Typically, however, the team wouldn't announce Fried as Wednesday's starter if they were considering taking this track, but it's possible.)

Of course, it's entirely possible that Elder's not starting for Gwinnett on Sunday because he woke up feeling ill or didn't sleep well. The baseball gods are fickle like that sometimes.