The 5th starter battle has narrowed down to prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd
Entering spring training, the common assumption was that either Ian Anderson or Bryce Elder would be the 5th starter for the Atlanta Braves this season when the team packed up from North Port and headed north to open the season in Washington.
Instead, they were both sent to AAA Gwinnett earlier this week.
Enter left-handed pitchers Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd.
Both southpaws have acclimated themselves well so far in Spring Training, and with Michael Soroka straining his hamstring at the onset of camp, have become the last two men standing in the battle to be the 5th starter.
Jared Shuster
Shuster, a 1st round pick by the Braves out of Wake Forest in the shortened 2020 draft, has a strong ability to throw strikes and has improved the quality of his slider over the last year, throwing it harder (it now sits mid-80s) to go along with his average fastball and his exceptional changeup. With the improvement to the slider, MLB Pipeline now considers Shuster the #1 prospect in the Atlanta Braves system.
The fastball, while not reaching the velocity numbers (96-97) he flashed in college, sits in the low to mid 90s with solid carry up in the zone and natural cut, making it difficult for hitters to square up.
The entire arsenal is built around the changeup, though. It sits around 80 mph, getting double-digit separation, and excels at getting both swing and miss in the zone and laughably bad swings when it drops below the zone.
Shuster, as is required for a pitcher without an overwhelming fastball, has good control of his secondaries. His career minor league walk percentage is below 7%, and he throws everything for strikes greater than 64% of the time.
The ceiling is limited because of the lack of velocity on the fastball, but the floor is high as a back-of-the-rotation starter that can eat innings and turn over a lineup thanks to an advanced ability to induce weak contact.
Dylan Dodd
Dodd joined the Braves as a member of the 2021 draft, going underslot in the 3rd round out of Southeast Missouri. Ranked 10th in MLB Pipeline's rankings of Braves prospects, Dodd has a similar "higher floor over higher ceiling" projection like Shuster, but with more tools to work with.
Sporting a four-pitch mix, Dodd opens things up with an average fastball, sitting in the lower-90s and with both four-seam and two-seam options. The fastball exists to set up the slider and changeup, both thrown in the low 80s. The slider, a horizontal-breaking "sweeper", could stand to be a tick harder but still misses plenty of bats, while the changeup has good depth and deception to it off of the fastball. Dodd has a slower curveball, as well, that he throws early in the counts as a tendency breaker and to steal an early strike.
Similar to Shuster, Dodd sports excellent control of his arsenal, throwing the fastball for strikes more than 70% of the time and sporting an overall walk rate of 5.4% (third best in the system in 2022 for pitchers with 50 or more innings).
His athleticism works in his favor, as he can easily repeat the delivery for strikes and field his position well - the overall ceiling may be limited by lack of velocity on the fastball, but he's a capable back-of-the-rotation starter.
Spring Stats
Jared Shuster: 3G (2GS): 1.04 ERA in 8.2 IP with 2H, 1ER, 1BB to 9Ks
Dylan Dodd: 3G (1GS): 0.00 ERA in 8.1 IP with 5H, 0R, 0BB to 11Ks
Final Verdict
It'll be interesting to see which prospect gets the job out of camp - if we had to guess, it'd be Shuster owing, if nothing else, to his greater experience in the upper minors.
(Shuster has 30 games in the upper minors, twenty in AA and ten in AAA, versus Dodd's 10 total high minors appearances, with nine of those being in AA Mississippi.)
But even Brian Snitker doesn't know what's going to happen from here with the two young hurlers - he's just happy that he has options. Speaking to the media, he said "It gets exciting when your young players start taking strides forward. It’s good to see that. It just adds to the strength of your organization."
He even admitted he didn't even know that much about Dodd when spring training began, "I saw him on the back field and I was like, ‘Who is this Dodd guy?’”
Now he might be giving him the ball for game five of thee regular season.
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