He has only made two starts this season, but it’s impossible not to be impressed. Spencer Schwellenbach has thrown 14 innings without giving up a run. Indeed, he hasn’t thrown so much as a single pitch with a runner in scoring position. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 14 to one. His groundball rate is 60%. He has allowed 30 batted balls and not one of them has been barreled. According to Baseball Savant, the righty has thrown six distinct pitches at least 10% of the time, and five of them have a positive run value. All told, his +9 pitching run value is the best in the sport. Two starts make for a tiny sample size, but like I said, it’s impossible not to be impressed by what Schwellenbach has done.
Of course, the 24-year-old is used to being impressive. Before the 2025 season began, he was mowing down opponents in the Grapefruit League, striking out 28 batters in 21 innings while pitching to a 3.00 ERA. Before that, he was a breakout stud in his rookie season, putting up a 3.35 ERA, 3.42 SIERA, and 2.6 FanGraphs WAR over 21 starts. Before that, he was a consensus top-five prospect in Atlanta’s system. Across 24 minor league starts at Single-A, High-A, and Double-A from 2023-24, he threw 110 innings with a 2.21 ERA and 3.01 FIP. He skipped Triple-A to make his big league debut last May and never looked back.
With less than one season of service time under his belt, Schwellenbach already finds himself a key member of the Braves’ rotation. Spencer Strider is still working his way back from elbow surgery. Reynaldo López will miss most of the season. Chris Sale remains the ace of the staff, but he’s 36 years old, injury-prone, and has looked unusually mortal to start the year. It remains unclear how much Atlanta will be able to count on top prospects AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep, former All-Star Bryce Elder, and 2024 breakout arm Grant Holmes. Having Schwellenbach to rely on every fifth game will be critical as the Braves look to make up ground in the NL East following a 2-8 start to the season.
As Schwellenbach continues to impress – and as Atlanta continues to be reminded of the importance of reliable, top-end starting pitching – perhaps it’s time for president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos to start thinking about extending the right-hander. It might seem early to be talking about an extension for Schwellenbach. Then again, the Braves extended Strider shortly after his rookie season in 2022. At that time, he had 20 big league starts and 134 innings under his belt. Schwellenbach doesn’t have quite as much MLB service time as Strider did when he signed his extension, but he has now thrown more innings (137 2/3). Meanwhile, Michael Harris II was just 71 games into his big league career when he signed an extension with Atlanta in August 2022. As a position player, Harris is not quite as strong of a comp for Schwellenbach. Regardless, the key point is that this front office doesn’t have any qualms about extending players with limited big league service time. In fact, that’s part of the appeal for the Braves, who also extended Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies quite early on in their careers. The point of these extensions is to offer talented young players immediate financial security in exchange for additional years of team control down the line. If Schwellenbach keeps pitching this way, his asking price is only going to climb, and the chances that he would be willing to give up any of his future free agent years will diminish.
With that said, the Braves have awarded far fewer long-term extensions to pitchers than to position players. For instance, they notably did not extend two-time All-Star Max Fried, who left for the Yankees in free agency this past offseason. Dating back to the 2006 season, the Braves have only given out three guaranteed multi-year extensions to starting pitchers: Strider’s six-year, $75MM deal in 2022; Julio Teheran’s six-year, $32.4MM deal in 2014; and Tim Hudson’s three-year, $28MM deal in 2009. What’s more, the Strider extension has not exactly gone according to plan thus far. While he won 20 games and earned Cy Young votes in 2023, he has made just two starts since the beginning of the 2024 season after damaging his UCL. It’s also worth noting that the Braves have seen many young pitchers get off to promising starts only to fizzle out soon after, whether due to injury or underperformance. That includes arms like Ian Anderson, Michael Soroka, Kyle Wright, and Elder. Perhaps all that will make them a bit more cautious when it comes to Schwellenbach.
As for what a Schwellenbach extension might look like, we can turn to several recent comps. Since Strider inked his deal in October 2022, four more starters with fewer than two years of service time have signed multi-year extensions. Schwellenbach can almost surely ask for more than Cristopher Sánchez’s four-year, $22.5MM guarantee, though he is unlikely to command as much as Strider. The other three extensions – for Hunter Greene, Brayan Bello, and Brandon Pfaadt – were all for somewhere between $45MM and $55MM in guaranteed money over five or six years (with at least one club option). Schwellenbach has arguably had more big league success than any of those pitchers did when they signed their extensions. However, he doesn’t have as much experience as Pfaadt or Bello, nor did he ever have the prospect pedigree of Greene. Still, the preseason ZiPS, Steamer, and PECOTA projections envisioned Schwellenbach to be roughly as valuable, if not more so, than all three of those arms. With that in mind, a six-year deal (that would buy out Schwellenbach’s first free agent season) with an AAV around $9MM and at least one club option would be a logical starting point for negotiations.
Do MLBTR readers think the Braves should offer Schwellenbach an extension? Perhaps you think Atlanta needs to act fast and extend him now before his star shoots any higher. Or perhaps you think the Braves would be smarter to wait until the young right-hander has proven himself over a larger sample of starts. Have your say in the poll below:
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Locking up good young pitching seems like a win-win for both sides in most cases. Teams get a good price on a good arm, and the player gets financial insurance against injury. Position players might tend to benefit from waiting out the process to get more money, but given how injury prone pitchers can be, it feels like deal worth making early if you get a reasonable offer.
“Locking up good”…I mostly agree with everything you’ve just said. But, if I were A.A, I would probably at least wait until the kid surpasses 250+ career innings pitched. I’d just want to further gauge his health, bounce back, durability and recovery capabilities.
This kid is legit and looks unfazed pitching at the Major league level, but I’d have to agree on waiting…Everyone gets the fuzzy feelings when good/young players get extended, but if it constantly impedes the Braves from making outside additions I’m becoming more jaded against those transactions personally.
So did Anderson, and Wright, and Soroka, and to a lesser extent Elder.
Like you though, I am all for locking him up, but thought I would mention them.
You’re kinda proving my point UGASteve lol. I wouldn’t personally extend him atm… His stuff does seem way better at this stage then those 3 did however.
Waiting drives up the price though. The sooner it’s done, the better the value for the club.
But you are forgetting that not everyone continues to go up in value. In fact, very few go up in value. For every one that goes on to be a superstar, there are probably 50 that are out of the league by the time the are out of arbitration.
He has 23 starts including the 2 in 2025 and this season so far including ST has been an extension of what he did last season. The longer the wait, the higher the price.
Schwellenbach was my pick to win the Cy Young this year. Many thought I was crazy and probably still do. I don’t have a crystal ball but if that happens or even if he finishes top 5 in voting an extension will get a lot more expensive than it is right now. It’s obviously a gamble to extend now but it’s also a huge gamble to wait.
Never extend pitchers. The injury risk is too great and the longevity is not there in most cases. You pretty much laid out how often the Braves have a new guy come up and do well. Why would you need to extend someone if it happens that often?
“Never extend pitchers”…I do admit that I’m often conflicted on the associated risks of extending pitchers. I totally do understand your point of view and why you would say that.
I do think teams should be extremely careful and selective and probably not consider extending more than 1 or 2 young pitchers at the most.
Of course they CAN work out. But the problem is how to choose which one is going to be the one that beats the odds and works out. Signing pitcher A and not pitcher B and then watching pitcher B become a star while pitcher A did not is probably a worse look for a GM than not signing either one.
I am a Rockies fan and I will honestly say I was thrilled when the team extended all three of Senzatela, Freeland, and Marquez. And I admit I was hoping Jon Gray would have been a 4th extension. And while I still love all three pitchers, none of those extensions have really worked out that well either through injury or inconsistency. With a team like the Rockies that doesn’t have a long history of attracting pitchers, they HAVE to extend. But other teams shouldn’t be tying up long term money when they can realistically just replace a lot of it on a yearly basis.
Will you be wrong occasionally and lose a good pitcher? Sure, but those are the exceptions not the rule.
No I’d rather give Albies another 20 years
I know that was sarcastic, but it made me nauseous just thinking about it.
Saw him literally only take one step on a Turner liner yesterday that most other infielders would have caught. His reaction time in the field is sooooo horrible. Then again, his reaction time is still better than him flailing around hitting sub-200 against RHP’s but everyone loving on him because he manages a dinger every now and then.
Have the Braves signed a long-term deal that worked out at the end? Riley is the only one that comes to mind that will likely work out, but the rest will not.
Time will tell, but the Braves have had their run for six years, and if you haven’t noticed, they have not been getting better in the postseason when it matters. Like all teams, their time is up.
Edit: Made this comment before seeing the posts under this. Seems like others see these extensions are potential nothing burgers too.
@Trade: Freddie Freeman’s 8 year extension worked out extremely well. I know that doesn’t fit your narrative but pesky facts don’t stop you. Won’t bother mentioning Acuna’s extension that’s made his contract one of the most valuable in MLB because your hatred for him is obvious.
“I know that doesn’t fit your narrative but pesky facts don’t stop you.”
Guy says this while mentioning Freeman. It’s ok. I should have said during AA era even though it should have been implied.
Yeah, Braves will let Ozzie walk in ’28. He’s a value at $7m per year but some team will be dumb enough to give him $18-20m. Bye…
You are optimistic he stays with the team for another 3 years. This organization will be at the bottom of the barrel in the next few seasons until AA and Snit are fired/retire. Another team will take him and his top 10 worst batting approaches in the game today all because how “cheap he is.”
@UGA Steve: Since you’re using this season’s extremely short sample size (and batting average lol) to c r ap on Albies, here’s a couple of facts that you conveniently ignored to promote your narrative. “Albies has a .247 batting average with 100 home runs and 368 RBIs in 2876 plate appearances in his career.” It’s true that Albies has below average career splits vs rh pitching—-93 wrc+ batting lh and 146 wrc+ hitting rh—but trying to claim that he’s “sub-200 against RHP’s” in anything more than the 11 games played this season isn’t factual.
Absolutely not. The Spencer Strider extension has already shown that it’s a terrible idea.
Strider is a thrower trying to become a pitcher. Schwellenbach is already superior in pitch selection, number of offerings, and control. Not saying Strider is bad, but it’s like comparing a young John Smoltz to Greg Maddux to me. Smoltz had elite stuff, but Maddux was the more elite pitcher.
“Strider is a thrower”…I’ve long thought the same thing. Also, to the naked eye his fast ball seems very, very straight.
Why wouldn’t you extend two guys named Spencer? The idea of having any pitchers not named Spencer should be more concerning.
Strider has been a bargain so far. The $9 million he will have been paid for paid for 2023-2025 was paid for by the performance in his 2023 season and added $18 million in surplus value even if he doesn’t pitch at all this season He is should be back soon and add more surplus value to that total.
2026-2028 is when he has to repeat 2023 in order to make his contract payoff.
schwellenbach looks like he could be the best pitcher in that rotation
better than strider, shawver, any one. im not a braves fan but 100% they should lock him up
Owner’s and GMs giving out extensions like Oprah giving out a car to her entire studio audience
Who’s Oprah?
Duh
Would probably extend Schwelly. But before Tromp officially leaves the Braves, he needs to put tariffs on all of the Players that the Dodgers
Imported from Japan! Say 125%., or deportation!
No Deferrals, No comebacks..
Trump you mean?
Tromp 45 ! * Trump 47 !
You Decide !
AI be damned.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 or 48
He meant Tromp and that post was frickin hilarious. Well done Al.
Poll: Should The Pirates Extend Paul Skenes?
Poll: Should The Nationals Extend MacKenzie Gore?
Poll: Should The Orioles Extend Colton Cowser?
If the media has it’s way, all 26 players on the active roster will be under long term contracts.
Should the Mets extend David Peterson?
10 years $185
Sale is at $19M (2yrs/$38M)
Strider is at $12.5 (6yrs/$75M)
So, you are wanting to give
Schwellenbach 10yrs/$185M..?
That’s $18.5M per year without
A math degree!
That’s right at what Sale is making,
and he has been in the league 15 years.
That’s a little much on a hunch
that he will remain at a high level
for say…15 years!
From what I read your expectation is that salaries should remain static.Strider gave you no free agent years of control that is worth not as much as giving up free agent years. Sale!! No one expected Sale to pitch more than 20-22 games last year, so last years was a bonus year plus his best years are way past him now at age 36. More so Crochet got $170 with only 2 years of control left and the new contract is always the refference not the old ones.
Atlanta is guaranteeing Strider $69 million for what would have been his final 3 years of arbitration if they had not signed him. $20 million in 2026, $22 million in 2027, $22 million in 2028, and a $5 million option buyout of a $22 million salary in what would have been his first FA season in 2029.
Braves already have too many bad extensions that are completely underwater.
What contract besides Jackson Profar is completely underwater??
Only one I can think of is Strider. Maybe he thinks the Acuña and Olson extensions are underwater.
Strider, Riley, Olson, Murphy
You must be living in another universe.
Yeah..the universe where the Braves are 2-9 and have the worst offense in the league.
Profar is the only really bad contract, and no one could have really seen that turning out like it has.
Exactly…Acuna, Murphy, Albies always injured. Olson not as good when no one around him to protect him in the lineup. Riley I would extend a million times over personally. Harris is awesome but doesn’t really hit for much power, Strider is a stud but injured, etc etc etc. Ironically, Ozuna has been the most durable and reliable and everyone hated on him (including myself) the 1st 2 years of his “extension”. I’d say enough with extensions.
Ozzie Albies is on a 7 year $35 million deal. I don’t care if he’s injured a lot. That is the most absurdly team friendly deal in baseball. The second most team friendly deal is Acuna at eight years $100M.
Acuna and Albies are really the only contracts that are not over-pays, with the possible exception of Strider. However, with all of their injury history, it kinda evens out when you subtract the time missed. Also, if Strider’s fastball loses more than a couple of MPH, then he may not be effective as in the past. And yes, I’ve seen his stats so far in the minors rehab games. Top speed 97MPH, That’s around 3-4 MPH off his peak! Too many under the radar under-water contracts such as paying David Fletcher over $5M to experiment with a Knuckleball in AA while batting .000 .222 OPS. Fletcher is just part of $25-$30M being paid out on players no longer on the team as part of the Kelenic trade (TRADES)! The Braves are still paying portions of contracts for Evan White, Marco Gonzales and others involved in the trading bonanza attached to Kelenic! All of that extra money being paid to non-roster players could have got the Braves a decent Starter or top notch reliever! None of our Lefty relievers are considered high leverage!
Facts AL facts. Totally false claim that the “Braves are still paying portions of…..contract…..for Marco Gonzales.” Braves don’t owe anything on Gonzales contract now. The 4 year contract extension the Mariners signed him to in 2020 ended in 2024.The Braves paid the Pirates $9.25M of Gonzales $12M 2024 contract. You also either ignored or forgot Riley’s extension. Are you saying his contract is an overpay? Strongly disagree w/your opinion if that’s the case.
The kid has 137 IP. And this year his BApip is .100 which means he is getting lucky so far.
If the kid has another great year and his peripherals stay strong then yes, but not today.
Not all luck when his gb rate is as high as it is.
Agreed. So many baseball pundits on these fantasy sites (the experts, not the people playing) go on and on about BABIP being higher or lower than league rate and such. Pitchers that induce soft contact by working the zone with solid control will always have lower BABIP, Now, .100 is way low, but I can see his stuff putting him on the very low end of the BABIP matrix.
It’s almost the reverse of saying Rafael Belliard’s BABIP was really low and he was just hitting into tough luck, when the reality was he sacrificed power just to make contact, most of which was exteremely weak. Love him to death, but expecting him to have a high, or even league average, BABIP is (edit – wold have been) just comical.
@uga. 100%. Side note. I’m betting all Atlanta pitchers are happier when Nick Allen is at short. I’ve accepted the Braves won’t have a decent offensive shortstop for a while, so at least having a solid defensive ss is nice.
Allen isn’t close to the defensive SS that Arcia is.
Would Toronto trade Bo if they were out of it mid season? How do we feel about that? I also wonder if that FO would deal with AA. Is there any beef there?
You’re right. Allen is much better.
I don’t think half a year of Bo helps the Braves much. Id rather have Nacho Alvarez play short than have him be a trade chip to get Bo and just like Bo he’s not a good shortstop.
Bo B is not very good at SS.
Smacky, you are kidding, right?
I don’t think half a season of Bo will help the Blue Jays either. Bichette just has not been good at all since the 1st half of 2023.
You could have just stopped at not very good.
@Pads Fans: Don’t expect an answer from Smacky. He either ignores those who disagree w/him or immediately bans them. Just like Samuel and a few others on the site, Smacky won’t put up w/push back against his opinions that he claims are facts.
Lucky?? I don’t you know the meaning of that word.
Extend him and trade Waldrep now before his value craters like 95% of U of F pitchers.
Why would you want to extend a player that has 6 years of team control?
“6 years of team control”…That’s my main conflict with early extensions. Every MLB team already has each and every young player “extended” via the MLBPA negotiated CBA. Extending position players is a much easier decision and calculation.
After 2025 he has 5 years of team control. What do you think he will make in 2026-2029 in arbitration if 2025 looks like 2024 for him in terms of ERA?
Because it’s the Braves and they’ll get something nuts like a 7 year $65M deal that gives them cost certainty now and a fantastic deal for the arb years later.
Cost certainty its good but you take away the hunger you need to some young athletes in order to thrive, its something you do it unconscious, but people relax, if it happens to older matured players and they say they are professionals, and they are, but imagine been signed for 15 guarantee years ??
To get 5 more!!
Love the oddball early season stats, like Schwellenbach’s 0.286 WHIP, just two Atlanta regulars with an OPS+ above 83, and Sale’s 3.14 FIP and 17 to 1 K to BB ratio betrayed by his 6.75 ERA.
Schwellenbach said in an interview that he likes playing shortstop and hitting as much as pitching. They should have given him some reps at short and let him hit in Spring Training. You never know. He could have the talent to be a bench player “and” pitch with only one roster spot, unless MLB has some special Ohtani Rule which they probably already have in place! But knowing the Braves, they would not want to invite any other injury risks involved by letting him do anything other than pitching!
Schwellen-tani.
I feel like the braves should pump the brakes on the extensions. Only a year or two in to their entire core being locked down, and while they are still an excellent club, the future of many of those contracts are looking murkier each day. Lots of injuries and underperformance. In a few years I could see them being in trouble with having so much of their lineup locked in.
They’re not looking murkier, though, in the context of $ / win and what they’d be paying for these wins and to replace these players in free agency. That’s the tradeoff—you get Acuna for very little, but now have to sweat out the Austin Riley extension (where did that cliff come from? A reliable 6 win player and GG candidate signs for less than half the Vlad extension, and suddenly he forgets how to hit—at 27?
This reads more like a curse than it does any real misjudgment on the part of the FO.
Agree w/your post except for your premise that Riley has forgotten “how to hit.” He’s traditionally a slow starter, and like most players can be a bit streaky.
Don’t rush now, but don’t wait forever—sign him in July if he keeps this up. Why? His 14 innings are unreal, but the Braves save $8 million this year versus a $9M AAV deal (like Greene’s). By July, at 15 starts (say 90 innings), if he’s still got a sub-2.00 ERA and 80 strikeouts, his value’s clearer—maybe $60M locks him in, still a steal versus $200M later.
Why? You will be paying part of a rehab year, and perhaps a lost full year when he inevitably gets hurt.
So? You gonna find an injury-free alternative somewhere? Get the good ones locked up now and then you can afford the veteran short-term deals when you need to patch together the holes.
“So?”…Anyone who says “so” to paying players millions of dollars to rehab and not play is someone who’s credibility is low. In fact, I wonder if you’re even discussing this point in good faith.
Do it
Atlanta always does a great job drafting and developing starting pitchers. I wish Yankees did that
Schwellenbach looks like a keeper to me. A couple of extra years should make this a good deal even if there is a TJ surgery. High risk: higher reward
100%. Similar contract to strider and do it now
I wouldn’t be surprised if AA offered a long-term deal which he rejected, like Max Fried will just wait until he’s a free agent and really rake it in.