Right now the Atlanta Braves starting rotation is viewed as one of the best in baseball, but it still seems a bit underrated by most.
There’s no doubt that the starting rotation for the Atlanta Braves was a mess for a majority of the shortened regular season in 2020.
A lot of that had to do with some unfortunate circumstance — and some players just not progressing the way we hoped.
However, I’ve said many times that starting pitching wasn’t the reason we lost to the Dodgers, it was the offense’s inability to come up with a big hit in just one of those last three games.
But certainly having more depth in the starting rotation would have been nice and was a big area of concern coming into the offseason.
That’s why Alex Anthopoulos quickly snatched up Charlie Morton and Drew Smyly for a combined $26 million.
We can debate all day about whether or not those were overpays and that there were better pitchers to be had. But AA didn’t want a repeat of what happened during the 2020 season where we happy to get four innings out of our starter and then let one of the best bullpens in baseball do the rest.
That can work in a 60-game season, but not over a 162-game slate.
You’re going to need a lot of starters to get through this 2021, and you’re going to need dependable starters who are going to give you at least 5 innings every time out.
They have that with Mike Soroka, Max Fried, and Charlie Morton. If Drew Smyly stays healthy, he can that guy.
Ian Anderson can probably do it, but they’re going to limit his innings seeing as the most innings he’s thrown in a professional season is 135.2 in 2019.
Soroka and Fried both have ace-type stuff and could be NL Cy Young candidates.
A lot of people are sleeping on Morton who was a 6 WAR player in 2019. And we know what his resume is in the postseason, which was the biggest reason for signing him.
I’d put that top three up against anyone in the league.
FanGraphs apparently thinks that’s only good enough to rank 9th in baseball and fourth in the NL East.
Who's in your top 10? pic.twitter.com/KG57Dj8GfD
— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) March 10, 2021
How they have the Phillies ahead of the Braves makes no sense. And while the Reds’ top two starters are good, Braves pitchers literally just outdueled them last postseason — not to mention they no longer have Trevor Bauer.
And we haven’t even talked about the depth beyond the top five for the Braves with Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, and Huascar Ynoa who all have postseason success under their belts now.
That’s going to be huge for their development and they’ll all likely figure into the rotation at some point this season. You won’t find many teams who go eight deep like that with guys you know can be counted on.
The Braves rotation is easily top five in all of baseball, and by years’ end, I think they’re going to surprise a lot of people with just how good and deep this rotation is.