The signing of Drew Smyly in the offseason for the Atlanta Braves raised a lot of questions with fans. And so far it’s not working out.
While we applaud Alex Anthopoulos for being proactive and getting some veteran arms for the Atlanta Braves this past offseason, a lot of people question giving someone like Drew Smyly $11 million.
They had/have a couple of guys in Bryse Wilson and Kyle Wright that could fill that fifth starter role for a lot cheaper so that money could be used to fill other holes on the roster — like the bullpen and bench.
From that perspective, many fans — including myself — are never going to understand signing Smyly for that much and will have a shorter leash with him than others.
Through four starts, it’s really looking like the Braves’ front office got duped by a short sample size in 2020.
In 26.1 innings with the Giants last year, Smyly posted a 3.42 ERA and 1.10 WHIP with 42 strikeouts.
The analytics people will tell you it had a lot to do with the increased spin rate on his pitches. His cutter went from a spin rate of 2,053 in 2019 to 2,296 in 2020, while his curveball went from 1,950 to 2,153 and his fastball from 2,086 to 2,249.
Now those are pretty big jumps in spin rate and certainly could have contributed to better results.
But we’re talking 26 innings…
The deepest he pitched in a game last year was 5.1 innings.
And unfortunately for the Braves, Smyly hasn’t been able to duplicate those spin rates from 2020 as they’re all about 100 points lower.
The curveball is still really good, but his four-seam and cutter are down 1 MPH and with the loss in spin rate those pitches are getting crushed.
Smyly is a three-pitch pitcher as he ditched the change-up last year. And he only throws the cutter 8.5 percent of the time. It’s really hard to survive as a starter when you primarily throw two pitches and one of them is a pretty flat four-seam fastball in the lower 90s.
He had a good start against the Nationals at the beginning of April giving up 2 earned runs on 4 hits and 1 walk with 8 strikeouts over 6 innings. Hopefully he can repeat that performance on Thursday.
Since then he’s allowed 5 earned runs in three straight starts going five innings, four innings, and four innings with 10 strikeouts combined in those three starts.
I know the Braves paid big money for him and will probably give him a longer leash than us fans will. But for me, if he doesn’t start to show some improvement in his next two starts it’s time to give someone else a chance in that spot.