The Atlanta Braves last three postseasons featured two dominant starters; this year, one lost his way when the team needed him most.
Max Fried and Ian Anderson stabilized the Atlanta Braves regular-season rotation and squelched offense in postseason play. Fried continued to dominate in 2022, but Anderson struggled, lost his spot in the rotation, and watched his team surge to a division title from Gwinnett.
There’s nothing wrong with league average.
Anderson’s postseason performances had him walkin’ in high cotton, but his regular season performances were pretty mundane.
It’s true he was stingy when it came to giving up home runs, but it was more a factor of Anderson’s location and movement than anything great stuff because Anderson doesn’t have great stuff.
Nevertheless, Anderson’s ability to keep runners from scoring once they reached base, and convince batters that the balls he threw were strikes, was enough to make him a league-average pitcher, and his postseason work made everyone forget the rest.
New Year, different results
It’s not unusual for a pitcher to struggle in the first month of the season, But Anderson’s struggles worsened as the season went on. He gave up fewer hits in the first two months of the year than in the same period last year, but walked more batters, gave up more runs, and pitched ten fewer innings,
Anderson hit bottom hard in June, allowing the most hits – 38- and walks -14 – than in any month of his career. It’s not surprising that he averaged only 4.5 innings a start or finished the month with a 6.91 ERA. What is surprising is that he won three of the six games he started.
A similarly bad July and two bad starts in August were enough to convince the Atlanta Braves Anderson needed to pitch somewhere he could work on improving his results. Unfortunately, he walked continued to walk too many batters and struggled to a 5.82 ERA and 1.615 WHIP when the season ended at Gwinnett.
What happened to the Atlanta Braves starter?
Anderson’s fastball velocity dropped from 94.6 to 94 in 2022. Pitchers who have great stuff can overcome that slight drop in velocity, and as I said earlier, Anderson doesn’t have great stuff.
Writing for Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) in August, Michael Ajeto concluded that the 0.5 mph Anderson lost off his fastball changed the results, but only because his supply of secret sauce ran out.
". . .(Anderson was) overperforming his peripherals (and) didn’t have much margin for error. The loss in velocity all but ensured that his regression (would) come all at once . . .(he was) lucky for the bulk of 2021 in a way that he hasn’t been in 2022."
Ajeto sums it up well.
"The pitcher you see is mostly the pitcher he was."
That’s a wrap
The Atlanta Braves need Anderson to pitch as at least a league-average, back of the rotation arm. If for no other reason than to stop throwing money as veterans like Smyly and Odorizzi.
Maybe his arm had a post-World Series hangover. Perhaps the 135 innings Anderson threw in 2021 were too much after the shortened 2020 season. His highest total of minor-league innings came in 2019 when he threw 135.2 between Pearl and Gwinnett.
Major League innings, particularly postseason ones, are much harder than their minor league counterparts. Anderson has an unrestricted off-season to get in shape, regain lost velocity, and change his future.