Coming into the 2025 season the prospect shine had faded a bit for young Hurston Waldrep. His early assignment to Triple-A during spring training, and a couple rough starts to begin the season didn't have many fans expecting a big league promotion anytime soon.
Additionally, other rising Braves' pitching prospects have taken the attention away from Waldrep. Although it seemed Hurston was heading toward a career in the bullpen, one mechanical adjustment to his delivery may have just saved his career as a starting pitcher.
Hurston Waldrep's new delivery could rocket him into the Braves rotation
After a horrid start to his 2025 season, Waldrep went searching for answers so that he wouldn't become one of those pitching prospects that never pan out. Waldrep had become essentially a one pitch pitcher because of how hittable his fastball was and his inability to land his slider in the strike zone.
The answer Waldrep found, an abbreviated delivery to clean things up, seems to be paying dividends so far. Earlier this month Waldrep tweaked his delivery by implementing a less exaggerated leg kick. With this lower leg kick, Waldrep has found a ton of success in the three starts that have followed.
Wednesday's outing was a showcase on just how effective his stuff is when he's throwing strikes. This afternoon Waldrep threw six innings of two-run ball while racking up nine strikeouts and generating 20 whiffs. Perhaps the most encouraging part was the fact that only two of those whiffs were on his best pitch, the splitter.
Waldrep threw 67 strikes out of his 94 total pitches and the fastball/slider combination was really doing work against Louisville's right-handed hitters. More outings like that could rebuild the prospect value Hurston once had.
The Braves' rotation has been absurdly good recently, but Waldrep developing into a reliable depth starter alongside Bryce Elder would give Atlanta a big boost for the marathon of the 162 game season. Early struggles for a prospect can really hurt their confidence, but talents such as Waldrep always have the ability to figure things out.
AJ Smith-Shawver is the most recent example of the lightbulb going off, and the 2023 first round pick out of Florida could be following in AJSS' footsteps. We will have to monitor his upcoming starts in Gwinnett, but should Waldrep continue to pound the zone with his three pitch mix fans will be more than thrilled about the trajectory of his career.