Braves appear to be developing a unique plan for AJ Smith-Shawver

admin | April 4, 2024 | Other Clubs | No Comments

The first week of AAA baseball is almost over, and top prospect AJ Smith-Shawver has yet to make an appearance.

However, there appears to be a cause for this, and it is not related to the injury.

According to MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, AJ Smith-Shawver will make his first start with the Stripers tomorrow. The objective is for him to pitch only a few innings (30-40 pitches), because the Braves understand how vital Smith-Shawver can be down the stretch.

Smith-Shawver will debut for @GoStripers tomorrow. He'll go two innings (30-40 pitches). Keeping him fresh during the early part of the season could be very beneficial, especially when you want Lopez (possibly as a reliever) and Sale to be strong down the stretch.

— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) April 4, 2024

The Braves want to keep Smith-Shawver as fresh as possible for the second half of the season, which makes sense for a number of reasons.

In his first start in more than two years, Reynaldo Lopez appeared to be in top form. However, he has not thrown more than 100 innings since 2019. It would be ridiculous to expect him to make 30 or more starts and total 200 innings. It’s much more likely that he’ll be transferred back to the bullpen later in the season, when we may see AJ Smith-Shawver.

Having a fresh arm with enormous upside available at any time later in the year is really useful, thus gradually increasing Smith-Shawver’s workload is the best course of action. He’s still only 21 years old and has never pitched more than 100 innings in his career. That takes some getting used to, as we saw with Bryce Elder last season.

Elder was one of baseball’s greatest pitchers in the first half of last season, earning the All-Star team. However, his output dropped dramatically in the second half, which may be attributed in large part to the strain. He also discussed the toll it took on his body leading up to the season and how he’s training differently to pitch as well as he can over the course of a demanding six-month season.

If the Braves didn’t have so many starting pitchers, perhaps they would take a different approach to Smith-Shawver’s development, pushing him a little harder. However, this organization has plenty of pitching depth. It’s preferable to have Smith-Shawver locked and loaded by September than to have him at his peak in the warm months.