Spencer Schwellenbach was the Atlanta Braves’ secret weapon in 2024. After arriving in May, the young righty anchored down the back end of the rotation, and might have been one of the keys for the team even making the playoffs. Despite this, his national recognition was somewhat lacking whe compared to some of his young peers around the league.
However, as the 24-year-old as continued his dominance into the 2025 spring training, he’s begun to turn heads among the national media. Recently, Schwellenbach was listed Jeff Passan’s article highlighting 10 breakout players from this spring ($$$).
Spencer Schwellenbach has impressed MLB scouts this spring
Braves fans certainly know what Spencer Schwellenbach is capable of doing. In 2024, despite having limit professional experience in professional baseball (and pitching in general) was the Braves fourth-best pitcher, behind three All-Stars in Max Fried, Reynaldo Lopez, and the NL Cy Young winner, Chris Sale.
His 2.6 fWAR ranks as the sixth-best season by a Braves rookie since the club moved to Atlanta in 1996. This performance had MLB predicting he would be the 2025 version of 2024 Bryce Miller, who followed his solid rookie campaign with an even better sophomore season.
So far, this looks like it could be the case. In his two spring training starts, the righty has pitched five innings, struck out five batters, walked none, and allowed no runs. Amongst all of the Braves’ pitchers in camp right now, the only one that has had an arguably better start to spring is Chris Sale and even that is a little bit debatable.
According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, his command of his six-pitch mix and his maturity has scouts believing there’s more in the tank from what we saw last year. Considering the depth of the NL East, Passan notes, the Braves could really use a great season from Schwellenbach to compete this season.
As good as he was last year, Spencer Schwellenbach isn’t taking anything for granted. He noted in February that once he was able to reflect on his season, he was looking forward to working on things and improving. Given how good he was last year and the arsenal of pitches and raw stuff he brings to the table, that is decidedly bad news for opposing hitters and great news for the Braves.
While it might seem absurd to expect more from someone who could have eclipsed 3.0 WAR in his rookie year if he was called up earlier, if the early results of spring training are any indication, we might be in store for a special season from Schwellenbach.
