Expectations continue to grow for Atlanta Braves sophomore starter Spencer Schwellenbach heading into 2025.
Baseball America included him on the list of nine breakout pitchers that readers should get to know. Writers Matt Eddy and JJ Cooper were tasked with hyping up the 24-year-old righty.
Eddy was impressed with how effectively he attacked hitters.
“There were starts where it looked like he could get all 27 outs, and Atlanta may ask more out of him this season after losing veteran starters Max Fried and Charlie Morton,” Eddy wrote. “ Schwellenbach is up for the task after brandishing six average-or-better pitches and showing one of the best first-pitch strike and swinging-strike rates among 25-and-under starters in 2024.”
Cooper noted Schwellenbach as intimate to how the Braves have an eye for scouting talent. He’s also pointed out that while the righty has already proven to be a legitimate piece of the rotation, this is the year he turns up the dial.
“Atlanta’s ability to keep developing later-round starting pitchers is remarkable,” Cooper wrote. “Schwellenbach has already been quite good, but he’ll show he’s a front-of-the-rotation starter in 2025.”
When looking deeper into Schwellenabach’s stats for 2025, we might already be seeing what is being hyped up to come. He finished the season with an already solid 3.35 ERA, but that inflated by a few starts where he was finding his footing. In his final 15 starts, he had a 2.54 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP and 95 strikeouts across 92 innings.
It would be a bit to ask for him to go beyond that. However, if he’s able to keep this performance up for 30-plus starts in 2025, that would count for the breakout they’re expecting. That would land him in the All-Star Game and, at the very least, he would receive votes for the Cy Young.
He’s shown some flashes of greatness during Spring Training. We know these numbers don’t count, but it’s hard to ignore them sometimes. In his most recent Spring Training start, Schwellenbach blanked the New York Yankees over six innings and struck out 10 batters. So far, assuming he isn’t finished yet this Spring, he has a 2.41 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP in 18 2/3 innings pitched.
That’s not too far off from what he did down the stretch of last season. It can only further feed the hype.
