One of the more divisive figures you will encounter on the Atlanta Braves is Bryce Elder. For one joyous half of a season, Elder was one of the Braves best pitchers and earned himself an All-Star nod.
For most of the rest of the time, he has been an adventure at best and a liability at worst. However, with Spencer Strider’s impending return, it looks like the Braves have decided to stop testing fate.
Normally, removing Elder from the rotation would be the easy choice as he can still be optioned in order to make room for Strider.
However, Elder has put up pretty decent results recently and that makes the decision tougher. In his last five starts, Elder has thrown 29 innings with a 3.10 ERA and 3.79 FIP. Not amazing, but certainly passable for a back of the rotation starter.
However, Elder’s lack of swing and miss stuff and how bad he can look seems to have the Braves thinking that the good times are not going to last. After their win over the Nationals, the Braves went ahead and optioned Elder back to the minors.
Bryce Elder optioned back to the minors as Braves decide that he couldn’t keep this up
Again, this plan is understandable. While moving Grant Holmes and his “effectively wild” mix to the bullpen and getting rid of Rafael Montero may yield the best roster on paper, Elder having a minor league option allows for more roster flexibility in the near-term.
Expect the Braves to bring up an extra reliever to take on the road soon before activating Strider early next week.
As for Elder, he did a good bit to at least keep himself in the running for time in the big leagues. When his slider is on, he does get a lot of ground balls and can be effective which is what we saw from him lately.
If he continues to pitch well at Gwinnett, he is going to get another chance in the big leagues, if for no other reason being that Holmes is his own kind of high wire act as a starter.
Stay tuned, Braves fans. The Braves are getting healthy and should have the roster we all wanted to see at the start of the season. One just hopes that Atlanta is pushing the right buttons and will actually play like contenders again.
