Alex Anthopoulos, Stuff+ Merchant?
The Braves’ pursuit of Jacob deGrom - and the ordinary stuff behind most of the deadline’s other starters - reveals how Atlanta thinks about collecting 27 outs in October.
It’s been nearly a week, and much of Braves Country still isn’t over the trade deadline.
Alex Anthopoulos publicly said the Braves would pursue any impact starter who became available. Instead, Atlanta added veteran rotation stabilizer Tyler Mahle and emergency depth option Bailey Falter. No Casey Mize. No Robbie Ray. No Kevin Gausman.
Plenty of fans remain furious. The common refrain: Any of those pitchers would be better than Atlanta’s current No. 2 in October.
Anthopoulos apparently saw the market differently. After digging into the pitchers who moved, I think I understand why.
Let’s talk about it.
The Trade That Didn’t Happen
Recapping the trade deadline to the media on Monday night, Anthopoulos admitted that the Braves had identified exactly two “impact starters” on the market this deadline.
As most teams were, Atlanta was in on Tigers all-world starter Tarik Skubal. Despite Alex Anthopoulos admitting that they made most of their prospects available for Detroit to build a trade, he went to the Dodgers for a three-player package.
But per reports, AA was also in on Jacob deGrom. Playing for the Rangers, the Florida native reportedly invoked his no-trade clause to block being moved at the deadline despite Texas and Atlanta having reportedly agreed to a deal. I’d expect Atlanta to check back in on deGrom this winter, given Alex’s proclivity to ‘fall in love’ with certain players like Chris Sale and Mauricio Dubón, working on those deals across multiple seasons until they finally get done.
Additionally, we have new reporting from The Athletic’s Jesús Cano that Atlanta was working on a package for Angels starter José Soriano, who was later traded to the Toronto Blue Jays.
What we don’t have any confirmation of, and actually have reporting that implies or suggests against, is that the Braves were interested in veterans Casey Mize or Robbie Ray.
There’s a trend between the guys that we know the Braves were interested in and who they weren’t.
What Was Atlanta Actually Shopping For?
Despite the insistence of many that Mize or Ray or Gausman (who wasn’t available to the Braves, as Toronto’s still holding a grudge against AA for declining their contract extension in 2014) would have improved the rotation in October, the Braves seemingly were focused on two criteria that none of those names had:
The stuff and proven ability to miss bats.
Those are consistent benchmarks for the guys that we know the Braves were interested in, and it can be explained by three stats: Whiff rate, strikeout rate, and Stuff+.
To explain each:
Whiff rate measures how frequently a pitcher misses a bat when the hitter swings.
Strikeout rate measures how consistently those misses become outs.
Stuff+ evaluates the physical characteristics of the pitches, with 100 representing league average.
I pulled a list and cross-referenced the starters that were traded this deadline, plus Jacob deGrom, on these three benchmarks and came away with the following takeaways:
Median Stuff+ among the traded starters: 96.5
Median whiff rate: 25.0%
Median strikeout rate: 22.4%
Only four of 21 traded starters carried an above-average Stuff+.
Skubal was the only traded starter to reach a 25% strikeout rate.
Skubal was the only traded starter above the meaningful threshold in all three categories.
Here’s everyone’s info:
| Pitcher | Acquired by | IP/GS | Whiff% | K% | Stuff+ |
| ------------------- | -------------: | ------------: | --------: | --------: | --------: |
| Tarik Skubal | Dodgers | 102⅔ / 17 | 32.5% | 30.7% | 117.2 |
| Jacob deGrom | Not traded | 113⅔ / 21 | 33.3% | 28.8% | 108.5 |
| Connelly Early | Nationals | 91⅔ / 17 | 23.7% | 23.8% | 102.8 |
| Dustin May | Brewers | 115 / 22 | 22.6% | 23.0% | 101.9 |
| Clay Holmes | Cubs | 52⅔ / 9 | 21.9% | 20.9% | 101.6 |
| Spencer Arrighetti | Blue Jays | 88 / 17 | 25.4% | 22.5% | 99.5 |
| Kevin Gausman | Cubs | 127⅓ / 23 | 27.0% | 23.5% | 98.1 |
| Foster Griffin | Guardians | 133⅓ / 23 | 24.3% | 22.4% | 97.9 |
| José Soriano | Blue Jays | 123 / 22 | 31.4% | 24.9% | 97.7 |
| Luis Castillo | White Sox | 103⅔ / 18 | 23.8% | 19.7% | 97.1 |
| Lance McCullers Jr. | Brewers | 44 / 8 | 27.9% | 24.6% | 96.8 |
| Aaron Civale | Cubs | 84 / 15 | 20.9% | 17.6% | 96.5 |
| Freddy Peralta | Rays | 117⅓ / 23 | 26.5% | 21.8% | 95.7 |
| Robbie Ray | Padres | 122⅔ / 21 | 25.0% | 20.9% | 94.9 |
| Kris Bubic | Dodgers | 50⅓ / 9 | 26.1% | 24.6% | 93.6 |
| Jameson Taillon | Blue Jays | 80 / 16 | 26.6% | 20.8% | 92.4 |
| Braxton Garrett* | Cubs | 4⅓ / 2 | 23.5% | 17.9% | 90.1 |
| Dean Kremer | Twins | 41 / 8 | 26.2% | 23.3% | 89.5 |
| David Peterson† | Cubs | 106 / 15 | 20.9% | 18.5% | 88.9 |
| Bailey Falter* | Braves | 9⅔ / 2 | 20.0% | 10.5% | 88.6 |
| Casey Mize | Padres | 90 / 17 | 26.5% | 23.7% | 88.5 |
| Tyler Mahle | Braves | 94⅔ / 18 | 21.6% | 22.0% | 88.4 |
* Extremely small MLB sample this season.
† Peterson was moved June 25, making him the earliest inclusion in the deadline-season group.
The first thing that stands out to me is that Skubal and deGrom were in a class of their own. Skubal owns the better Stuff+ and strikeout rate; deGrom has the slightly better whiff rate. Nobody else combines an above-average Stuff+, 25% whiff rate and an above-average strikeout rate, and Skubal is the only traded starter who clears all three thresholds.
That makes the unsuccessful deGrom pursuit stand out even more. He wasn’t merely another recognizable veteran Atlanta considered; he represented one of only two available - or potentially available - pitchers with genuine postseason bat-missing traits.
Nobody else cleared all three, and most lacked meaningful separation from league average.
Atlanta’s decisions suggest the front office didn’t see enough separation from its internal options to justify the acquisition cost. They were useful pitchers to have, but “useful” does not equal “meaningful October upgrade”.
And at the deadline’s prices, Anthopoulos clearly felt holding back was the prudent course of action.
Model disagreement: José Soriano
His 31.4% whiff rate is nearly deGrom/Skubal territory, and his 24.9% K rate is the second-highest among traded starters. Yet his Stuff+ is only 97.7, which surprised me when you look at his upper-90s velo and breaking ball shape.
That suggests his misses are being created by pitch mix, location, tunneling or hitter decisions more than exceptional modeled pitch characteristics. He probably represented the best alternative for Atlanta if the goal was obtaining bat-missing ability plus multiple years of control, and it’s entirely plausible that the Braves could have made some tweaks to get him above-average via Stuff+.
I personally would have been in on Soriano, and we have reporting that the Braves were, but at the cost of Tate Southisene (to find an equivalent prospect to Blue Jays shortstop Arjun Nimmala), I see why the Braves passed. His deterioration in both inputs and results as the season has progressed, potentially due to workload, implies that this would have been more of a future play than impactful in 2026.
The recognizable veterans were mostly reputation plays
The two most ‘egregious’ misses by Atlanta, per most outside critics, were Casey Mize and Robbie Ray, who both joined the Padres.
Mize has a good 23.7% strikeout rate and a respectable 26.5% whiff rate, but his 88.5 Stuff+ is one of the lowest in the entire group. That doesn’t mean his 2.70 ERA is fraudulent - command, sequencing, and contact management matter - but it does suggest Atlanta would have been paying a substantial prospect price for execution and results, not an overpowering profile, and while taking on a not-insignificant amount of injury risk, to boot.
Ray, similarly, had a poor 20.9% strikeout rate and a somewhat respectable 25.0% whiff rate, but a Stuff+ of just 94.9. Similar to Bryce Elder and Martín Pérez, he’s mostly come to his 3.08 ERA by overperforming his estimators through mitigating hard-hit contact and a non-insignificant amount of luck (.261 BABIP, versus league average of .295 and a career average of .296).
The players that Atlanta did get, starter Tyler Mahle and AAA depth piece Bailey Falter, are clearly intended to be more of the same back-end rotation stabilization as Mize and Ray, and came to Atlanta much cheaper than the other two veterans. Mahle’s 88.4 Stuff+ and 21.6% whiff rate are both poor. Falter’s sample is far too small for a strong conclusion, but nothing in it indicates impact stuff. They were acquired to provide rotation insurance and survivable innings, not to start Game 2 of a postseason series.
But while Stuff+ might be the separator, it’s not the end goal. Anthopoulos isn’t chasing Stuff+ for its own sake. He appears to be building postseason pitching backward from the 27 outs Atlanta must record, placing a premium on pitchers who can produce the least volatile kind of out: a strikeout.
Unlike the other types of outs in a baseball game, a strikeout:
Cannot find a defensive hole.
Cannot be misplayed.
Cannot advance another runner, unless there’s a passed ball
Is largely protected from BABIP variance.
Whiff rates and Stuff+ don’t guarantee strikeouts, but they help identify pitchers whose arsenals provide the raw ingredients for them.
When you consider it from this angle, it explains why Atlanta pursued Tarik Skubal and Jacob deGrom but treated Tyler Mahle and Bailey Falter as inexpensive depth rather than paying impact prices for another ordinary starter.
This distinction makes the entire deadline make sense. Atlanta essentially had two shopping lists:
The regular-season list: Pitchers capable of supplying innings and preventing the rotation from collapsing under injuries. Mahle and Falter qualify, and neither cost Atlanta its best prospects.
The postseason list: Pitchers capable of materially changing how Atlanta maps out 27 outs against an elite lineup. deGrom qualified. Skubal qualified. Most of the market did not.
What Detroit Can Teach Atlanta
And while the Braves ultimately didn’t get Skubal from the Tigers, they did get something out of Detroit: “pitching chaos”.
In their 2024 postseason run, Detroit was down to Tarik Skubal and rookie Keider Montero for the final two months of the season. But rather than force underprepared Triple-A starters into the rotation, they embraced an abandonment of a baseball truism:
One starter has to be responsible for the first six innings.
Now let’s be clear, this was born out of necessity, not ideology. Detroit had made a deadline trade of Jack Flaherty and then dealt with multiple rotation injuries. So manager A.J. Hinch and GM Scott Harris built a new system around openers, bulk relievers, and matchup-driven pitching.
The philosophy wasn’t bullpen games; it was ‘never let the lineup get comfortable.’ The perfect encapsulation of how Detroit did this is their Wild Card series against Houston. Game one was a traditional start behind an ace, with Tarik Skubal pitching six scoreless innings in a 3-1 victory. But game two saw seven Detroit pitchers combine for all 27 outs, with no pitcher recording more than five and no Astros hitter facing the same pitcher twice.
Think about that last stat. It completely eliminates not only third-time-through-the-order penalties, but also lineup familiarity and even anti-platoon lineup configurations.
And Hinch spoke frequently during that stretch about building games backward from the opposing lineup. Houston had several dangerous left-handed hitters, namely Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, so the question shifted from “who pitches the sixth?” to “who gets Alvarez this time?”
Atlanta Has The Chemistry
Reliever Beau Brieske was asked about how they were embracing the new game plan, and had a very telling statement: “You’ve got to trust that if your name’s getting called, there’s a reason […] it’s not just randomness,” and admitted that buying in required players to give up some pride and ego so that the club could maximize everyone’s strengths.
Sounds similar to how the Braves players have discussed being willing to do whatever the team asks of them, whether it’s Martín Pérez taking the ball last Saturday on 45 minutes’ notice or Chris Sale being willing to unconditionally trust any pitch call from his catcher.
And it worked for Detroit. The Tigers went 31-13 down the stretch to reach the postseason, sweeping the Astros in the Wild Card round before dropping the Divisional Series to the Guardians.
Why This Isn’t a Cheat Code
That ALDS loss showed the flaw in the plan for the Tigers: accumulated wear on the staff. By the ALDS, relievers appeared to have begun wearing down and Cleveland was able to exploit those more frequent moments of weakness to break through.
Also, one of the prerequisites to this plan working is the ace continuing to deliver like an ace every time out, and Skubal didn’t. He gave Detroit seven scoreless innings in a 3-0 Tigers win in game two, but gave up five runs in the deciding game five, including a grand slam to now-Braves outfielder Lane Thomas, in Cleveland’s 7-3 victory that eliminated Detroit from the postseason.
It’s not a perfect strategy - the more pitching changes a team has, the greater the likelihood that one of the guys that comes in doesn’t have it that day. And depending on the schedule of off days, it can be hard to do this in back-to-back games in October.
SIDEBAR: That’s why Atlanta maintaining their status as the #2 seed is so important - this year’s Wild Card round is September 29th through October 1st with no off days, but the NLDS has three off days in its five-game schedule. As a bit of a warning here, the NLCS only has two off days, with three consecutive games for games three through five, and the World Series has only two off days as well.
Atlanta Doesn’t Need a No. 2. It Needs 27 Outs
The criticism of Atlanta’s deadline has largely centered on one question: Who is going to start Game 2 of a postseason series?
Anthopoulos may believe that’s the wrong question.
During Atlanta’s 2020 postseason run, he explained the challenge this way: “You’re worried about 27 outs every night, and how can you get those outs.”
Chris Sale can provide a traditional answer. On the nights he starts, Atlanta will ask its ace to carry as much of the game as possible before turning it over to the bullpen.
The other games may require something messier.
Maybe AJ Smith-Shawver takes the first twelve outs. Maybe an opener protects Bryce Elder from a difficult pocket atop the opposing lineup. Maybe Walt Weiss uses three pitchers to navigate the first five innings before handing the game to the relievers he trusts most. The names and innings matter less than ensuring each pitcher is deployed against the hitters he is best equipped to retire.
That doesn’t make pitching chaos a cheat code. Every pitching change introduces another opportunity for someone to enter without command or feel. The strategy requires a deep bullpen, favorable scheduling and complete buy-in from pitchers who may be asked to abandon their traditional roles. It also places enormous pressure on Sale to provide length whenever he pitches.
Atlanta’s failure to acquire another frontline starter therefore made its October path narrower. It did not necessarily leave the Braves without one.
The deadline market presented plenty of recognizable starters, but very few pitchers capable of changing the equation. Anthopoulos was apparently willing to pay for Skubal. He was willing to absorb deGrom’s contract. Atlanta explored Soriano as a longer-term upside play.
Once those possibilities disappeared, the Braves declined to pay impact prices for ordinary stuff. Mahle can help them survive the regular season. The postseason staff will have to be assembled according to matchups, rest and whichever pitchers are performing best when October arrives.
Maybe Anthopoulos isn’t really a Stuff+ merchant. He’s a 27-out merchant, willing to pay a premium only for pitchers who materially change how Atlanta can collect them.
The Braves did not find their Game 2 starter at the deadline. Anthopoulos appears to believe they can still find 27 outs.
Exceptional piece!