New pitches for Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver

Two of Atlanta's top pitching prospects have either added or brought back pitches this season. What does this mean for their arsenals?

As an amateur pitching nerd, one of my favorite things about spring training is seeing guys throwing new pitches.

And fortunately, after watching Spencer Strider’s new curveball last spring, the Braves have two more arms to add to the pile this year: Hurston Waldrep brought back his curveball, while AJ Smith-Shawver has added a cutter.

Let’s take them one at a time, looking at what their Stuff+ models are when you add the pitch.

For AJSS, it’s a slider by another name

Smith-Shawver has had some…frustrating results in Gwinnett, but it’s not entirely his fault. Some of it is due to injury - he suffered a strained oblique in his only regular season MLB start, coming against the Chicago Cubs, while also dealing with shoulder inflammation in 2023.

Some of it is also due to Atlanta messing with his stuff.

Per a source, the organization spent some time in 2024 attempting to change his slider shape. He spent time throwing both his traditional slider and a sweeper in the minors this season, a combination that didn’t work well. His usual gyro slider allowed a .273 average, while the sweeper got rocked for a .750 average and was shelved.

And now in spring, Smith-Shawver told Justin Toscano of the AJC that he’s throwing a cutter…an addition that I’m a fan of.

Here’s his arsenal before and after adding a cutter to it:

The cutter’s essentially functioning as a hard slider¹ - back in 2023, AJSS’s slider came in at 5.5 IVB and -3.0. horizontal on 84.9 mph average velo. After adjusting for the higher relative velocity of his stuff, this comes out to the cutter’s projected 8/-3 at 88 mph.

Right away, you can see it’s his second-best pitch, especially to lefties, scoring at a 114 Stuff+. It could be argued he still needs a pitch to same-handedness hitters, hence why I think they tried to give him a sweeper in the minors last season.

But the cutter, which comes in at a 99 Stuff+ to RHH in our projection, is a significant improvement to an arsenal that was a changeup and just some other stuff. Any more growth in that curveball, a clear 4th pitch/tendency breaker more than a reliable leg of the game plan, and you’ve got someone with a clear starter’s package.

Hurston Waldrep’s brought the curveball back

When Atlanta took the righty out of Florida, he was using a four-seam fastball, a hard slider, and a 12-6 curveball to support that filthy splitter.

But, as they are wont to do, Atlanta made some changes.

Following in well-trod footsteps, the Braves minor league pitching development folks asked Waldrep to temporarily shelve the curveball so that he could focus on improving the slider, a common development trend that they used on AJSS prior to Waldrep, among others.

After not using the curve at all in his 29.1 post-draft innings in 2023, he used it more in last year’s two MLB starts (five times in seven innings) than in his 93.1 minor league innings, where he threw it a grand total of one time (in 172 AAA batters and 679 pitches)

It’s now back.

Waldrep told Toscano that it’s not the same curveball as when he left, however, explaining that some pitch design work went into the pitch. “It was about getting the right shape that we wanted, getting the right velocity, movement profile, everything.” I’ve still tried to model the new arsenal the best I can, based on prior curveballs he’s thrown in front of Statcast:

It’s not the best scoring pitch in the world, but it’d meet Waldrep’s requirement - help against opposite-handed hitters. “So, adding the curveball back just kind of gives me a little better tool to lefties. It fits my fastball really well out of my arm slot, and it just kind of made sense to bring it back.”

The changes to the shape and velo really matter here, I think, and I’m curious to see what happens.

The other good news on this is he doesn’t plan to overuse it, and you can tell based on the guys he’s been studying: Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander.

Of those three, Verlander used his the most - 22% of the time in 2024. Cole used his at a 19% rate, his second-most used pitch out of his six-pitch mix, while Scherzer was at 14% and third-most in his five-pitch mix.

And of course, none of them featured an out-pitch quite like Waldrep’s splitter.

This could be fun.

1. This may be a matter of what the guy calls it more than anything - I’ve got these as functionally the same pitch.