Saturday seeds: Confirmation for Smith-Shawver, Kimbrel's call-up date, Holmes at home
Here's some of the news and notes you might have missed from this week
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It’s a torn UCL
We got the injury news that was expected, with manager Brian Snitker confirming before Friday’s loss that AJ Smith-Shawver’s elbow injury is a torn UCL. He’ll visit a specialist (Dr. Keith Meister in Dallas, who does all of Atlanta’s elbow reconstructions) to determine which specific procedure AJ will have.
For those keeping score at home, the options are either a standard Tommy John or a UCL reconstruction with the addition of an internal brace, but either way, he’ll be out the usual 15-18 months.
(The internal brace can reduce the rehab time to as little as 12-14 months if the UCL is mostly intact, but if it’s torn, the 15-18 month timeframe applies whether or not the brace is inserted at the same time.)
My expectations here are that he’ll miss all of 2025 and 2026, with a goal of easing him back into action early in 2027. He’ll also receive service time for his entire stint rehabbing, as he was in the majors when he was injured.
Michael Soroka received three years of service time when he was rehabbing his multiple Achilles tears, as he initially tore it while pitching in the majors, but Ian Anderson’s rehab was on the minor league injured list, as he had already been optioned when he got hurt.
By the way, because Smith-Shawver was optioned to the minors earlier this season but did NOT spend the requisite 20 days in the minors to officially use his option year, as I understand, he’ll have one more minor league option year remaining. He does not need to be optioned to Triple-A while rehabbing; he’ll do it on the major league injured list, receiving both the service time and requisite pay.
For more on what Atlanta will do from a baseball perspective without AJ Smith-Shawver, check out Friday’s newsletter.
Kimbrel has a “rolling opt-out”
We may have an answer as to when Craig Kimbrel will finally get called up to Atlanta: Whenever the Braves are forced to decide on him.
Per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Kimbrel’s contract features a “rolling opt-out” - essentially, rather than having a pre-determined opt-out date, Kimbrel’s opt-out triggers when another team offers him a major league contract. The Braves would then need to decide to either promote him to the majors or release him.
Kimbrel’s currently 1-1 with a 1.54 ERA in twelve appearances for Gwinnett. Striking out twelve in his 11.2 innings, he’s walked five and collected two saves. His fastball velocity remains in the mid-90s, topping out at 94.6 in the ninth inning on Friday night.
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Statistical oddity for Holmes
Grant Holmes has taken to his conversion to the rotation well - he’s actually picked up more strikeouts than Spencer Schwellenbach (64-60) despite the same number of starts (11) and four fewer innings (64.1 to 68.1) than Spencer.
But he’s been a different player in Truist Park.
Since debuting last year, he owns a career 2.86 ERA (23 ER/72.1 IP) in 21 career appearances (nine starts) at Truist Park, compared to a 4.62 mark (31 ER/60.1 IP) in 17 appearances (nine starts) on the road.
Maybe there’s just something about that home cooking?
Fun with Statcast
I’ve been playing around with Statcast’s bat tracking metrics, trying to see what I can learn about Atlanta’s hitters. (That newsletter’s coming later.)
But I accidentally toggled over to some swing metrics on the pitchers and found something interesting. One of the things I’ve always used to simplify what a pitcher’s trying to do is by explaining that their goal is to make opposing hitters uncomfortable - maybe that’s via the movement on your pitches, or the velocity, or the sequencing, or the deception in your delivery (or ideally multiple of those things).
If we use average swing speed as a proxy for hitters feeling comfortable or uncomfortable with what they’re trying to do, here’s how the Braves rotation stacks up from least to most comfortable by average bat speed (on competitive swings only, minimum 200).
Chris Sale - 70.6 mph
AJ Smith-Shawver - 71.2
Spencer Schwellenbach - 71.4
Grant Holmes - 71.6
Bryce Elder - 72.7
For context here - the MLB average is 71.6, so Grant Holmes is exactly there. Bryce Elder’s 72.7 is the 2nd-fastest, while Sale’s is the 2nd-slowest.
I still don’t know how predictive this is, but it makes sense - Sale’s stuff is unsettlingly good, while Elder’s stuff looks hittable, but he’s been able to sequence and locate it well as of late.
Seeing AJ Smith-Shawver up there closer to the best makes me sad, all over again. Get well soon, AJ.