The Braves Drafted One Hurston Waldrep, But They Developed Another

He had elite stuff and shaky command out of Florida, but two years later, Waldrep looks like a completely different kind of pitcher.

The Atlanta Braves have leaned heavily into college arms with their first-round picks of late (2025 excluded), but perhaps none were more acclaimed or anticipated than 2023’s selection of Hurston Waldrep.

The righthander out of Florida possessed what many believed was the best single pitch in the draft: a devastating splitter that carved up Conference USA for two years and the SEC for one, tallying 312 strikeouts in 892 batters faced across his collegiate career.

His usage after the draft only fueled the hype. Among all 2023 draftees, Waldrep led in both innings (29.1) and strikeouts (41), debuting in Single-A and finishing his season in Triple-A Gwinnett.

But 2024 didn’t start the way anyone hoped. Waldrep made two disastrous starts in Atlanta (16.71 ERA), and his struggles carried over to Gwinnett, where he posted a 7.04 ERA through early May - a stretch that prompted a major mechanical overhaul.

Since then? Waldrep is 5–6 with a 3.54 ERA, including 5.2 innings of one-run baseball in Sunday’s resumption of the Speedway Classic.

So what changed, and what kind of pitcher is he now?

Who he was coming out of college

Waldrep, like many University of Florida arms, was a work in progress. Draft reports praised the good -like a whiff rate over 60% on his splitter - while warning about the bad: “He doesn’t always command the fastball well,” wrote MLB Pipeline, citing his “up-tempo” and high-effort delivery.

Braves officials were understandably intrigued by the raw stuff. “We love the pure stuff he has,” then-assistant scouting director Ronit Shah told me via Zoom after the pick. “He’s athletic. He’s got three plus pitches, maybe four. The splitter might be the best secondary pitch in the whole draft for us.”

But that delivery created problems. The effort-heavy mechanics contributed to a 4.2 BB/9 in college, and when combined with a “dead zone” fastball - one with wholly expected movement - Waldrep routinely found himself pitching with traffic. His WHIP was 1.284 in college and ballooned to 1.479 this season in the minors.

Those flaws were exposed during his brief MLB stint last year. Waldrep walked eight batters and gave up nine hits (three homers) in just seven innings, resulting in 13 earned runs across two starts.

The issue was simple: he couldn’t reliably throw strikes. Without confidence in the fastball, he had to either bring his slider into the zone or try to get chases on the splitter, which hitters had no reason to swing at.

Even when he did locate the fastball, the dead zone shape meant it often got crushed. A “dead zone” fastball moves exactly as the hitter expects based on the arm slot and release. And remember: pitching is about being unpredictable, whether that’s through movement, sequencing, or location.

But this year, Waldrep is doing more than just tweaking his mechanics. He’s throwing a different mix, and it’s working.

Better arsenal interactions

If you’ve been listening to the podcast or reading the newsletter, you know I’m a believer in two things: multiple fastballs and a hard, effective slider.

Waldrep now does both.

Early this summer, he added a sinker, something I’ve been publicly asking for him to do for at least a year (and privately for a lot longer). In July, he added a cutter as well. That gives him a six-pitch mix: four-seamer, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball, and that vaunted splitter.

The new weapons, paired with improved mechanics, have made a real difference. His walk rate has dropped to 12.4% (down from 14.1% in 2023), and his barrel rate has improved dramatically, from 9.7% (15th percentile) to 5.4% (61st percentile).

Triple-A statcast' card courtesy of Prospect Savant

In a vacuum, the new pitches show promise. The cutter has good shape, with 1.5 inches more vertical break than average for similar cutters. It lacks horizontal movement (0 inches vs. ~3–4 inches gloveside on average), which limits its ability to avoid barrels.

The curveball has more vertical drop than peers at his release/velo range, but it’s more true north-south with less sweep than others like it.

We saw the whole package on display in Bristol, where Waldrep effectively used the fastballs to set up his secondaries. When everything’s working, he gets groundballs with the sinker, whiffs with the splitter and slider, and weak contact off the curveball.

But there’s still one thing holding him back.

It’s STILL not a great fastball

No matter which fastball you’re talking about — four-seamer, sinker, cutter — it’s not a plus pitch.

The four-seamer still lives in the dead zone, with about 13.2 inches of induced vertical break.

The sinker? It’s been ineffective in Gwinnett, landing in the zone less than 50% of the time and rarely missing bats. That’s a red flag.

The cutter’s lack of horizontal movement means it doesn’t escape barrels when hitters get the timing down.

In short: Waldrep’s secondaries may be solid, but the fastball foundation is still shaky.

So no, he’s not the #2 starter some envisioned on draft day. But he can still be a solid major leaguer. I see him as a low-end #3 or high-end #4, a guy who can dominate when he’s on but is prone to blowups if he can’t land enough in-zone pitches to make hitters chase.

There are no other options for 2026 right now

Here’s the thing: Hurston Waldrep will get another start this season - likely Saturday, as the 27th man for the doubleheader against the Marlins. And unless he completely implodes, he’ll enter spring training as a legitimate contender for Atlanta’s fifth rotation spot.

We’ll dive deeper into the 2026 rotation picture later this season, but the quick version is this: the top three are likely locked in - Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, and Spencer Schwellenbach - but after that, it’s a question mark.

Can Reynaldo López hold up as a starter after three IL stints in the last year and a half? AJ Smith-Shawver and Grant Holmes won’t be back from their elbow injuries until, likely, 2027, but how quickly will they return to form?¹

The alternatives for that fifth spot aren’t overly inspiring. Waldrep has a real shot to leapfrog Joey Wentz, Dane Dunning, and Bryce Elder - but only if he proves he can consistently throw strikes and limit damage when the splitter isn’t working.

Hurston Waldrep isn’t the same pitcher the Braves drafted - and that’s a good thing. He’s added new pitches, reworked his mechanics, and shown signs of becoming a viable back-end starter at the big league level.

But Atlanta doesn’t just need signs. They need answers. With limited options for 2026, the rest of this season will be a proving ground - not just for Waldrep’s new arsenal, but for whether he can be trusted to anchor the back end of a playoff rotation next year.

1. Brian Snitker updated Holmes’ status on Monday afternoon and said that the converted reliever would attempt non-surgical rehab of his UCL injury before potentially having surgery sometime this offseason. I’m…skeptical.