With Grant Holmes Out, Braves Face a Choice: Try The Kids or Tread Water

Atlanta needs starters. Do they turn to prospects, or just patch it together?

The Atlanta Braves have dealt with rotation injuries in recent seasons, but this year is different.

Atlanta placed starter Grant Holmes on the injured list on Sunday morning with “elbow tightness” that made him leave his Saturday start after only four innings. It’s a devastating injury because of the context for it - Holmes was the only man left standing from Atlanta’s Opening Day rotation. With his IL placement, the Braves now have a completely different starting five from when they broke camp for the season opener:

Chris Sale (fractured ribcage)
Reynaldo López (shoulder surgery)
Spencer Schwellenbach (fractured elbow)
AJ Smith-Shawver (torn UCL)
Grant Holmes (elbow tightness)

Atlanta’s rotation at the moment consists of Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, Joey Wentz, and two question marks.

(Editor: After this piece was submitted for publication, the Atlanta Braves traded for recently DFA’d starter Erick Fedde of the St. Louis Cardinals. Grant Holmes was moved to the 60-day injured list to create a roster spot for Fedde.)

However, the Braves' choices to fill those open spots will tell us a lot about the plan for the rest of the year and potentially some insight into the offseason, as well. Let’s talk about it.

Normal pitching usage, but not the usual path to get there

This is a stat that I use often, usually whenever anyone asks why a team would bother attempting to convert a reliever into a starter.

The Atlanta Braves have used between ten and thirteen regular starters (not counting openers) in every season since 2020.

• 2021: 10 pitchers used (number of regular season starts in parentheses)

  • Charlie Morton (33), Max Fried (28), Ian Anderson (24), Drew Smyly (23), Huascar Ynoa (17), Touki Toussaint (10), Kyle Muller (8), Bryse Wilson (8), Tucker Davidson (4), Kyle Wright (2)

    • Jesse Chavez made four appearances as an opener

• 2022: 10 pitchers used

  • Charlie Morton (31), Max Fried (30), Kyle Wright (30), Ian Anderson (22), Spencer Strider (20), Jake Odorizzi (10), Bryce Elder (9), Tucker Davidson (3), Kyle Muller (3), Huascar Ynoa (2)

    • Jesse Chavez and Jackson Stephens each made one appearance as openers

• 2023: 13 pitchers used

  • Spencer Strider (32), Bryce Elder (31), Charlie Morton (30), Max Fried (14), Jared Shuster (11), Kyle Wright (7), Dylan Dodd (7), Allan Winans (6), Michael Soroka (6), AJ Smith-Shawver (5), Yonny Chirinos (5), Kolby Allard (3), Darius Vines (2)

    • Jesse Chavez, Collin McHugh, and Dylan Lee all made one appearance as openers

• 2024: 13 pitchers used

  • Charlie Morton (30), Chris Sale (29), Max Fried (29), Reynaldo López (25), Spencer Schwellenbach (21), Bryce Elder (10), Grant Holmes (7), Ray Kerr (2), Darius Vines (2), Spencer Strider (2), Allan Winans (2), Hurston Waldrep (2), AJ Smith-Shawver (1)

So far this season, this same pattern holds true:

• 2025: 10 pitchers used

  • Grant Holmes (21), Spencer Schwellenbach (17), Bryce Elder (16), Chris Sale (15), Spencer Strider (13), AJ Smith-Shawver (9), Didier Fuentes (4), Joey Wentz (2), Davis Daniel (2), Reynaldo López (1).

    • Aaron Bummer made two appearances as an opener, Scott Blewett one.

So, following this pattern, let’s try to identify three more starters and how the Braves might go about selecting these guys, because as I see it, there are two main approaches they can take to this.

Option 1: Use the existing 40-man depth

This is the “depth preservation” method, where Atlanta endeavours not to lose players to being designated for assignment by building the remaining 2/5ths of the rotation out of players currently already on the 40-man roster. It could work something like this:

SP1: Spencer Strider
SP2: Bryce Elder
SP3: Joey Wentz
SP4: Dane Dunning
SP5: Hurston Waldrep Erick Fedde
Other 40-man options: Didier Fuentes, Nathan Wiles, Davis Daniel

Dunning’s already on the major league roster, having pitched two perfect innings of relief on Saturday against his old Rangers team with four strikeouts. It’s entirely plausible to see a scenario where they stick him in as a glorified opener and continue stretching him out, similar to what Joey Wentz has done. Despite only appearing in relief in the majors, he did make eleven starts for Triple-A Round Rock this year, pitching to a 3.43 ERA with 47 strikeouts in 44.2 innings.

Waldrep is likely already on his way up - Atlanta currently has a 'TBA' listed for this week's Kansas City series, and he was scratched from his Friday start for Gwinnett, throwing a bullpen session instead. While I was told he was physically in Memphis with the Stripers as of Saturday night, it is entirely possible that he could be flying to Kansas City Sunday or Monday. We’ll know more when Atlanta officially announces the rotation and/or roster move on Tuesday.

If Hurston Waldrep doesn't get the start on Tuesday, he’s likely never going to get back in Atlanta’s good graces. If they won't use him in this situation, with all five Opening Day starters onthe 60-day injured list, they're never going to and they might as well offer him up in a trade to clear a 40-man spot and maybe enhance the return a bit.

Why go this route: The Atlanta Braves have a very full 40-man roster at the moment and, if they try to bring back some of their injured pitchers, would still need to make a few spots. Using players already on the 40-man means preserving the depth that the organization currently has. They can create, at most, one spot without losing a player by moving Grant Holmes to the 60-day injured list after the imaging comes back and they determine the severity of the injury (and with Chris Sale wanting to return to the mound in mid-August, he’d likely be the corresponding move at that time).

(Editor: Atlanta moved Holmes to the 60-day IL on Sunday to give Erick Fedde a roster spot)

This also gives Atlanta valuable information on whether Dane Dunning and Joey Wentz could be viable rotation options next season. Dunning is entering his final arbitration year before free agency. Wentz likely has four years of team control remaining¹, but no minor league options.

While the ceiling probably isn’t as high in this situation, the floor is more sustainable, as Wentz and Dunning are major league veterans at this point with enough experience to make it through a few months of starts without (hopefully) completely collapsing.

Wentz is the lesser experienced of the two, having made just 28 major league starts in his career, but he has over 250 innings in the bigs. Dane Dunning’s made 102 starts in his career, mostly with Texas, holding a 4.27 ERA over 520.2 innings.

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Option 2: Let the kids play

This is the most fun — and most volatile — option: call up the prospects and let them pitch.

With Blake Burkhalter being moved to the Gwinnett bullpen for the rest of the season to mitigate his career-high workload², eyes shift in this scenario to JR Ritchie and Brett Sears.

Ritchie’s the higher-profile name, being one of the organization’s consensus top prospects in the newest post-draft rankings (which I swear I’m going to get updated in the Prospects Composite this week, promise). He’s made two starts for the Stripers, going 1-0 with a 2.38 ERA and eight strikeouts to two walks in 11.2 innings. Calling him up would allow the Braves to give him almost two months’ worth of starts, if he can hang at the major league level, and then have him prepared to compete for a job in spring training next season.

Sears is a name we’ve not discussed on here that often before - starting the season in Single-A Augusta and rising all the way to Gwinnett, he has a 3.67 ERA across all levels this season in 17 outings (13 starts) and 83.1 innings. Having pitched 104 innings last season at Nebraska, the 2024 7th-round pick can theoretically handle one start a week for the rest of the major league season, although buying him extra rest days would be nice. It’s a low velocity fastball, though, averaging just 89.5 mph in his two Gwinnett starts on Statcast, so he’d need immaculate locations on his secondaries (a changeup, slider, curveball, and cutter) and it still might not be enough to survive in the bigs (see Winans, Allan).

There are obviously more options than just these two, although Ritchie needs to be the first to get the call if Atlanta does go this route. I could see it breaking down like this:

SP1: Spencer Strider
SP2: Bryce Elder
SP3: Joey Wentz
SP4: JR Ritchie
SP5: Brett Sears
Other non-40-man options: Ian Mejia, Ian Anderson, Jackson Stephens, maybe even Jhancarlos Lara if they want to stretch him back out (he’s made a pair of three-inning spot starts for the Stripers despite being a reliever now)

Why go this route: Information. Getting these prospects some opportunities to pitch in the majors either tells you that they’re ready to be rotation regulars as soon as next season or tells you what they need to work on over the offseason to take the next step in their development.

For Fuentes, for instance, we now know that his four-seam fastball is the big problem for him at the moment. He allowed a .486 average and .886 slug on it in his four starts across 31 batted ball events; the expected stats are better at .374 xBA and .677 xSLG, but not by much. He doesn’t get even average IVB on the pitch but has slightly better than horizontal movement, so the intended locations of up in the zone and on the corners ended up drifting into the heart of the zone and it got rocked. Either a grip tweak to help with the movement profile or a switch to a sinker/two-seamer might be worth looking into this winter.

The downside here is that every one of those players I mentioned above is not currently on the 40-man roster and as I discussed above, the Braves can make exactly one spot by moving Holmes to the 60-day injured list (which will end his season). This means that every prospect you want to promote and allow to debut means getting rid of a current player on the 40-man roster.

There’s some low-hanging fruit here - at this point, do the Braves really need to keep Jarred Kelenic on the 40-man? - but it’s still deliberately and intentionally sacrificing depth, which is tough for many organizations to stomach.

Option 3: Make room, thanks to the trade deadline

There’s another option here for the Braves: Get aggressive at the trade deadline to make room on the 40-man roster.

We’re all assuming that Marcell Ozuna and Raisel Iglesias are the only locks to be traded, with potentially Pierce Johnson and Aaron Bummer joining them.

But what if they did more?

I’m not saying trading anyone on a long-term deal - AA has been adamant that he wouldn’t do that, as it severely hampers the whole “sign an early extension” thing that Atlanta tries to do.

But what if they moved all four and then threw in a few other pieces in any of these deals? “You have to take Jarred Kelenic; maybe you can fix him” could be on the table, making a fifth spot. We discussed Nacho Alvarez potentially getting moved last week, given that he might not be able to break through in Atlanta. What if we offer Eli White to a contender and replace him on the major league roster with Carlos Rodriguez? Utilityman Jonathan Ornelas could be promoted to replace Luke Williams, giving Atlanta another spot if Williams is designated for assignment (again).

This might be the Braves' ideal route: ride out July with 40-man arms, then use deadline deals to clear space for evaluations. That could mean flipping veterans, shedding surplus, and finally giving some Rule-5 eligibles their shot.

Whichever path the Braves choose, it’s clear this stretch could help define not just the rest of the season, but the offseason to come. Do they stick with stopgaps and hope to stay afloat, or start previewing 2026 by giving real chances to some of their top arms?

It’s not just about replacing Grant Holmes — it’s about deciding how much longer they can keep trying to find good from 2025 before they start building for what’s next.

1. If you know of a site that updates service time in-season, rather than waiting until after, let me know. Every source I’ve found, including Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, only updates over the winter.

2. He’s already at 84 innings with two months of the season to go after setting a new career-high in 2024 of 72.