Bryce Elder Lends Praise to Braves Pitching Prospect's Turnaround

Hurston Waldrep is set to take the mound Tuesday with a chance to extend his stellar return to the majors. The Atlanta Braves prospect is having a stretch not seen by a rookie since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.

Through four outings, three starts, his ERA is down to 0.73 with a near-identical 0.77 WHIP. Many are happy to see his moment arrive, especially those who have had time with him as a teammate.

Fellow member of the rotation, Bryce Elder, got to see a lot of Waldrep during their shared time in Triple-A Gwinnett. The difference between the pitcher he saw last season, and even earlier this season, compared to the one he's watching now, hasn't been lost on him.

He has always known the stuff was there.

"Obviously, the splitter's an outlier," Elder said. "It's very, very good, and he threw other pitches that I thought were pretty dang good."

The issue he noticed with Waldrep was finding consistency with the arsenal that he had. In the time he has spent in Triple-A this season, he noticed that the 23-year-old has started to make changes for the better.

"It was in the zone a lot more. Not just in the zone. It was excecuting pitches, and so I think kind of what he's done with the cutter and the slider, the curveball, to kind of bridge the gap, and the splitter I think has been really, really good. So, I think he's got a bright future. He worked really hard."

Of his 24 strikeouts this season, Waldrep has picked up 22 of them with the splitter. It has a whiff rate of 48.2% and a putaway rate of 34.9%. These rates are the best among any of his pitches.

The cutter is a pitch that Waldrep didn't throw in either of his Major League games last season, but has become a key secondary pitch. Meanwhile, the four-seamer has virtually been removed from the mix entirely.

Waldrep has mentioned previously that his sinker has been further developed during his work with catcher Sean Murphy. The results of the work have been a pitch with a 33.3% putaway rate, the second best in his repertoire.

These changes, complemented by a tweak to his mechanics, laid the foundation for this dominant emergence.

He's been able to put the doubts that loomed over him for most of this season behind him. Success is no longer a hope for those in his corner, but it's now an expectation for many going forward. That's when you know the effort to cultivate a raw talent is paying off.

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