The Atlanta Braves have some great pitching prospects. We knew that already.
But exactly how great they could be - where that ceiling is - is still up for debate.
And it seems that the potential of AJ Smith-Shawver has been increasing at a rapid pace, even more than we thought it might.
The Atlanta righty, one of the two top arms in the system (along with last year's first-round pick, Hurston Waldrep), has been dazzling the greater baseball world with his performances in spring training.
Drafted in 2021's 7th round out of high school, the multi-sport star took a little while to adjust to "just" being a pitcher, spending the entire 2022 season with Single-A Augusta and finishing with an ERA just north of 5.00.
But once he got his feet under him, the rise was meteoric. Smith-Shawver started the 2023 season in High-A Rome, but debuted in the major leagues less than two months later. He finished the year with 62 minor-league innings and 25.1 MLB innings...and then made the NLDS roster at the age of 20 and pitched in relief behind Bryce Elder in game three against Philadelphia.
Always a phenomenal athlete, Smith-Shawver's spent time this offseason working on the finer points of pitching, and it shows. His performances in spring - 4.2 innings across two starts, with eight strikeouts - have left the 'pitching nerd' subset of the baseball world buzzing about the potential of Smith-Shawver as he continues to develop.
(Just to clarify - 'pitching nerd' isn't used as an insult here. It's meant endearingly, to describe someone that dives into the technical side of pitching and understands on a scientific level why certain pitchers excel at certain things.)
FanGraphs wrote about him, with Michael Baumann diving into some of the changes Smith-Shawver's made from a release point perspective and the command and control improvements that have come out of that change.
Baumann also made a point to discuss the overarching story behind Smith-Shawver - that having just turned 21 last fall, he's actually younger than most college pitchers that are draft eligible in the 2024 draft. But despite that age and inexperience - he debuted in the majors with only 33.1 innings above Single-A - he's been able to hold his own at every level, including MLB.
The article is free to read and can be found on FanGraphs.
Marquee Network Pitching Analyst Lance Brozdowski, friend of the site, dove into Smith-Shawver's most recent start on his excellent Substack newsletter "Lance's Pitcher Notes".
Lance noted the velocity gains on Smith-Shawver's fastball, now sitting around 97
(compared to last year's 95) with greater extension, which should allow it to "play up" from a velocity and swing-and-miss perspective. He also discussed how Smith-Shawver's slider is both harder (going from 85 mph to 88 mph) and moving more, when usually the added velocity causes a breaking pitch to have less movement.
The total sum of these changes, from the lowered release point and additional extension coming from it to the increased velocity and added slider movement, should serve to improve the Stuff+ scores of both pitches from the low-90s, just below the MLB average of 100, to somewhere around 110, decidedly above average, per Lance's calculations.
Lance's breakdown is free to read and can be found on his Substack.
Fantasy analyst Thomas Nestico, who has developed his own variation of Stuff+ for grading pitchers, came to slightly lower but still similar potential scores for Smith-Shawver's tweaked offerings.
Does this mean that AJ Smith-Shawver is a finished product? Of course not. As we've long discussed with the righty, he's significantly inexperienced compared to the usual pitching prospect, a result of not beginning to pitch in high school until his senior year and not focusing solely on baseball until he became a professional. Smith-Shawver has a grand total of of only 164.1 professional innings on the mound in his career.
But how many players can be that inexperienced and still hold their own in Major League Baseball? The combination of his natural talent, his sheer aptitude for making significant development gains seemingly every season, and his insane athleticism makes Smith-Shawver the pitcher in the entire Braves system with the highest individual ceiling.
Smith-Shawver's improved so much from last year to this year that beat writer David O'Brien of The Athletic, discussing the 5th starter's battle on Twitter/X on Monday, casually threw in that he'd expect to see Smith-Shawver as the first pitcher called up from AAA Gwinnett for a spot start, not 2023 All-Star Bryce Elder.
At this point, it appears like the sky is the limit for Smith-Shawver. And Atlanta doesn't even need him to reach that ceiling to be a valuable addition to the 2024 roster.
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