Luke Sinnard might be the Braves next Spencer Schwellenbach

Right-handed pitcher Luke Sinnard — the Braves 99^th pick (3^rd) from the 2024 MLB Draft — entered this season finally fully-recovered from Tommy John surgery. And if there was any doubt surrounding his selection last summer, given he was still injured, Sinnard’s start to his first pro campaign should’ve calmed those fears.

On Wednesday night, Sinnard walked off the mound having once again dominated for Single-A Augusta. Notching season-highs in both innings (six) and strikeouts (nine), the 22-year-old tossed a clean 82-pitch outing that featured zero runs and just three hits allowed versus the Columbus Fireflies.

Despite at times struggling with walks this season, averaging five per nine innings coming into this start, Sinnard’s first taste of pro ball has gone about as good as you could hope. In six outings (24 IP) so far, he’s carrying a 1.13 ERA with 36 total strikeouts for the GreenJackets. For a guy that didn’t pitch at all last year, putting together a string of a half-dozen outings with a sub-2.00 ERA is impressive, even more so when it’s your first season at the professional level.

Although, taking nothing away from how good Sinnard has been so far, this isn’t anything new for the Braves. This is similar to how current big league starter Spencer Schwellenbach’s pro career took form, as he hadn’t even undergone his TJ surgery yet when Atlanta drafted him in the second round of the 2021 MLB Draft.

We all know how that has went. Schwellenbach didn’t make his pro debut in the minors until the 2023 season, when he posted a 2.63 ERA in Augusta before pitching even better once moved up to Rome (1.98 ERA). In case you forgot, Schwellenbach made his first MLB start in late May just last year and ended his pro-rated 2024 as a 2.6-WAR pitcher.

Obviously, these are two fairly different pitchers, at least physically. At 6’8”, 250 pounds, Sinnard was the tallest player in last year’s draft, compared to the 6’1”, 200-pound Schwellenbach. Also, the former appears to be more of a power-pitcher than the latter was at this point, thanks to his reported 96 MPH fastball and two swing-and-miss breaking balls. Of course, it’s still incredibly early to form a realistic description of the type of pitcher Sinnard will be once in the majors, or even the high-minors for that matter (assuming he reaches either of those levels).

So to avoid getting carried away with premature hype, it’s probably best to just enjoy Sinnard’s great start, remain optimistic that he can keep this up and most importantly, stay healthy. Coming off a large chunk of missed time, especially for a pitcher, there’s always the risk of a pull or tweak when the innings begin pilling up during a full season.

But for now, it appears the Braves maybe picked up another Schwellenbach, and if that ends up being the case, we could be seeing Sinnard pitching in Atlanta as early as 2026. Pitching in the majors just one year after beginning a pro career in the minors, while coming off a serious surgery, may seem crazy — but that’s exactly what Schwellenbach did.