AJ Smith-Shawver Is Rising

AJ Smith-Shawver began on Monday, and it went quite effectively: 10 batters confronted, 48 pitches, 32 strikes, 2 2/3 innings pitched, 5 strikeouts, one hit, one stroll, no runs allowed. The Braves misplaced, however the harm got here after Smith-Shawver left the sport, and at any price, spring coaching outcomes have much less of an impression on common season success than what signal the GM was born below. Justin Toscano, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s beat author, tweeted after the beginning that Smith-Shawver was “in a better place, physically and mentally, for whatever comes this season. You can see the improvement.”

That’s thrilling information. The 21-year-old poked his head into the majors for the primary time in mid-2023; he threw 25 1/3 regular-season innings with the massive membership, plus 2 2/3 extra of mopup work within the NLDS. Still rookie-eligible, he made our Top 100 checklist because the top-rated prospect in Atlanta’s system.

But Plan A for the Braves doesn’t essentially contain Smith-Shawver. Atlanta begins its rotation with Spencer Strider, top-of-the-line pitchers in baseball. After that: Max Fried, Charlie Morton, Chris Sale, and Reynaldo López. Plus, they’ve fairly a little bit of prospect and Quad-A depth: Huascar Ynoa, Bryce Elder, Dylan Dodd. Ian Anderson (keep in mind him?) is due again from Tommy John someday later this 12 months, and 2023 first-round choose Hurston Waldrep, along with his unholy splitter, is being fast-tracked to the majors.

But the Braves will in all probability want Smith-Shawver ultimately. Morton is one million years previous. Fried will likely be a free agent after this season. The final time Sale certified for the ERA title, Grey’s Anatomy was nonetheless good (sure, that present continues to be on). And 4 months in the past, everybody thought López was a reliever. Atlanta’s Plan A won’t contain Smith-Shawver, however Plan B does.

The second-most fascinating factor about Smith-Shawver is his athleticism, which ends up in a simple, unfastened arm motion, which ends up in the third-most fascinating factor about him: A mid-90s fastball that flashes thrilling arm-side motion.

Against this, Smith-Shawver throws a slider, changeup, and a mid-70s lollipop curveball. Sometimes the hook is sort of hittable; different occasions, it’s as a lot of a paralyzing shock as if Smith-Shawver walked as much as the batter’s field and poured an ice chilly bottle of Perrier down the entrance of his opponent’s pants.

The most fascinating factor about Smith-Shawver is that regardless of having main league playoff expertise, he’s greener than the aforementioned bottle of seltzer. A two-sport star in highschool, he was dedicated to Texas Tech till the Braves spent a seventh-round draft choose on him in 2021, thus stopping the poor younger man from being marooned in Lubbock for 3 years. His first skilled season consisted of 4 begins and eight 1/3 innings in rookie ball, which included two house runs, 16 strikeouts, and 10 walks out of 38 batters confronted. His teammates may as effectively have gone for espresso when he was on the mound.

The subsequent season, he struck out 103 however walked 39 in 17 Carolina League begins, ending with an ERA of 5.11 in 68 2/3 innings — which isn’t eye-popping in a vacuum, however for a 19-year-old seventh-round choose in full-season ball, in his first full 12 months as a professional, isn’t dangerous in any respect.

I’ll quote right here from his Top 100 capsule: “Smith-Shawver made the bigs less than two years after being drafted as a two-sport high school athlete. He did so while undergoing meaningful mechanical and repertoire tweaks.”

That’s astounding, and if something that abstract undersells the difficulty. Smith-Shawver started the 2023 season in High-A Rome, one stage up from the place he’d completed the season earlier. Fair sufficient. He made three begins, threw 14 whole innings, and didn’t permit a run. Awesome. Let’s promote him. Two begins, seven innings at Double-A Mississippi. Sick. Let’s promote him once more. Two begins at Triple-A Gwinnett: 12 innings, 4 earned runs. Bummer. Slow him down? No, let’s promote him once more.

Which is how Smith-Shawver got here to make his main league debut on June 4, at age 20, having thrown 33 innings above Low-A in his life. After one multi-inning aid look, the Braves handed him a begin. He went 5 1/3 innings and didn’t permit a run. Impressive, not solely due to his age and inexperience however as a result of that was solely the third time in his whole skilled profession that he’d pitched into the sixth inning.

Smith-Shawver held his personal within the majors (OK, his first two begins had been towards Washington and Colorado, which is barely technically the majors) earlier than returning to Gwinnett for the majority of the remaining common season calendar.

Like, there’s uncooked, after which there’s attending to the majors after 23 months of taking part in baseball full-time. Smith-Shawver is six months youthful than Paul Skenes, the primary choose in final 12 months’s draft. He’s youthful than Travis Bazzana and JJ Wetherholt, who’re candidates to go 1-1 in this 12 months’s draft. Smith-Shawver has 164 1/3 skilled innings pitched proper now. Morton had 39 2/3 skilled innings pitched when Smith-Shawver was born.

So what’s there to refine? Well, regardless of it being the very begin of spring coaching, Smith-Shawver is throwing tougher. Last season, his fastball averaged 94.5 mph and his slider averaged 84.9. In his begin towards the Phillies final Wednesday, his fastball averaged 97 mph and topped out at 99.1. His slider averaged 87.6. On Monday towards Minnesota, Smith-Shawver introduced extra warmth: 96.4 mph on his fastball, 88.2 on his slider.

The different factor to take a look at is Smith-Shawver’s launch level. It’s drifting down. In 2023, it was somewhat messy:

Here’s Smith-Shawver’s launch level from the beginning towards Philadelphia final week:

You can see it’s pretty neat horizontally, however a bit up and down (so to talk) vertically. But it’s additionally on the decrease and out of doors fringe of the 2023 cluster. Moreover, Smith-Shawver bought an additional two to 3 additional inches of extension in his first spring coaching begin than he did on common in 2023.

Against the Twins, that launch level dropped once more:

And greater than that, his command and outcomes improved. Against the Phillies, Smith-Shawver threw simply 21 of 37 pitches for strikes and allowed 4 hits, together with two house runs. Against the Twins, he allowed solely the one hit and one stroll.

Now, let’s not crap our pants over one fairly good spring coaching begin. Particularly as a result of Smith-Shawver did permit some onerous contact; along with the only he surrendered, the younger right-hander allowed three different line drives, two of them coming off the bat at 90 miles an hour or extra. This gave him the amusing distinction of getting no groundball-to-fly ball ratio on the day, regardless of surrendering 4 balls in play.

But a smoother, harder-throwing, extra repeatable Smith-Shawver appears to be on the horizon. And given how shortly he’s developed so far, the horizon may very well be fairly shut. The Braves don’t want him to be a daily contributor within the rotation proper now, however they may positively use him if he’s succesful.