Despite please from the Atlanta Braves fanbase throughout the offseason, Alex Anthopoulos has still not done anything to bolster the club's rotation. That would be one thing if the Bravos were bringing the band back together, but it's a different matter entirely in an offseason in which Atlanta lost both Max Fried and Charlie Morton.
At the top of the rotation, the Braves are set up nicely with reigning NL Cy Young-winner Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez, 2024 breakout Spencer Schwellenbach and, of course, the looming return of Spencer Strider. Having said that, the bottom of the rotation is where the questions arise. As of right now, though, it seems like both Ian Anderson and Grant Holmes are set for those spots.
While Holmes will be making a transition from the bullpen largely, Anderson will be making his return to the rotation for the first time since 2022 amid a litany of injuries. The last time we saw him in Atlanta, though, Anderson left a bit to be desired, pitching to a 5.00 ERA and 1.51 WHIP over 22 starts, a far cry from the 3.58 ERA he posted in the 2021 campaign.
Still, there's always hope, but Anderson appeared to sacrifice some of that good will in his first spring training start on Feb. 23 against the Rays. Over just 1.2 innings of work, he only gave up one hit but did give up three walks and allowed an earned run before exiting. Not great! The seemingly good news, though, is that Friday's second start of the spring against the Marlins looked much better. Anderson went 3.0 innings with two walks but no hits and no runs. That's what you'd want to see.
Or, you know, maybe it's something that should still worry Braves fans.
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Ian Anderson's spring training bounce-back shouldn't soothe Braves fans
To be abundantly clear, this isn't about overreacting to spring training. So many of these starts are about building up, especially in Anderson's case when he's coming off of injuries, and also working on various things. That context absolutely matters. At the same time, however, Anderson's history when he was healthy does make these two starts coupled together a bit of a worry.
In his last full-ish season in 2022, inconsistency was arguably the biggest thing that hurt Anderson. Just looking month-to-month, he was all over the place. He posted a poor 4.66 ERA in April, rebounded for a 4.13 in May but then exploded with a 6.91 mark in June only to then return to form with a 4.01 in July.
Make no mistake, injuries were part of that, to be sure, as he was shut down after two starts in August that season. But even the year prior when he posted better overall numbers, we still watched him regress a bit down the stretch, including being shut down for most of August.
Because of that, when you see two spring training starts that are so incongruent, it'd be impossible not to be concerned that the inconsistency of Anderson will still be a thing. Again, it's spring training so that's not a guarantee. However, it's still enough, especially during overreaction season, for those thoughts to rightfully come to mind.
Having said all of that, inconsistency from a No. 5 starter in the rotation is something that roughly all 30 teams in baseball worry about. This isn't strictly a Braves problem — and it's also a problem that becomes a strength when it comes to depth upon Strider's return to the rotation. However, for anyone that was hoping Anderson would return and be a revelation (not that there were many of those people), spring training returns are giving reason to doubt that will be the case.