Braves fans may not love Alex Anthopoulos's stance on backfilling Spencer Strider's role

The Atlanta Braves were not able to avoid the onslaught of injuries key pitchers have suffered to start the MLB season. Several ace or high-value relievers around the league have dealt with elbow troubles to start the year, Strider among them.

The Braves shelved Strider on the 15-day IL on April 8 and then announced that he underwent a procedure to repair his UCL over the weekend. He will miss the rest of this season and likely return at some point in 2025. He already went through Tommy John surgery once before, but this time he opted for the new InternalBrace augmentation. A handful of NFL players have already opted for InternalBrace, including Brock Purdy but it has yet to popularize wide-scale in MLB.

For now, though, the Braves need to figure out how to replace Strider. Last season, the third-year pitcher won a league-leading 20 games and struck out an astonishing 281 batters with a 1.093 WHIP. He had the league's best strikeouts per nine innings rate and a solid 4.84 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His ERA (3.86) caught some ire, but make no mistake: Strider has been great.

A trade seems unlikely for Braves after Spencer Strider injury

Asked about replacing the huge loss of Strider to injury, Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos was fairly forthright. The priority is for someone already on the roster to step up. Fans hoping for a huge splash trade are going to be let down, most likely. Here's what he said to ESPN:

"I know it's a cliché, but we really are going to take it day by day. People will get opportunities, no doubt about it. At some point if someone seizes that opportunity and gets a long period to start, that's fantastic."

While Anthopoulos is not averse to trades, his moves have typically been around the margins of the roster, since Atlanta prefers to develop its own talent and retain them young. Finding an ace, especially at this stage in the season, is unlikely.

There was some nodding toward Dylan Cease of the White Sox over the offseason, but Chicago's ask was too much for the Braves to bite (Anthopolous himself hinted as much), and Cease wound up in San Diego.

Expect the replacement to be someone on the roster already. Atlanta has already given players like Allan Winnans and Reynaldo Lopez a shot, and Darius Vines could be next.