AJ Smith-Shawver Is Growing

AJ Smith-Shawver began on Monday, and it went reasonably properly: 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 injury got here after Smith-Shawver left the sport, and at any fee, spring coaching outcomes have much less of an influence on common season success than what signal the GM was born below. Justin Toscano, the Atlanta Journal-Structure’s beat author, tweeted after the beginning that Smith-Shawver was “in a greater place, bodily and mentally, for no matter comes this season. You possibly can see the advance.”

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 large membership, plus 2 2/3 extra of mopup work within the NLDS. Nonetheless rookie-eligible, he made our Prime 100 record because the top-rated prospect in Atlanta’s system.

However Plan A for the Braves doesn’t essentially contain Smith-Shawver. Atlanta begins its rotation with Spencer Strider, among the best 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 decide Hurston Waldrep, together with his unholy splitter, is being fast-tracked to the majors.

However the Braves will most likely want Smith-Shawver finally. Morton is 1,000,000 years previous. Fried shall be a free agent after this season. The final time Sale certified for the ERA title, Gray’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 may not contain Smith-Shawver, however Plan B does.

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

Towards this, Smith-Shawver throws a slider, changeup, and a mid-70s lollipop curveball. Generally 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.

Essentially the most attention-grabbing 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 decide 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 would possibly as properly have gone for espresso when he was on the mound.

The following 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 decide in full-season ball, in his first full 12 months as a professional, isn’t unhealthy in any respect.

I’ll quote right here from his Prime 100 capsule: “Smith-Shawver made the bigs lower than two years after being drafted as a two-sport highschool athlete. He did so whereas present process significant mechanical and repertoire tweaks.”

That’s astounding, and if something that abstract undersells the difficulty. Smith-Shawver started the 2023 season in Excessive-A Rome, one stage up from the place he’d completed the season earlier. Honest sufficient. He made three begins, threw 14 complete innings, and didn’t enable a run. Superior. 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. Gradual 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 enable a run. Spectacular, not solely due to his age and inexperience however as a result of that was solely the third time in his complete skilled profession that he’d pitched into the sixth inning.

Smith-Shawver held his personal within the majors (OK, his first two begins have been in opposition to 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 enjoying baseball full-time. Smith-Shawver is six months youthful than Paul Skenes, the primary decide in final 12 months’s draft. He’s youthful than Travis Bazzana and JJ Wetherholt, who’re candidates to go 1-1 on 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? Properly, regardless of it being the very begin of spring coaching, Smith-Shawver is throwing tougher. Final season, his fastball averaged 94.5 mph and his slider averaged 84.9. In his begin in opposition to the Phillies final Wednesday, his fastball averaged 97 mph and topped out at 99.1. His slider averaged 87.6. On Monday in opposition to Minnesota, Smith-Shawver introduced extra warmth: 96.4 mph on his fastball, 88.2 on his slider.

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

Right here’s Smith-Shawver’s launch level from the beginning in opposition to Philadelphia final week:

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

Towards the Twins, that launch level dropped once more:

And greater than that, his command and outcomes improved. Towards the Phillies, Smith-Shawver threw simply 21 of 37 pitches for strikes and allowed 4 hits, together with two house runs. Towards 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. Notably as a result of Smith-Shawver did enable some arduous 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.

However a smoother, harder-throwing, extra repeatable Smith-Shawver appears to be on the horizon. And given how rapidly he’s developed thus far, the horizon might be fairly shut. The Braves don’t want him to be an everyday contributor within the rotation proper now, however they might positively use him if he’s succesful.