Max Fried says Braves’ Spencer Strider is exceeding ‘unfair expectations’

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Seldom has a pitcher entered his first full season as a major-league starter with the soaring expectations accorded Spencer Strider, the 5-foot-11 mustachioed Braves flamethrower who was prominent on most preseason National League Cy Young Award favorites lists after spending only four months as an MLB starter.

Then Strider posted a 1.80 ERA and .411 opponents’ OPS in five April starts, with 49 strikeouts and 11 walks in 30 innings, and he was suddenly being called the best current pitcher in the majors by some baseball analysts.

But when that was followed by a modest 4.01 ERA in six May starts, including four homers allowed in the last four of those games, Braves observers began wondering aloud why Strider wasn’t throwing 98-100 mph gas throughout every game as he did as a rookie.

And when Strider gave up 15 hits, 13 runs and five homers in nine innings over consecutive starts in June, well, the proverbial bloom was off the rose for many on social media and elsewhere. Many opined that Strider either must be hurt or that teams must have figured him out and he would have to start throwing his third pitch a lot more and better.

Never mind that he still led the majors in strikeouts at that point, had a 7-2 record and while his ERA was over 4.00 for the first time, his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was still a very strong 3.34. Nope, the fact that Strider suddenly was revealed to be human, that he was capable of having bad starts, was something that many just couldn’t seem to accept.

That, more than anything else, underscores how spectacularly dominant Strider was through the equivalent of one full season as a starter — four months last year, two this season — after moving from the bullpen to the rotation two months into the 2022 season. This is the guy who not only led all MLB starters in strikeout rate last season but broke Hall of Famer Randy Johnson’s record for fastest to 200 strikeouts in a season.

“Personally, I think Spencer’s got some of the most unfair expectations on him,” said Braves pitcher Max Fried, the NL Cy Young runner-up a year ago. “And then he’s only met and surpassed all of the expectations put on him. For a young guy to do what he did last year, then come in with the exorbitant expectations, and for him to be able to really only have two rough outings — and the two rough outings he quickly corrected and was able to make an adjustment — just shows the kind of pitcher and the kind of person that he is.

“He’s always working, he’s never satisfied, and he always wants to get better. To see what he’s been able to do, it’s been really, really impressive.”

Since that two-start blip in June — that’s what it looks like now, a blip — Strider has gone 3-0 with a 1.83 ERA and .550 opponents’ OPS in his past three starts, with 28 strikeouts and three walks in 19 2/3 innings. He will face AL East-leading Tampa Bay on Saturday night in his final start before the All-Star break. Strider and seven other Braves All-Stars will catch a charter flight to Seattle on Sunday night for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

Oh, yes, he is an All-Star.

If some folks were wondering what was wrong with Strider just a few weeks ago, fellow players who voted him to the NL All-Star team certainly recognized what an exceptional pitcher he is and how good he’s been again this season, a couple of rough starts notwithstanding. Strider is 10-2 with a 3.66 ERA and a staggering 155 strikeouts with 33 walks in 98 1/3 innings.

Strider said he will try to never say or think that he’s figured out pitching, and he talks about all of the ways he can get better. But he will at least allow that he’s closer to figuring out where he needs to be for optimal performance on the spectrum, between the extremes of throwing 99-101 mph all night and trying to back off and pace himself in order to go deeper in games, which he did with poor results earlier this season.

“I’d say if anything, there’s skills that I have improved at, that I wasn’t able to do last year,” he said. “Some things I worked on this offseason — getting my fastball around the zone more, the changeup obviously. There’s some progress I made with my slider last year that I couldn’t find a feel for it early this year, that I’ve been thinking and focused on.”

Fried made only five starts this season before landing on the injured list with a forearm strain. He’ll begin a rehab assignment Sunday at Triple-A Gwinnett and could return within a month. In his absence, the Braves’ aces have been Strider and breakout star Bryce Elder, who has a majors-leading 2.45 ERA in 17 starts and joined Strider to give the Braves two All-Star starting pitchers for the first time since 2000.

“He can strike out 10 and go seven scoreless, or he can strike out zero and go seven scoreless,” Strider said of Elder. “I mean, that’s something that I can’t do. And yeah, I think people … forget about it, just because he’s not throwing 100. But he very well might be the best pitcher in baseball right now.”

Charlie Morton also has excelled for much of the season, including Friday when the 39-year-old limited his former Rays team to four hits, one run and one walk in 6 1/3 innings of a 2-1 series-opening win at Tropicana Field. It was the 26th win in 30 games for the Braves and improved their majors-best record to 59-28, a season-high 31 games over .500.

All-Star catcher Sean Murphy threw out two would-be base stealers and hit a two-run homer, the 167th for Atlanta to set an MLB record for most homers before the All-Star break. They’re on pace for 311, which would break Minnesota’s 2019 record of 307 homers.

Strider, 24, understands that some folks are keenly interested in his velocity every time he pitches — what’s his average fastball, how many times did he hit 99 mph or higher, etc. He is listed as 6 feet and is actually 5-11, and seeing someone that size throw 99 mph fastballs is continually fascinating.

“Velocity is obviously an interesting topic to everybody, and I get why,” he said. “It is important. The less time a hitter has to decide, obviously the harder it’s going to be for them to hit the ball. I want to throw as hard as I possibly can every pitch — not that I’m trying to, but whatever that is, it leaves room for a mistake in a way. Or it accounts for the most mistakes — if I miss my spot with 100 (mph), I’ve got a better chance than with 96.”

But, Strider added, “There’s that give-and-take where sometimes I can’t risk that, or I’m not in position to do that. I think that’s something I’ve gained an awareness for.”

In the long run, having a relatively modest May and a couple of uncharacteristic back-to-back bad starts in June will prove to be a plus, the Braves believe. And manager Brian Snitker noted the Braves won both of those June starts when Strider scuffled. Snitker is as old school as can be, and values wins, diligence and hard work, the latter two being traits he loves about Strider.

Asked if he’s been impressed by Strider’s development over the past year, Snitker said, “Very much so. What he’s gone through. We talked about the little lull, which everybody goes through, and how he’s handled it. Where he’s at right now — I think it’s been really good in his growth as a major-league starter, some things he’s experienced, how he’s handled it. He’s stayed the course with his routine and everything.”

Team officials view all of it — the highs and lows — as valuable experience for a young pitcher whom they value greatly, to put it mildly. A pitcher the Braves expect to be an ace in their rotation for many years to come, hence the six-year, $75 million contract they gave Strider in October after just one season, a deal that includes a $22 million club option for 2029 with a $5 million buyout.

The kind of contract that the Braves have never given a young pitcher before. Because they’ve never had one quite like Strider.

“Well, I’m very grateful that I ended up in this organization,” said Strider, who missed much of his three years at Clemson after Tommy John surgery, and was a fourth-round pick by the Braves in 2020 — a selection that could go down as one of the great second-day draft selections in recent memory. “They gave me these opportunities. There’s a lot of places, I don’t think would have looked at a guy in Double A with a 4-something ERA and said, ‘Ah, yeah, let’s call him up, see what happens.’

“And then come in and have a good spring training — not even a great spring training last year — and they say, ‘You know what? Let’s throw him in there.’ So, I owe player development and the organization a lot of credit for that. I like to think I’ve got a lot in front of me and a lot of improvement to make.”

Strider ascended through the entire Braves organization in one season in 2021, four promotions from Low A to start the season to the majors for two relief appearances in the final weekend of the season. He so impressed with his fastball and slider at 2022 spring training that the Braves put him on the Opening Day roster. And he was so effective with that two-pitch mix in multi-inning relief stints that he was moved to the rotation, a move that coincided with the Braves’ turning their 2022 season around at the beginning of June.

Strider set the MLB rookie strikeout record while throwing fastballs and sliders just over 95 percent of his pitches, proving that conventional wisdom isn’t always correct — he demonstrated that a starter can be highly successful in the majors with almost exclusively a two-pitch mix. Though, given his elite velocity and devastating slider and the whiff rates each produced, his two pitches were better than almost any other starter’s best two pitches.

He’s worked on his changeup, and this season Strider has thrown the pitch 7.6 percent of the time compared to 4.8 as a rookie.

“I think there’s definitely things that I’ve learned, or gained skills for, that I didn’t have last year,” he said. “I think some of my problem is I compare myself to last year so much because it’s the only thing I have to compare to. My walk rate right now is lower than it was last year, my strikeout percentage is higher than it was last year, my strikeouts are higher than they were last year. It’s a long season, and I think it’s easy to focus on the thing that happened the most recently. But I have the ability to look at all of last year, and I can’t do that with this year; it hasn’t happened yet.

“So it’s not fair to compare the sample sizes, I think. And I’ve had to figure that out on my own. I’m really concerned with where we are at the end of the year and where I’m at at the end of the year. And I think that’s when I’ll be able to sit down and really answer the question: What was better this year than the year before? What’s worse? And then, how do I account for that going into next year?”

(Photo of Spencer Strider: Dale Zanine / USA TODAY)