Atlanta Braves have rotation options following Max Fried injury

Braves ace Max Fried strained his hamstring during his Opening Day start and manager Brian Snitker has already indicated the southpaw is likely to land on the 15-day injured list. Atlanta hasn’t made that transaction yet — IL stints can be backdated as many as three days — and the rotation plans for next week remain uncertain. Mark Bowman of MLB.com unsurprisingly tweets that right-handers Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder are under consideration to take the ball next Wednesday against the Cardinals, in what would’ve been Fried’s spot.

Anderson and Elder entered Spring Training as the presumptive favorites for the fifth starter job behind Fried, Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton and Kyle Wright. Neither ended up securing the job out of camp, though, as prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd jumped them on the depth chart. Both Anderson and Elder were optioned out while Shuster and Dodd each were penciled into the season-opening rotation after Wright started the year on the IL.

With Fried likely to join Wright on the injured list, the Atlanta front office may have to choose between Anderson and Elder to fill in. The latter received the Opening Day start for Triple-A Gwinnett on Friday, allowing four runs in six innings. He would be lined up on standard rest for next Wednesday's outing should the Braves wish to go in that direction.

Dodd, meanwhile, is listed as the probable starter for Tuesday’s game in St. Louis. That will be his major league debut. The Braves will have to make a roster move before that start, as Atlanta has yet to select the southpaw onto the 40-man roster -- preserving some flexibility in that regard until he’s tabbed to take the mound. The Braves’ 40-man is at capacity and the club doesn’t have any obvious candidates for a move to the 60-day injured list, meaning that they could be faced with a DFA decision early next week.

Deeper on the rotation depth chart, Michael Soroka is slated to make his season debut for Gwinnett on Tuesday. The right-hander was optioned after receiving a late start in camp thanks to a hamstring issue. Soroka has not thrown a major league pitch since 2020 due to a pair of Achilles ruptures. His 2022 campaign consisted of just 25 innings split between High-A and Triple-A.

Soroka told Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal Constitution he’s likely “to be limited to about three or four innings (per outing) for a little bit.” He is expected to work both in the rotation and out of the bullpen with Gwinnett as he and the club explore ways to gradually build up his arm strength. Soroka indicated that he would be open to pitching in relief at the MLB level if the team felt that the best course of action. He noted the club does not currently view low-leverage bullpen work as the best way to return him to pre-injury form. Soroka started 37 games between 2018-20, throwing 214 innings of 2.86 ERA ball before his 23rd birthday.

The minor league experimentation is not just limited to the pitching staff. Atlanta is utilizing Braden Shewmake at second base in Gwinnett, as Burns writes in a separate piece for the Journal Constitution. The former first-round pick has only started nine games at the keystone — all last season — in his minor league career. The rest of his innings have come at shortstop, where he was competing for the MLB job this spring. Both Shewmake and Vaughn Grissom lost out to veteran Orlando Arcia in the camp battle, leading the two younger players to be sent to Gwinnett.

Grissom will receive the majority of the shortstop reps at Triple-A. Shewmake is regarded by evaluators as the superior defender of the two, while Grissom has a higher offensive ceiling. The Braves seem comfortable with Shewmake’s glove at shortstop, reasoning that giving the tougher reps to Grissom will hopefully lead to him taking a step forward. Whether the 22-year-old is up to the task defensively was a storyline of the offseason once it became clear the Braves would look internally for Dansby Swanson’s replacement.