Single Post

The impact of who the Opening Day starter is for a baseball team is largely overrated. After that first game, every team’s rotation schedule gets thrown out of whack by off-days, injuries, rainouts, 6-man rotations, 4-man rotations, bullpen games, etc, etc. This is not college baseball where your ace pitches every Friday night against your opponent’s ace. It’s an honor for the pitchers that gets selected to do it, no doubt, but the value is mostly ceremonial.

For the Braves in 2024, however, it likely means a little more than that. If you missed it last week, the Braves announced Spencer Strider, and not Max Fried, would be their Opening Day Starter for the 2024 season.

Max Fried has started each of the last three Opening Days for the Braves, is fully healthy, still in his prime, and is expected to be one of the best pitchers in baseball this season. But Spencer Strider, who was easily the best pitcher in baseball through Spring Training will get the nod Thursday (or Friday with a rainout) against the Phillies. Strider has turned himself into one the best pitchers in all of baseball the last couple of years, enters 2024 as the betting favorite to win the Cy Young, and is signed through the 2029 season. There is very likely a changing of the guard happening atop the Braves’ rotation.

Is that because Strider got picked over Fried to start Opening Day? No, team’s can have multiple aces at the same time. Only one can start on Opening Day and whoever gets picked is not an indictment on the other. Thats where the largely overrated part comes in. No, this is much more because of the context happening behind the scenes.

As fans are mostly aware by now, it’s very likely this will be the last season Max Fried wears a Braves’ uniform. Fried is entering his walk-year, a free agent at the end of the season, and there’s still no contract extension in sight. As Braves’ fans will remember with Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson, once it gets to this point, a player starting his last year under contract with no extension, it’s highly unlikely an extension will get done. Players who get this close to the open market almost always test those waters. And as Braves’ fans also remember from the Freeman and Swanson sagas, once players of that caliber reach free agency, it’s highly unlikely the Braves will win a bidding war against 29 other teams. It’s not impossible Fried comes back, weird things can happen in free agency as Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are currently finding out, but as we sit here today the most likely scenario is Fried is pitching for someone else in 2025.

So once you arrive at the conclusion that this is likely it for Max Fried, and you add in that it’s very possible 2024 is also the swan song for 40-year-old Charlie Morton, it becomes clearer the changes at the top of the Braves rotation are not just ceremonial, but a new era of Braves baseball is on the horizon.

Maybe it’s just the way my brain compartmentalizes all the different Braves’ teams throughout the years, but I’ve always grouped them by whoever the best starting pitchers were on the team. You had the “Big 3” era of the late 90’s and early 2000’s with Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz. Then you had the Smoltz – Tim Hudson era of the mid and late 2000’s followed by the Julio Teheran – Mike Minor – Kris Medlen era in the early 2010’s. Following those guys was of course the dark years of rebuilding between 2015 and 2017 when there were basically no good starters on the team, which was the whole point. Enter Alex Anthopoulos after the 2017 season and we had the very brief but entertaining Mike Foltynewicz – Mike Soroka eras and then starting in 2021 and bringing us to present day we have the Max Fried – Charlie Morton era.

That last one should be forever celebrated by Braves’ fans regardless of what happens from here out, as those two conquered quite a few demons for the city of Atlanta and brought home a World Series ring in 2021. Go watch Game 6 of the World Series in Houston against the best offense in baseball if you need reminding.

That last one has also morphed half way through and turned into the Max Fried – Spencer Strider – Charlie Morton era and post-2024, it may just be the Strider era. He’ll need help of some sort. Maybe it’s Chris Sale, maybe it’s Hurston Waldrep or AJ Smith Shawver or maybe someone who isn’t in the organization yet. Or maybe we all get a shock and it’s Max Fried. I’m not counting on it but that door isn’t officially closed until it’s closed. Having one of the best offenses in baseball for a large part of his career will help certainly, but the Braves undoubtedly have a plan in place on who to put around Strider in the rotation should the above eventualities come to pass. But he will be the front-man.

So yes, who the Braves named as their Opening Day starter for upcoming season has very little practical impact on the season itself. After the first game, very rarely will Strider be matched up with Zack Wheeler, or Corbin Burnes, or Blake Snell. Baseball doesn’t work like that. And it’s not as if the team would feel like they’re losing anything if they had Fried matched up against any of those guys. The Braves have two aces on this staff.

But Strider being chosen also shouldn’t be brushed aside as having no meaning at all. It’s very possible, and I would argue very likely, after this season the team is entering a new era of Braves baseball with a new man at the top of their rotation. Things change quickly in this sport and there’s plenty of time between now and next season for new possibilities to emerge, but either way, It’s going to be fun to watch.