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In 2016 at the Christian Academy of Knoxville in Tennessee, Strider went 10-1 with a 0.65 ERA in 64 innings, allowing 28 hits and striking out 99 batters.
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Spencer committed to Clemson University before 2017, his senior year at Christian Academy of Knoxville, Tennessee. He changed from Ohio University, canceling his verbal agreement there, choosing Clemson instead, on June 10, 2016.
Along with Clemson, Strider's final three included Georgia Tech and Coastal Carolina. But Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Duke and Virginia all showed interest.
But Clemson prevailed, thanks in large part to its prolonged stretch of baseball stability. The Tigers have made an NCAA Regional every year but one since 1987 and earned a national seed in 2016.
"Academically, they have a good sports communication program, which is what I want to study," Strider, who majored in political science, said.
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In 2017, the Indians chose Strider in the 35th round, out of Christian Academy of Knoxville in Tennessee, but Spencer did not sign, choosing to honor his commitment to Clemson.
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June 2020: The Braves chose Strider in the 4th round, out of Clemson. Spencer via scout Billy Best for $451,800. (Bowman - mlb.com)
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Spencer missed all of 2019 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. But he signaled a full recovery as his fastball touched 97 mph while pitching for Clemson before the season ended abruptly in March 2020. "He's on the rebound, and we feel the arrow is pointing in the right direction," Braves scouting director Dana Brown said.
"He's showing the arm strength and he's got a really good breaking ball to use against lefties and righties," Brown said. "He's very athletic with the quick-twitch muscle fibers. So we feel really, really good about this guy's upside."(Bowman - mlb.com - 6/11/2020)
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In 2021, the Baseball America Prospect Handbook rated Spencer as the 30th best prospect in the Braves system. He moved all the way up to #5 in the spring of 2022.
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June 4, 2022: Along with having a rocket arm that spits out 100 mph fastballs, Spencer Strider has a witty sense of humor that has regularly made many of his Braves teammates laugh throughout this season.
“He’s a big 'Seinfeld' fan,” Braves starter Ian Anderson said. “He can do characters and stuff like that. He’s always got something funny coming out of his mouth. It’s kind of sneaky. I don’t know if I was ready for that.”
Strider was selected in the fourth round of the 2020 MLB Draft and didn’t play an actual Minor League game until last year. Yet, here he is, two years removed from his days at Clemson, serving as one of the most important pieces on the reigning World Series champions’ pitching staff.
Strider spent most of this season’s first couple of months capably filling different relief roles. Over the past week, he has brought some much-needed stability to the rotation’s fifth spot. Along the way, the Knoxville, Tenn., native has quickly found comfort within a big league clubhouse. “He’s not afraid to be different,” veteran reliever Darren O’Day said. “Just look at his mustache. He’s figured out what works for him, and he sticks with it. Some of that quirkiness involves humor and he’s funny.”
While Strider has created laughs with some impersonations, his "Seinfeld"-related humor doesn’t really involve imitating Jerry, George, Kramer or any of the classic show’s main characters.
“I’m more like if somebody says something stupid in the clubhouse, I’ll make it funnier," said Strider. "I like ['Seinfeld' creator] Larry David a lot and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I can quote a lot of Seinfeld episodes. I can’t deliver it.”
Along with having a blazing fastball and a witty sense of humor, Strider has been known to put one of his legs behind his head while stretching in the weight room.
“My legs would tear if I tried that,” Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud said. “Crazy flex.”
It’s remarkable to see how comfortable Strider has become just two months into his second professional season.
“He’s coming out of his shell a little bit,” Anderson said. “If you can throw 100 in the big leagues, you can do whatever you want.” (Mark Bowman)
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Spencer Strider was talking recently about established players in the Braves clubhouse being so welcoming to the team’s rookies and how different points of view and personalities were embraced by the veterans, even as Atlanta players poked fun at each other, as ballplayers are known to do.
Did that mean the peace sign he wears on a gold chain has been the subject of good-natured razzing in the clubhouse?
“Not really. More so the mustache. But that’s kind of like, at first it was, ‘Oh, this guy’s got a mustache,’” Strider said, smiling as he delivered it in a derogatory tone. “But now it’s like, ‘All right, everybody thinks it’s cool, so we can’t give him that much guff.’”
Indeed, fake Strider-tribute mustaches adorn the faces of many fans each time Strider pitches at Truist Park, where the bewhiskered rookie’s outings have become as eagerly anticipated as those of any Braves pitcher in recent memory. Because he has such dominant stuff, it seems like a no-hitter or a strikeout record is a possibility every time he takes the mound.
Strider took whiffs to an extreme level, setting an Atlanta-era franchise record with 16 strikeouts in eight innings while limiting the Rockies to two hits and no walks in a 3-0 Braves win. In just his 17th career start, Strider broke the Atlanta franchise record of 15 strikeouts, done twice by John Smoltz.
“It’s pretty wild,” said Strider, who had 79 strikes in 106 pitches and threw nothing but fastballs and sliders, including 19 heaters at 99 mph or higher and topping out at 100.5. “The guys who’ve thrown in this organization, it’s a long, incredible list. I’m just grateful to be here and having success.”
Smoltz, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Phil Niekro are among the numerous Atlanta pitching greats who never had as many strikeouts in a game as 23-year-old Strider did recently
.It was the most strikeouts by a major-league pitcher since Walker Buehler struck out 16 Rockies on June 21, 2019, and the most by a rookie since Colorado’s Jon Gray had 16 in a nine-inning complete game against San Diego on Sept. 16, 2016.
“He goes out there and does his job, and he makes it easier for us out there in the field,” Harris said of Strider, whose locker is next to Harris’ and Vaughn Grissom’s in a corner they call “Rookie Row.” “He’s great, and I guess we didn’t need three runs; we could have only had one for him tonight.”
Strider said he wasn’t aware that he was threatening the record or that he’d broken it until after he left the game.
“I lost track after five innings,” he said
. “I came out of the game and Kyle was telling me something about John Smoltz or whatever, and I had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t make any sense. So somebody else said something, and I just kind of looked cross-eyed at them, and they said, ‘You know what just happened?’ So it was neat. It was very cool for them to tell me that." (O'Brien-TheAthletic.com-Sept 2, 2022) -
Nov. 2022: Strider (@SpencerSTRIDer) switches from number 65 to number 99. First wearer in team history. #Braves (thanks to @grantmcauley),” MLB Jersey Numbers tweeted.
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Who is Spencer Strider's wife Maggie Whitener?
Spencer tied the knot with his long-time sweetheart Maggie Whitener on Nov. 12, 2022.
Maggie celebrates her birthday on Sept
. 24 and was born in Cartersville, Georgia. She was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. She attended the Christian Academy of Knoxville and that's where she met her future husband. Strider and Maggie Whitener have been high school sweethearts since their school days in Knoxville.After their high school graduation, they started a long-distance relationship as Strider went to Clemson University in 2017, while Maggie attended the University of Tennessee. The young couple got engaged on Feb. 20, 2022, at Clemson University when Strider got down on his knee and proposed to Maggie.
The young lovebirds did not waste any time and announced their engagement soon after
. Maggie is a communications specialist. (Arka Mukherjee - Apr 19, 2023) -
Strider possesses an unlikely pitching build: he stands just six feet tall. He's the game's most unusual ace. He's short in relative terms, and he's also a vegan, a diet change he made while at Clemson University. He's a dedicated hipster. In a Google doc, he created a ranking system for Indie rock albums. He wears No. 99 - the number of fictional pitcher Rick Vaughn in "Major League," his favorite movie - and a mustache instead of a beard, which he says makes his face appear too rounded. (Travis Sawchik - April 27, 2023)
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June 23, 2023: Before explaining how Maggie Strider helped Spencer Strider, we’ll let the Braves pitcher provide some background on his wife.
“This is a woman who didn’t know how many strikes were in a strikeout a few years ago,” Strider said. “When she says something about baseball, I listen.”
Strider has talked about battling some mechanical issues throughout this season. But Maggie’s message had nothing to do with balance, release point or stride. Having known her husband since their days together at Christian Academy of Knoxville, she understood he could occasionally be affected by information overload.
“I value input, sometimes too much,” the Braves hurler said. “I like to feel like I have everything at my disposal, and I can learn from everything that's around me. But, you can get to the paralysis by analysis very quickly.”
So, when Strider became the latest elite pitcher to hit an inevitable pothole during the first half of this month, Maggie provided her valuable advice.
“Her message was, 'Don't listen to everybody that tells you something,'” Strider said. “Coming from her, that means a lot. She usually knows what she's talking about.”
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Through his first 12 starts, Strider posted a 2.97 ERA and a 2.59 FIP, which indicated he was pitching better than his ERA might suggest. Then he allowed eight runs over four innings to the Mets on June 8 and three home runs over five innings against the Tigers on June 14.
After Strider exited that outing in Detroit, television cameras showed Braves manager Brian Snitker making sure his young pitcher knew days like these were unavoidable, even for the greatest of pitchers. “My message to anybody is, ‘You are really good at what you do and everybody is going to struggle because this game isn’t easy,'” Snitker said. “There's nobody insulated from rough times in this business when you play for six months in a row.”Well, three months into Strider’s first full season as a big leaguer, he appears to be just fine. He halted his brief skid by limiting the Phillies to one run over six innings on June 20. He leads the Majors with a 14.46 K/9 rate and he ranks third in the Majors with a 2.89 xFIP. This latter stat projects he’ll be more efficient than he’s been while posting a 3.93 ERA through his first 15 starts.
“You’re going to have bad outings and bad stretches,” Strider said. “I think it’s how you bounce back and learn from them is what matters.” (M Bowman - MLB.com - June 23, 2023)
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July 2023: Strider represented the Braves at the All-Star Game but was replaced by Corbin Burnes.
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Spencer broke franchise records while helping the Braves to their 104th win in the season’s penultimate game. Strider struck out three batters in an otherwise rocky first inning to break John Smoltz’s franchise-record 276 strikeouts in 1996, and Marcell Ozuna's three-run homer
in the fifth inning gave Atlanta its first lead and helped make Strider the majors’ only 20-game winner.
“I had him sign my lineup card — that’s pretty special,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “To set the single-season strikeout record that a Hall of Famer held and be a 20-game winner.”
It wasn’t one of Strider’s dominant performances, but he settled in after the three-run first to work five innings, allowing six hits, three runs and three walks with seven strikeouts and raise the new franchise record to 281 Ks. That’s a whopping 44 more strikeouts than the next-highest total in the majors this season, Kevin Gausman’s 237 for the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I don’t play necessarily to break records. My satisfaction comes from us winning and giving my team a chance to win,” Strider said with typical modesty. “I haven’t had to be that spectacular this year because we have such an incredible team. There’s a lot of things that I feel like I can improve on that will hopefully make it easier for those guys (so) they don’t have to pick me up as much next year. But yeah, it’s special. It’s an understatement to say this is a special organization with a lot of history. I’m grateful to be a part of it.”
Strider recorded his franchise-record 281 strikeouts in 186 2/3 innings, compared to Smoltz’s 253 2/3 innings in 1996 when he finished 24-8 with a 2
.94 ERA in 35 starts and won the NL Cy Young.In each of Strider’s two big-league seasons, he broke the MLB record for fastest to 200 strikeouts. He did it in 130 innings as a rookie in 2022 — beating Randy Johnson’s previous mark — and surpassed his own record this season by getting 200 strikeouts in 123 1/3 innings.
Since moving from the bullpen to make his first MLB start on May 22, 2022, Strider has the most strikeouts in the majors with 483. “That’s great,” Strider said of the crowd. “I was thinking about it all weekend — the amount of records, personal and team, that we’ve achieved this year. It’s great to do that at home. It would have been cool to do it anywhere, but to do it here and have the fans experience it, it’s pretty special. I was really grateful that we got to do that here.” (O'Brien - Sep 30, 2023 - The Athletic) -
May 16, 2024: But the organization does a good job of picking entertaining giveaways, too - everything from replica chains of their players’ jewelry to unconventional bobbleheads like Atlanta-based hip-hop legends OutKast or a Braves-themed Star Wars clone trooper.
There’s one more addition to the ballpark giveaway schedule
. The Braves announced that Wednesday, August 7, will be “Spencer Strider Vinyl Record Giveaway” night. The first 15,000 fans in attendance will receive an 7” vinyl record with music from one of three Atlanta-area bands personally selected by the Braves righthander.To go along with the giveaway, all three bands will be performing after the game in the Georgia Power Pavilion outside of the stadium gates in a special performance hosted by Strider himself.
In a press release announcing the giveaway, Strider explained his choices of each of the three bands:
On Dinner Time, whose song “Cuídate” will be featured on one of the three vinyl albums:
I like to imagine the members of Dinner Time, dancing with smiles on their faces, jamming their distinctly original sounds in someone’s garage or basement
. I feel their music conveys quite easily how much fun the band has making and playing it. I like to describe their sound as ‘a bunch of friends from Atlanta hanging out and having a good time.’On Trash Pands, whose song “Honey Eyes” is on the second of three albums:
I discovered Trash Panda with the release of their 2023 album ‘Pandamonium!’ The record was instantly discernible as thorough, exciting, and unmistakably unique
. Only immensely talented and creative musicians could produce such a complex style that is received so effortlessly. It’s impossible not to enjoy yourself while listening to Atlanta’s Trash Panda.And on the band Lunar Vacation, who will have the song “Tom” featured on the third giveaway album:
I remember exactly when and where I first heard Lunar Vacation—that’s how immediately they became one of my favorite groups. When I learned they were from Atlanta, it exponentially increased the enjoyment I derive from their music. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have followed their maturation and growth from the beginning.
In the press release, the team explained how this giveaway came into being: “The inspiration for this project was Strider’s love of local, independent music, combined with his interest in wanting to put more bands on the forefront of the Atlanta music scene. The genesis of the idea was really sparked when he visited Third Man Records last season in Detroit and saw the vinyl production operation in action.”
Strider’s a known indy music lover who has his own ranking system used to evaluate and grade music releases every year. He joined popular baseball youtuber “Bailey” to break down his rating system and discuss his 2023 Records of the Year over the offseason:
Strider then returned the next month to compare and contrast the discography rankings for popular rock band “The Strokes” with those of Bailey
.It's not the first time a baseball team has given away vinyl records; Third Man Records and the Detroit Tigers teamed for an exclusive ticket package in 2017 that combined a baseball-themed song on one side with an interview between the owner of Third Man Records (noted baseball fan & musician Jack White) and Tigers great Kirk Gibson
.In the most infamous vinyl record-related baseball moment, 1979's "Disco Demolition Night" in Chicago's Comiskey Park was set to have a crate of disco records blown up on-field between games of a doubleheader between the home White Sox and the Tigers
. A riot broke out after the detonation and the second game was later forfeited by the White Sox after the field, which was damaged by the explosion and then trampled by rioters, was deemed unplayable. (Lindsay Crosby)TRANSACTIONS
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June 2020: The Braves chose Strider in the 4th round, out of Clemson. Spencer via scout Billy Best for $451,800. (Bowman - mlb.com)
- Oct. 10, 2022: The Braves signed rookie right-hander Spencer Strider to a six-year, $75 million contract. The deal includes a $22 million option with a $5 million buyout for 2029. (Without the extension, Strider would have been eligible for free agency after the 2027 season.)
| Nickname: | N/A | Position: | RHP |
| Home: | N/A | Team: | BRAVES |
| Height: | 6' 0" | Bats: | R |
| Weight: | 195 | Throws: | R |
| DOB: | 10/28/1998 | Agent: | N/A |
| Uniform #: | 99 | ||
| Birth City: | Columbus, OH | ||
| Draft: | Braves #4 - 2020 - Out of Clemson Univ. (SC) | ||
| YR | LEA | TEAM | SAL(K) | G | IP | H | SO | BB | GS | CG | SHO | SV | W | L | OBA | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | TAE | GWINNETT | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.25 | 0.00 | |
| 2021 | DAS | MISSISSIPPI | 14 | 63 | 48 | 94 | 29 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 0.211 | 4.71 | |
| 2021 | HAE | ROME | 3 | 14.2 | 9 | 24 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.17 | 2.45 | |
| 2021 | LAE | AUGUSTA | 4 | 15.1 | 6 | 32 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.118 | 0.59 | |
| 2021 | NL | BRAVES | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.25 | 3.86 | |
| 2022 | NL | BRAVES | 1 | 2.1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.3 | 19.29 | |
| 2023 | NL | BRAVES | $1,000.00 | 32 | 186.2 | 146 | 281 | 58 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 5 | 0.21 | 3.86 |
| 2024 | NL | BRAVES | 2 | 9 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.27 | 7.00 |
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