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2023 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: Fastball 59.3% - 97.4%; Slider 33.5% - 85.7 mph; Change 7% - 87 mph.
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Strider is undersized at just 6-feet tall, but he has a big four-seam fastball. He also has the feel to spin a good breaking ball, but the Braves aren't sure yet if he should develop the curve or slider. Strider also throws a changeup, but it is well behind the curve and slider. It may be difficult for Spencer to improve his command to average, but he is athletic enough to repeat his delivery and throw strikes.
It was a brief look, only 12 innings, but Strider’s velocity had crept back up pre-Draft with Clemson. There were more velocity gains after he signed, and he’s maintained it in 2021. His secondary stuff has gotten sharper, with a changeup that showed glimpses of being above average with good velocity differential and a power breaking ball that looks like an average offering.
Strider really had trouble throwing strikes during his freshman year and in the Cape Cod League in 2018 but was much more efficient during that 2020 season small-sample size. He’s largely been around the zone with the Braves as well (though less so in Double-A), giving some hope that he could start in the future, though the arm strength would certainly play up in shorter stints out of the 'pen. (Spring 2021)
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While the six-foot right hander was throwing harder in his first summer with the Braves. He showed good velocity at the alternate site camp in Gwinnett with his four-seamer during instructs. During his time in Gwinnett, he also made strides with his changeup, which flashes above average, and his curveball, which has the chance to be an average breaking ball in the future.
Strider struggled with command early in his college career but was finding the strike zone more consistently during his brief junior season and first unofficial taste of pro ball. He’s athletic enough to repeat his delivery, and some believe he’ll have average command in the future. He has the chance to start long-term, with the development of his breaking ball a key to his role. (Spring 2020)
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2021 Q&A:
David Laurila: Tell me about yourself as a pitcher. How do you get guys out?
Spencer Strider: “I believe in attacking the zone and putting the game in the hitters’ hands. Whether you’re throwing 50 and can’t throw a strike, or you’re throwing 101 and spotting up like Jacob deGrom, the hitters have to deal with whatever you give them. The statistics show that’s going to work in your favor the vast majority of the time.
“I’ve also come to learn a lot about my fastball. At the end of college, we were able to get more more data and metrics on it, and I understood the concept of vertical break, how spin is helpful, and everything else that’s part of the vernacular now. I’ve focused on pitching to the top half of the zone, where it’s most difficult to hit a good rising fastball. Most of my attention over the last few months has been working on a breaking ball that complements that fastball use, something with more vertical depth at a high velocity.”
Laurila: For years, pitchers tended to tell me that they pitch to contact. Now it’s more common for them to say they’re trying to miss bats. Where do you stand?
Strider: “I’m definitely trying to miss bats. That’s the best outcome. I want to give myself the best chance of being successful, and if a guy swings-and-misses, I can’t be hurt by that. If I can pitch in a way that guarantees me more swings-and-misses, that helps remove the possibility of bad outcomes.
“I think a lot of guys have a misunderstanding of their stuff, or how they’re supposed to be pitching. They can be afraid of going to a place in the zone that gives them the most swings, and to me, that’s the middle part of the zone — just above the belt. Some hitters say that’s where they want the ball, and there’s this perception that that’s where pitches get hit the hardest. But it isn’t necessarily true. It depends on what you’re throwing at them, and with my fastball, that’s where I need to live. I get a ton of swings-and-misses in that part of the zone.”
Laurila: Does deception play a role in that, or it is mostly just ride and/or velocity?
Strider: “It’s a combination. I always tell people to look up … a guy like Jacob deGrom, for instance. I mean, the spin on his fastball is very correlated to his velocity. He’s not spinning the ball at some absurd rate. I think it’s somewhere in 2,400 [rpm] range, which for a fastball at 99.2 [mph] is pretty normal. I think a lot of what helps him is the ease of the delivery, the extension — things that aren’t specific to the baseball.
“Myself, hitters say that they can’t pick up the ball until it’s out of my hand, because my arm action hides it behind me. My delivery is pretty calm until the end, so that makes it hard for them to get on time. So I like to think it’s a 50/50 mix between the ball metrics and deception.”
Laurila: Where is your arm angle?
Strider: “I’m about a true three-quarters, and I’ve shortened my arm action since college. I used to be very long and the ball would pop out behind me; you could kind of keep track of where it was. My delivery was … not smoother, but there was an easier cadence to pick up. Now it’s a little bit choppier, in a way that creates just enough deception.”
Laurila: Who is responsible for that?
Strider: “Mostly myself. I had TJ my sophomore year at Clemson, and at that point I was able to kind of do a mechanical overhaul. Combine that with the fact that I’d just found out that I should be throwing four-seamers at the top of the zone… the changes I made were sort of catered to that. I took from guys like Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole, guys who are throwing four-seam fastballs 60-plus percent of the time.
“I had thrown two-seams my entire life, because I thought movement was a good thing, and I knew that two-seams move more. I didn’t have any data to back up whether mine was actually good or not. Sometimes it moved, sometimes it didn’t. I always threw hard, so I would get swings-and-misses on a two-seam, but not necessarily because it was moving; I was simply beating guys. Sometimes that was with two-seams [up in the zone] unintentionally.
“When we got a TrackMan put into the stadium at Clemson, we noticed that my spin rate was high, so we changed to a four-seam. We tinkered around with that, and it jumped a little more, with a ton of vertical movement. That was when the decision was made that I need to be throwing four-seams.”
Laurila: What are the metrics on your four-seamer?
Strider: “It’s 100 spin efficiency — the axis is always inside of one o’clock, right about 12:45 to 12:55 — and then my average vertical movement … I don’t know what it is for the entire season, but I know it’s in-between 18 at the low end on average, and 21 on average at the high end. Some of them, I’ll throw up to 25, they just shoot up in the sky — but I don’t really know how that happens.
“My spin has come back since TJ. Last season, which was my first season off of Tommy John, it was hanging out around 2,100-2,200. I was a little concerned, but then as my velo ticked up — I’ve been averaging about 96-97 mph on my fastball — it’s now sitting about 2,400.”
Laurila: Is your breaking ball a curveball or a slider?
Strider: “We — by ‘we’ I mean pitching development with the Braves — decided in spring training that there’s this pitch a few guys throw, like Luke Jackson, or Garrett Richards with Boston. It’s almost a curve, but it’s so hard that it limits the depth, in the negative-six range. And if it’s 85-plus, and negative six, it gets no contact whatsoever. They call it ‘the death pitch.’
“They said, ‘You know, you’re averaging high-90s on your fastball; you could be throwing this slider/curve/power curve, whatever you want to call it.’ So I don’t really think of it in a category, like a slider or curveball. I want to throw a hard, vertical breaking ball, and then call it whatever it does. I’m still working on it, so it hasn’t been particularly consistent, and sometimes it’s a little more curveball-ish, and sometimes it’s a little more slider-ish.”
Laurila: What about your changeup?
Strider: “I’ve been working on that as well, and it’s kind of the same thing. I’ve always had a pretty good changeup, but we decided it would be best if I could divert all of my focus onto the breaking ball as my secondary for now. When I start to throw it again, I don’t care how it gets there, or what I do to throw it, I just want it to be slower and something off my fastball. Whatever it does, I’ll call it what it is.”
Laurila: That said, how would you describe your changeup?
Strider: “In the many tinkerings, I have found a few things that — regardless of the rest of the grip — seem to be universal. That is, I supinate my wrist in my glove before I even throw the pitch. As I bring my hand out of my glove, that forces me to pronate earlier and harder. What I want to do on a changeup is turn it over. And then I bring my pinky up closer to my ring finger, because I don’t want it to prevent the ball from coming out of the right side of my hand and be too influenced by my index finger.
"So my middle finger rides right on the horseshoe, right on the seam, and that’s my leverage point. My ring finger just sits on the ball along with my pinky, so the ball can come out that way. My index finger at that point sort of acts like… it does touch my thumb, kind of like a circle, but only to keep the ball from going out of my hand that way.”
Laurila: What type of movement does that give you?
Strider: “Very vertical movement.”
Laurila: Yet you’re not really throwing it much . . .
Strider: “I haven’t thrown it this year at all. Like I said, we’ve kind of put it on the shelf to focus on the breaking ball. And as we’ve changed the approach with my breaking ball … I used to throw a true curve that was very slow and had a lot of depth, and I was working on a cutter/slider — something hard. We kind of morphed the two and got to the hard, vertical power curve — again, whatever you want to call it — and as I’ve gotten more of a feel for it, I’ve realized that my changeup also needs to have vertical depth, rather than more horizontal movement.
“I’ve been able to throw changeups that run a ton. The changeup I threw in college would run from one side of the plate to the other. But that doesn’t really play with my arsenal. What I need is something that goes down and is just slower than my fastball. I don’t think it’s going to be a pitch that I throw 20% of the time; I think it’s going to be a five-to-10 percent, like the way Gerrit Cole uses his changeup. His breaking ball, just like mine, is going to be the number-one secondary.”
Laurila: How fastball-heavy have you been this year?
Strider: “Very. I think in my first outing I was 90-something percent fastballs. The second was 70 something, and then we started working in the breaking ball more. I’d say I’m sitting 65-70% fastball.
“Like I said, I want to attack hitters, and I have a good fastball that plays well, so there are times I don’t feel a need to throw anything but fastballs. Of course, for developmental reasons I’ve got to work a breaking ball in there, and eventually a changeup. But I think I’m always going to be a 60-plus percent fastball guy.”
Laurila: Let’s jump back to your breaking ball. Can you say more about how you throw it?
Strider: “Like I said, it’s got more vertical depth than a slider, but I need to throw it hard like a slider. So the grip has been tough. I’ve been able to spin a breaking ball pretty well, but not fast. The trouble for me has been finding a grip and a release point that allows me to still influence the ball — the front half of the ball — to create top-spin, but not slow down my arm or my hand.
“I actually modeled my grip a little bit off of Luke Jackson. He throws his 87 on average, with negative-seven, negative-six. Granted, he’s a taller guy with a higher release slot. But he’s got space in between the ball in his hands. It’s coming right out of the fingertips of his index and middle finger, and he’s sort of a hybrid spike. He’s not fully spiked with his index finger. It’s about a third of the way up from his middle finger. That’s kind of where I’m at.
“I mentioned that I supinate my changeup. I don’t supinate my breaking ball, but I do think about keeping the wrist turned in, and my thumb almost pointed upwards — the knuckle of my thumb pointed upwards so that when I come through, the hand is aligned with my wrist at release. There’s a straight line just like a fastball. But now my pinkie is pointed closer towards home plate, so I’m in front of the ball at release with my index and middle fingers.”
Laurila: What type of spin do you get on it?
Strider: “It’s anywhere from seven to eight o’clock when it’s where I want it to be. Sometimes I’ll throw a gyro at nine — that’s a good pitch that hangs out around zero to positive-two. But when I’m getting the negative vertical movement that I want, it’s inside of eight o’clock. The spin rate has been up to 2,700 in very small samples. Normally it hangs at around 2,400-2,500.
“We’ve actually had kind of an epiphany. We’ve been chasing this positive 85-or-more, and negative-six or more, and realized that in order to get that much depth at a high velocity, I have to throw it positive out of my hand. In other words, there has to be a hump so that the pitch has time to get that much negative depth. That’s because I’m only six feet tall [and 201 pounds] and throw from a three-quarters arm slot.
"I’m not Tyler Glasnow, or even Luke Jackson or Gerrit Cole. Those are all taller guys who throw from a higher arm slot, so they’re able to throw this pitch straight down with a negative release out of their hand and still get that depth. For me, it’s probably best that I chased the velocity 85-plus, and the rate at about negative-four instead of negative-six.” (David Laurila - June 18, 2021)
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2021 Season Braves Breakout Prospect: RHP Spender Strider
The 2020 fourth-round pick began the year in Low-A and finished it in the big leagues. He finished second in the organization with 153 strikeouts in the Minors, amassing that total in just 94 innings (14.6 K/9), holding hitters to a .190 batting average in the process across four levels. (Mayo, Dykstra and Boor - MLB.com - Dec 23, 2021)
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Sept. 1, 2022: The rookie threw eight innings, allowed only two hits, and recorded 16 strikeouts. The 16 strikeouts are a Braves franchise record, as Strider was untouchable.
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2022 Season: Strider became the fastest pitcher in MLB history to 200 strikeouts, breaking Randy Johnson‘s record, and finished this season as the only pitcher in MLB history to strikeout 200 batters and surrender less than 100 hits. He finished the season leading all MLB rookie pitchers with a 4.9 fWAR. (Seattle’s George Kirby ranked second with a 3.0 mark.) This is the highest mark recorded by any MLB rookie pitcher since Hideo Nomo (5.2) in 1995. It’s also the best mark produced by any Atlanta rookie pitcher, besting Mike Soroka’s previous record (4.6).
Strider actually moved to the rotation two weeks later than planned. He was scheduled to make his first start on May 17 in Milwaukee. But when Tyler Matzek’s shoulder created more discomfort before that game, the Braves decided they needed to keep Strider in the bullpen until they were again comfortable about the relief corps depth.
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Spencer was an old-school power pitcher as a rookie for Atlanta in 2022, racking up 120 strikeouts on a rising four-seamer that averaged 98.2 mph; 66 of those K's were on elevated fastballs. (D Adler - MLB.com - Feb 6, 2023)
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The changeup — or at least a third pitch of some sort — is almost considered a fundamental requirement for starting.
And then there’s Spencer Strider, who broke the rookie strikeout rate record last year in 131.2 excellent innings, and did so without a changeup. Literally 95 percent of the time, he threw a fastball or slider, and only two starters threw 100+ innings and threw their primary two pitches more often. Headed into this season, the obvious question is if he can continue this dominance with two pitches.
“I don’t want to throw a pitch that doesn’t have the prospect of getting an out,” Strider told me late last year. “Worse pitches are contacted more, put into play more, you have worse command of them like I do with my changeup, and so you’re falling behind and relying on pitches that are going to be fouled off rather than swung-and-missed in a two-strike count. So what’s the point of it then?”
“Our whole approach with pitching is to identify what you’re good at,” Strider pointed out. “For me it was the fastball. Low (Vertical Approach Angle), high vert, good velo, that’s going to be the centerpiece of the arsenal, everything is going to build off that.”
Only three starting pitchers’ sliders resulted in lower production from hitters, so, yeah, Strider has two pitches, and they’re both insane. Haven’t we been told forever this doesn’t work?
“You throw one fastball down, all of a sudden they have to think about that,” Strider said. “Even if they are sitting on the fastball up, still their brain cannot process 98 mph with 20 vertical inches of movement and still be on time every time and get the barrel to the ball, especially anyone that has a launch angle swing.
"I can tell what a hitter is trying to do, especially with a good catcher. When Travis d’Arnaud is catching, he knows what they are doing. As soon as a guy swings, he tells me what he’s trying to do. Once that happens, I have another pitch.”
Here’s the key:
“That’s why I have this slider, I built it so I could throw it, and it would look like a fastball,” Strider said. “Even if they noticed it, they couldn’t get under it and drive it. If the plan is to wait me out, I can throw fastballs, make them swing. If the plan is to jump me and be aggressive, I can throw sliders. You can’t cover all of it.”
“You can’t really build a better four-seam fastball than what he has as a starting pitcher,” said Chris Langin, director of pitching at Driveline Baseball. “It’s 99.5 mph, with impressive carry relative to his release height.” (Sarris-Mar 8, 2023-TheAthletic)
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April 24, 2023: The right-hander threw his ninth consecutive game with nine or more strikeouts, passing John Smoltz’s franchise record of eight. This, though, was not enough as Strider made this feat even better by striking out 13 batters. (Trey Plummer)
- How Strider developed a cheat-code pitch to become an unlikely ace: The pitch is essentially a laser beam.
Spencer's top-of-the-scale fastball, an 80-grade offering on baseball's 20-to-80 scouting scale, is one of the best pitches in the sport.
Since the start of last season, batters are hitting .194 against his fastball compared to the league average of .254. The pitch's runs-saved-above-average value ranks second. And this despite his four-seam fastball usage (65%) ranking 15th among all pitchers to throw at least 500 pitches since the start of last season.
Hitters know it's coming, and they still appear helpless.
What allows it to be such a weapon?
"The hardest thing for a hitter to do is decide when to swing: when and where," Strider told theScore in late March. "The closer the release is to home, the less movement it needs to be difficult to predict where it's going. I think with good extension, lower release height, and I think my ball rides well, it all just packages to be deceptive."
He's basically built Jacob deGrom's fastball in terms of its speed, release point, and shape. (Travis Sawchik - April 27, 2023)
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Cory Shaffer is a sports psychologist at Clemson University. He meets with the baseball team once a week and holds voluntary one-on-one sessions with student-athletes. Strider didn't visit him until he tore his UCL in his right elbow in the spring of 2019, on the cusp of his sophomore campaign. Tommy John surgery followed.
In their first talks, Shaffer wanted Strider to apply a different kind of mindset to his rehab. He saw other athletes sharing news of an injury on their social media accounts that often went something like this: "Thanks for all the support. Despite this, I am going to come back better than ever," Shaffer said.
"The analogy I always use is: imagine writing a book about the story of yourself in baseball. That kind of mindset, 'despite this injury,' it's almost like you leave that chapter out. It's sort of a footnote," Shaffer said. "The mindset I encouraged him, or anyone to have is: 'No, because of this injury I will come back better than ever.'
"So now if you are writing that same book, it's a really important chapter. It might be the longest chapter in the book. So much happened in that chapter."
Shaffer stressed that from the time Strider picked up a baseball, he never had the time to have to develop himself, and he was about to have a lot of it.
"You are a blank canvas," Shaffer told Strider. "There is a massive opportunity in front of you."
He would have a year to not worry about competing for a spot or making adjustments in the middle of the season.
"Getting hurt in some ways was a good opportunity to do these things that I couldn't have done otherwise," Strider said. "That opportunity to build from the ground up was sort of a blessing in disguise."
Strider decided to rebuild his delivery. He didn't go to Driveline or another facility to learn concepts and take advantage of their tech; he researched and taught himself instead.
"It was a bit of surfing the internet, YouTube," Strider said.
He had questions: How do the best pitchers who are built like me move? What do the best pitch characteristics look like? How do pitchers add velocity? He tried to answer them.
He didn't have a body like deGrom or Cole, so he didn't bother studying those archetypes. Rather, in the spring of 2019, he looked at how Trevor Bauer and Walker Buehler moved in their deliveries. They were sized like him and threw four-seamers.
"I really started to look at data and try and figure out what guys' best stuff was," Strider said. "It was clear early that I had good ride and carry. I needed to try to pitch at the top of the zone, and pitch above guys' barrels, rather than see the ball move … previously we thought the more it moved, the harder it was to hit."
To make his fastball play up, he learned he had to get down the mound faster, cover more distance, and create more energy. More than anything, Strider needed a better stride.
"Extension, release height, velocity, and movement are all connected," Strider said.
He explains: If your move takes you further down the mound, you'll likely lower your release height and create more energy by moving faster.
"But if you increase extension, you need to block better with your front side so that you rotate fully around. And then to do that, you have to drive better with your back leg," he said. "Which means you have to stay longer over the rubber. They are all correlated."
That plan led to the dominant pitch we see today. (Travis Sawchik - April 27, 2023)
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In spring 2019, Strider handed his remodeled delivery plan to Rick Franzblau, director of strength and conditioning for Clemson athletes who compete in sports that are offered at the Olympics.
The plan's goals were "to get further down the mound, to lower my release height, and stay behind the ball," Strider said. As a freshman, his average extension was an even six feet according to TrackMan data supplied by an MLB club.
Franzblau was struck by the detail from a newly turned 21-year-old.
"He took it upon himself, with his own intuitive and cerebral sense, and kind of modeled a lot of his delivery based upon similar body structures," Franzblau said. "We reverse engineered from there, based on what he needed from a physical perspective, to be able to get in those positions, and repeat them pitch to pitch, outing to outing."
Strider required a stronger base - stronger legs - without losing athleticism in order to create what he wanted, Franzblau assessed.
He needed to create a great push off his right leg to move faster and further down the mound and be strong enough to stick his landing leg efficiently and transfer the energy from the ground to his hand.
For the first eight weeks after the surgery, pitchers can only use their own body weight in exercises, so they were limited to isometric options.
"I put him through this grueling long-duration isometric program where the goal was to hold a three-minute lunge position, isometrically," Franzblau said. "He got up to it."
There were wall squats, too. "His whole session might be five or six reps of (wall squats)," Franzblau said.
This rehab was not designed for enjoyment. Already strong in his lower half, as many pitchers are, Strider became stronger. As spring turned to summer, he remained on campus to work with Franzblau. They began adding weight to the work.
Strider advanced to lifting 355 pounds for three reps on a reverse lunge. For reference: one rep of 320 pounds is considered advanced for a 190-pound male; 399 pounds is elite. They worked to the maximum weight they could manage without putting his body in positions that tilted his pelvis too far to the ground, Franzblau said.
"For a shorter guy to throw hard, you're going to have a hard time finding a guy who doesn't have some pretty good weight-room prowess," Franzblau said. "A shorter guy, to create some of the ground forces and kinetic energy necessary, generally speaking, is going to have to be a stronger individual."
Said Shaffer: "There's a reason they call him 'Quadzilla.'"
Building strength was important but so was maintaining athleticism and flexibility to ensure "that as we're getting stronger, we're not turning into a block," Franzblau said.
Franzblau taught Clemson pitchers like Strider mobility drills for hip rotation. He incorporated other exercises into Strider's regimen including sprint work, agility drills, and hurdling. He'd arrange three track hurdles on a 30-meter stretch of indoor turf.
As Strider and the other rehabbing athletes who sometimes worked together improved at clearing the hurdles, Franzblau shortened the distance between them. He also made them alternate lead legs.
"It challenged them from a movement perspective," Franzblau said. "They failed a little bit and it was frustrating." But that was intentional. "They had to deal with it."
All that foundational work went toward the linear component of his delivery. He also needed to work on the rotational component.
"I wanted to shorten my arm path, understanding that rotation speed was instrumental in creating velocity and getting down the mound," Strider explained. "If I could stay close together and centered around the core of my body longer, then I could rotate faster."
Think about how a figure skater's spin accelerates when they draw their arms inward. It's the application of the law of conservation of angular momentum, something Strider said he happened to stumble upon.
That shorter arm circle also allowed Strider to better hide the ball from batters, Franzblau and Strider both said.
"He kind of weaponized his fastball," Franzblau said.
In winter 2019, as Strider was throwing bullpens, Franzblau trained an Edgertronic high-speed camera on him. Commonly used in pitch design, Strider also used them to hone his finger placement and wrist position at pitch release to maximize spin efficiency. Franzblau used them for another purpose, though.
"I have Edgertronic video of Spencer, 9, 10 months out (from surgery) on the mound, and you can just see how well that (energy) wave propagates right into his shoulder," Franzblau said.
He uses the footage to teach concepts to student-athletes at Clemson today.
"The ability to accept that energy and propagate it into the area you want (is impressive). With a lot of guys, if they cannot capture good foot position on the front leg, that wave might propose toward their neck, or propagate more toward the lat," Franzblau said.
"I was able to compare him to the rest of the team and he was really, really unique in that capability."
When Strider returned to game action that year, he reached new velocity highs, hitting 97 mph. (Travis Sawchik - April 27, 2023)
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May 1, 2023: Braves starting pitcher Spencer Strider, perhaps for the first time in his career, had a notable start due to not striking out enough hitters. The start happened in the first game of a doubleheader in Citi Field Monday afternoon. Strider didn't have a terrible outing, and he did strike out eight Mets hitters.
Strider's final line: 5 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 8 K. He exited after 107 pitches with a 6-4 lead.
He wasn't nearly as sharp as he was in his other starts this season, as the outing established new season worsts in hits and runs allowed. Still, he's now sporting a 2.57 ERA and 0.94 with 57 strikeouts in 35 innings.
This start did, however, mark the first time since he took the ball in St. Louis on Aug. 26 of last season that Strider did not strikeout at least nine hitters in a regular-season game.
So the streak ends at nine. He joined an exclusive group to punch out nine hitters in at least nine straight games but fell short of joining two of the best strikeout artists in history.
The previous Braves record was eight, which John Smoltz did in 1997. That is quite the group. Ryan, of course, is the career strikeouts leader while Sale ranks first all-time in strikeouts per nine innings (11.065). Pedro is an inner-circle all-time great while Bieber's run included a Cy Young. We know plenty about Cole's strikeout prowess and Gooden's 1984-85 was one of the best two-season stretches for an individual pitcher in history. (Matt Snyder)
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June 26, 2023: Strider’s 146 strikeouts leads the majors and is the most by any Braves pitcher over a 16-game stretch at any point in franchise history. (David O'Brien - The Athletic)
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Aug. 1, 2023: Spencer Strider reached 200 strikeouts in 123 1/3 IP, the fewest IP to 200 strikeouts in a single season since the mound was moved to its current distance in 1893. He broke his own record of 130 IP, from last season. (Sarah Langs)
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Aug. 19, 2023: The 10 strikeouts brought his total on the year to 392. One notable former MLB pitcher who tallied 392 strikeouts through his first 45 career starts was Dwight Gooden.
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Sept. 30, 2023: Strider moved ahead of John Smoltz on the all-time Braves single-season leaderboard with 277 strikeouts.
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2023 Season: Strider set the club’s modern-era single-season strikeout record with 281 while putting up a 20-win season.
Strider, a reliever for the first two months of the 2022 season, had 44 more strikeouts than any other MLB pitcher this season.
186.2 IP, 281 K, 3.86 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 3.4 bWAR
Spencer is so much fun to watch pitch. His electric fastball and doosy of a slider remind me of prime Craig Kimbrel but stretched across 5-7 innings. Strider led baseball in strikeouts and wins, the only 20-game winner in 2023.
Fun fact: Strider’s FIP was a full run lower than his ERA, suggesting he may be even better next season. Our voters gave Strider 3 first-place votes, 17 second, and 4 third for 49 points total.Strider has been an ace in Atlanta over the last two seasons. He's also shown an elite fastball that's averaged 97.2 mph.
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Jan 19, 2024: Statcast recently introduced its new swords metric, which uses Hawk-Eye bat tracking to classify the awkward half-swings that a pitcher induces with a particularly nasty pitch (as popularized by Pitching Ninja, who coined the name). Dylan Cease was the overall Sword King of MLB last season, but there were swords specialists for every pitch a big league ace can throw.
The Sword Master for the Slider: Spencer Strider — 45 swords.
Strider's slider is maybe the most dominant pitch in the Majors. The Braves ace generated 306 whiffs and 139 K's with his slider in 2023, both the most by any pitcher on any pitch type. And the slider is the pitch most likely to generate a sword, especially when a hitter mistakes it for a fastball. So of course Strider led the Major Leagues in slider swords. His slider got the most swords of any individual pitch in baseball, and Strider even had one more slider sword than Cease.
No hitter was safe. Stars like Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Corey Seager and Gunnar Henderson all had swords against Strider's slider. (D Adler - MLB.com - Jan 19, 2024)
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2024 Improvements: Braves’ Spencer Strider now has a curveball?
We’re working on a couple things, just like playing with different shapes of the slider,” David O'Brien (Athletic) said. “The terminology, you know, on all this stuff — sweeper, slider, cutter, curve, slurve, who knows what anything does? I think it’s just manipulating the ball a little more, seeing what kind of different shapes I can get. More so just kind of screwing around, taking that chance right now in live BP.”
Strider has a point. There are so many different pitches that do different things in this game, and what one pitcher calls a curveball another may refer to as a sweeper. The sweeper is baseball's latest phenomenon, with many pitchers starting to throw it.
Regardless of what Strider calls his new pitch, the fact that he is working on a new weapon for his repertoire is something to take note of.
It should also be noted that Strider later said his strengths are still his “fastball” and “slider.” The two pitches work well off each other because they often look similar coming out of his hand. The slider, though, darts away from right-handed hitters and toward left-handed hitters. (Joey Mistretta - Feb 19, 2024)
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2024 Season: What ultimately transpired was Strider making only two starts in 2024 before being shut down in early April and undergoing elbow surgery for the second time in his young career.
This time, though, Strider was able to have the internal brace procedure, as the damage to his UCL was less substantial than initially feared. Once the surgery began, Dr. Keith Meister uncovered that the issue was a bone fragment that had developed since his last surgery, rather than an issue caused by Strider’s mechanics.
Before all of that went down, not only was Strider named the Braves’ Opening Day starter, but he also wound up getting the start in Atlanta’s home opener due to poor weather during the first week of the year. He threw well enough on Opening Day in Philadelphia, limiting the Phillies to two runs on three hits with eight strikeouts and two walks over five innings.
But, things were clearly off in his home opener outing against the Diamondbacks, during which he allowed five runs on seven hits in just four innings on 88 pitches. He walked three and only struck out four in what ended up being a Braves walk-off win, but he told trainers afterwards that he was experiencing more discomfort than normal. That was April 5, and he went on to have surgery on April 12.
The poor second start, discomfort-caused or not, kind of messed up his line, not that anyone really cares. He finished with a 168 ERA-, 127 FIP-, and 99 xFIP-, as well as 0.0 fWAR, despite his good first outing.
What went right
The clear highlight of Strider’s 2024 was that his warmup song — which we regrettably only got to hear once at Truist Park — was Steely Dan’s “Do It Again.” His vinyl night in August when he got to feature local Atlanta bands remains one of the coolest promos I’ve seen. On the field, honorable mention to the fact that he was able to mostly silence the Philly faithful, in whose heads he lives rent free, on Opening Day.
One emerging development was that Strider added a curveball to his arsenal during Spring Training, and while we did not get to fully appreciate it yet, what we did see of it was nasty.
And one more, for good measure.
When Strider first got hurt, there was plenty of speculation that this new curveball — or just his flame-throwing-ness in general — may have had something to do with it. But since it didn’t, watching him hone this pitch over a longer stint of a season is going to be very fun. (Elaine Day - Nov 13, 2024)
- April 16, 2025: Strider became the fastest starting pitcher to 500 career strikeouts. (Gabe Lacques - USA TODAY)
