This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Remember Jackson Stephens? Great guy. Funny dude. Good golfer and one of the Braves’ better relievers in 2022. Well, he’s also the guy who created the opportunity for Bryce Elder to spend some time learning from Greg Maddux.
John Smoltz went to Triple-A Gwinnett’s ballpark one day during the 2024 season to help Stephens work on his slider. While the Hall of Famer was visiting that day, Elder asked if Smoltz would arrange for him to meet with Maddux during the offseason.
Elder and Maddux had shared some phone conversations arranged by Eddie Pérez, Maddux’s primary catcher, who has spent his post-playing days on Atlanta’s coaching staff.
But it was Smoltz who arranged for Elder to visit Maddux at the four-time Cy Young Award winner’s home after the 2024 season. They focused on pitching during the morning hours and spent the afternoons golfing.
It was during these sessions that Elder developed the cutter he has finally started to find some comfort and success with. Maddux actually suggested the cutter when he and the current Braves hurler began talking.
Elder was initially hesitant because he felt it would mess with his slider, which he told Maddux was his “swing-and-miss” pitch.
“Oh, you’re a swing-and-miss pitcher?” Maddux sarcastically questioned.
Once Maddux saw the slider, he realized they needed to keep that pitch and develop the cutter. To make sure the addition didn’t negatively impact the breaking ball, Elder throws his slider off his middle finger and the cutter off his index finger.
Elder’s primary pitches remain his slider and two-seamer. But along with his four-seamer, he now has both a changeup, which moves away from left-handed hitters, and a cutter, which bears in on lefties. He threw the new pitch 11 times while allowing two unearned runs (both courtesy of his throwing error) over seven innings against the D-backs on Saturday.
“It’s taken a year to get the [cutter] into the mix, but I think it will be beneficial over time and I think it will continue to be good,” Elder said.
Elder entered Sunday with an MLB-best eight quality starts since Aug. 24. You don’t like arbitrary dates? Is it better to just say he has allowed three runs or fewer over at least six innings in eight of his last nine starts? Or, is it better to just point out that Max Fried, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tarik Skubal were MLB’s only other pitchers who entered Sunday with seven such starts during this span?
Elder understands the frustration fans felt as he posted a 5.99 ERA over 44 starts from July 18, 2023, to Aug. 19, 2025. He, too, was frustrated by the results and his inability to find consistency in what has been an unorthodox journey.
Elder’s path has had so many twists and turns that it’s actually fitting that a journeyman like Stephens helped strengthen the link to the two Braves legends, who played a part in this turnaround.
To pinpoint when Elder’s baseball career started to become unpredictable, you can go back to his sophomore year in high school, when he agreed to play baseball only after his coach let him focus on his responsibilities with the golf team and just show up at the ball field when it was time to throw a bullpen or make a start.
Elder pitched well enough to get offers from some smaller colleges. But he ended up as part of the University of Texas’ pitching staff because some Longhorn coaches saw him pitch in a postseason all-star game. In other words, he wasn’t on UT’s radar until after he had graduated. Still, he proved himself and was selected by the Braves in the fifth round of the 2020 MLB Draft.
Then, Elder began the 2023 season as Gwinnett’s Opening Day starter and still became one of eight Atlanta players selected to participate in the All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
Though inconsistencies followed, Elder made more starts than any other Braves pitcher from 2023-25. But he had never made an Opening Day roster before this year.
Things didn’t truly come together for Elder until the final weeks of the 2025 season unfolded. But he knows his turnaround truly began once he was introduced to Maddux’s simple way of explaining the art of pitching.