Could we see another special season from Spencer Strider in 2026?
The past two years have perhaps made it easy to forget just how good the Braves right-hander can truly be. Just two starts into what looked to be a promising 2024, Strider injured his right UCL and underwent season-ending surgery. When he returned to the mound over a year later, he was missing his elite velocity and usual strikeout stuff.
In 2025, Strider struggled to a 4.45 ERA in 125 1/3 innings, striking out 131 -- fewer than half of the 281 K’s he amassed in an electric 2023 campaign. After Strider’s second-place finish in National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2022 and a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young balloting in ’23, it’s fair to wonder if the righty can return to the same heights. But with 2025 rookie standout Spencer Schwellenbach set to miss significant time due to elbow surgery and starters Reynaldo López and Grant Holmes returning from injuries, the Braves sure could use a strong and healthy year from Strider in ’26.
With Strider set to make his Spring Training debut Saturday against the Orioles, here are three things that could make him an ace again this season.
Gains in velocity and movement
Strider doesn’t necessarily need to get back to the elite velocity levels he reached at the start of his career, but if he can take a step up from his 2025 numbers, it would be a start.
Strider ranked in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers in fastball velocity in ’22 (98.2 mph) and in the 92nd percentile in ’23 (97.2 mph) before losing nearly 2 mph thanks to the injury. Last season, Strider averaged just 95.5 mph on his four-seam fastball -- still above average but disappointing for a pitcher who routinely pumped triple-digit heaters past opposing hitters.
He also got less movement on his two principal pitches -- his four-seamer and his slider -- upon his return. In 2023, Strider’s fastball had an impressive 18.4 inches of induced vertical break, but that number dipped to 16.4 inches in ’25. His slider lost half an inch of gloveside break between the two seasons, too. An August trip to an Atlanta pitching lab helped, but Strider’s numbers simply weren’t what they once were.
It’s fair to suggest much of the downturn is due to health: Strider just wasn’t at 100 percent physically after a lengthy layoff. That could be evidenced by his arm angle, which dropped from 48 degrees in 2023 to just 42 degrees in 2025 -- a potential sign the right-hander couldn’t generate quite as much of his usual power.
But if Strider can get back into the upper 90s with regularity and recapture some extra movement on his pitches (no easy feat only two years after a major surgery), he’d be well on his way toward regaining ace status.
Less pulled contact
Strider has always been a fly-ball pitcher, but he was hurt by home runs more than usual during his up-and-down 2025.
The righty allowed 20 homers in his 125 1/3 innings of work -- 1.4 per nine innings, considerably higher than his 1.1 HR/9 from 2023 and nearly triple his impressive 0.5 HR/9 mark from his rookie season. Although Strider’s fly-ball rate was actually lower in 2025, the increase in pull contact he allowed stung him.
During his fully healthy 2023, Strider had nearly even rates of pull (31.1%), straightaway (34.5%) and opposite-field (34.5%) contact. But in 2025, his pull rate jumped to 40.4% and his oppo rate went down to a mere 23.8%. That led to a concerning 22.3% pulled airball rate, which ranked 295th out of 349 qualifying pitchers in 2025. Opposing hitters did some serious damage: On the 78 pulled airballs he allowed in ’25, Strider allowed a .584 average, a 1.338 slugging percentage and 14 home runs.
In general, the righty was barreled up last season more than ever, with his 10.6% barrel rate -- which ranked in the 14th percentile of MLB -- much higher than it was in 2022 (6.1%) or in 2023 (8.2%). His 91.3 mph average exit velocity allowed ranked in the fifth percentile.
There’s an easy explanation: With less zip on Strider’s pitches, batters were out front -- leading to pulled contact -- rather than swinging late and hitting the ball to the opposite field. Velocity is surely a major reason why Strider was hit uncharacteristically hard in 2025, but he’ll have to make adjustments to cut down his pull rate if he can't harness top-flight velocity again in ’26.
Improved command
Batters evidently saw a different Strider on the mound in 2025, a fact clear from the pitcher’s plate discipline metrics during his less-than-stellar season. With no fear of 100 mph heaters coming their way, they swung considerably less: 47.6% of the time in 2025, compared to 53.0% in 2023.
During his 281-strikeout ’23 campaign, Strider’s 73.5% zone contact rate was the best among the 127 pitchers to complete at least 100 innings. But that same mark soared to 82.5% in 2025, putting Strider in the middle of the pack. Perhaps it was this inability to miss bats in the zone that caused Strider to throw a lot fewer strikes overall: His zone rate dipped from 51.4% in 2023 to 46.4% in ’25, and his first-pitch strike rate went down by nearly 8%.
That translated to some major changes. Strider’s strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate dipped from a Major League-best 13.5 K/9 in 2023 to just 9.4 in 2025, barely over one strikeout per inning. His 9.5% walk rate -- a good deal worse than his prior two full seasons -- ranked in the 25th percentile of pitchers.
Of course, those changes are understandable for a pitcher still rediscovering himself after a major arm injury. Given his decreased velocity and movement, Strider had less room for error: He had to nibble the edges of the zone or bury a slider in the dirt, rather than risk grooving a mid-90s heater down the middle.
But if Strider is a different pitcher now -- one who can’t rely on top-end velocity -- he’ll have to find ways to miss bats and cut down on free passes in the coming seasons if he hopes to rebound. Either way, if he can regain the elite command he once had, he can once again be a top-of-the-rotation arm at a crucial time for the Braves.