ATLANTA -- No one loves a good debate quite like baseball fans, and with that in mind, we asked each of our beat reporters to rank the top five players by position in the history of their franchise, based on their career while playing for that club. These rankings are for fun and debate purposes only.
Here is Mark Bowman’s ranking of the Top 5 left-handed starters in Braves history.
1. Tom Glavine, 1987-2002, '08
Key fact: Accounts for 12 of the 22 postseason wins earned by a Braves left-hander while pitching as a starter
How can I go with Glavine instead of Warren Spahn, who collected more wins (363) than any left-hander in baseball history and who was worth more Wins Above Replacement (per Baseball-Reference) than any Braves pitcher of the Modern Era (since 1900)? And yes, I am aware that Spahn might have recorded 400 wins had he not missed four seasons while serving in World War II.
Spahn compiled 91.9 WAR over 5,046 innings for the Braves. Glavine had a 58.6 WAR over his 3,408 innings for Atlanta. Had Glavine maintained this same pace and matched Spahn’s innings total, he would have produced a comparable 86.8 WAR.
Now that we’ve done a comparison that confirmed two great pitchers were essentially equally great during their time with the Braves, we’ll look at adjusted ERA (ERA+), which normalizes a player’s ERA while using external factors like ballpark factors and opponents, where 100 is league average and any number higher is considered above average.
Glavine had eight different seasons with a 130 ERA+ or better, while Spahn had just three such seasons. Glavine also had a 140 ERA+ or better five different times. Spahn did so just twice.
As great as Spahn was, Glavine set himself apart from same-era peers on a more frequent basis. The two-time National League Cy Young Award winner posted a 3.15 ERA and had a 134 ERA+ from 1991-2002.
Among all pitchers who totaled at least 1,500 innings within this span, Glavine ranked fifth in ERA+. The only pitchers with a better mark were Pedro Martinez (172), Greg Maddux (164), Randy Johnson (155), and Roger Clemens (140).
2. Warren Spahn, 1942-64
Key fact: From his 1947 rookie season through '63, Spahn produced 91.8 WAR, well above second-place Robin Roberts (77.0 WAR)
Glavine limiting the Indians to one run over eight scoreless innings in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series might have been the most valuable postseason start in Braves history, but Spahn created a few of his own good memories from the Fall Classic.
Serving as another reminder of how much different the eras were, Spahn pitched at least nine innings in four consecutive World Series starts. The lefty worked 10 innings in Game 4 of the 1957 World Series and he matched this workload in Game 1 of the '58 Series. He returned to the mound four days later to complete nine innings, then worked another 9 2/3 innings when Game 6 was played exactly one week after Game 1.
It should also be mentioned that Spahn was 37 years old when he threw 28 2/3 innings of World Series baseball within that seven-day span back in 1958. You certainly couldn’t knock the durability of this lefty, who averaged 278 innings with a 2.96 ERA over a 17-season span from 1947-63. He threw less than 250 innings just once during that stretch.
Spahn won his only Cy Young Award during the Braves’ 1957 World Series-winning season, but he finished in the top three in the voting five times within a span of six seasons (from '56-61), and he earned 356 of his 363 career wins while playing for the Braves.
No. 3 Max Fried 2017-24
Key Fact: Threw six scoreless innings and earned the win as the Braves clinched the 2021 World Series with a Game 6 win in Houston
Fried’s 22.9 bWAR ranks third among all Braves left-handed pitchers, trailing only Glavine and Spahn. He finished second in NL Cy Young Award balloting after posting a 2.48 ERA over 30 starts in 2022. He produced a 3.07 ERA over the 168 appearances (151 starts) he made for Atlanta.
No. 4 Chris Sale, 2024-present
Key Fact: Won the 2024 NL Cy Young Award during his first season with the Braves
Through three seasons with Atlanta, Sale already ranks fifth among Braves left-handed pitchers with a 15.6 bWAR. The 196 ERA+ the 37-year-old lefty produced in 2026 stands as the fourth-best figure among all Braves starters (min. 25 starts), trailing only Greg Maddux (271 in 1994 and 260 in 1995) and Reynaldo López (208 in 2024). Sale owns the only two 200-strikeout seasons constructed by a Braves left-handed pitcher (225 in 2024 and 200 in 2026).
5. Steve Avery, 1990-96
Key fact: Was just 21 years old when he threw 16 1/3 scoreless innings over two starts in the 1991 NL Championship Series win over the Pirates
A bothersome shoulder prevented Avery from living up to the expectations of those who predicted he would be better than Glavine and John Smoltz. But he still did enough during the early 1990s to establish himself as one of the best left-handed starters in franchise history.
Avery posted a 3.17 ERA over 105 starts from 1991-93, then produced a 4.40 ERA while totaling just 76 starts over the next three seasons. Still, Avery was an invaluable postseason asset in ’91 and ’92, and his 13.5 WAR ranks fourth among left-handed starters in Braves history.