When I say that Yaz made his presence felt immediately, I mean it - he hit second for the Braves in this one and he took the first pitch he saw from Rays pitcher T.J. Nichols and crushed it deep to center field to put the Braves ahead early on in this one. Nichols left one right in Yaz's wheelhouse and he made no mistake with it in order to crack his first homer (of spring training) with the Braves.
The wait is finally over, and the Atlanta Braves kick off play in the Grapefruit League this afternoon. Right-hander Carlos Carrasco has been named today's starter against the Tampa Bay Rays. After just a few games with Atlanta last season, Carrasco looks to make an impression in his spring debut. Mike Yastrzemski, Jonah Heim, Eli White and Jorge Mateo will also be getting in on the action and making an appearance in today's matchup. First pitch is slated for 1:05 ET.
Both Schwellenbach, 25, and Waldrep, 23, were known to have issues with the elbows before today's announcement, so Braves fans may not be freaking out as much as it would seem from the outside. Still, each young righty was outstanding in a partial big league season in 2025, and was expected to be a major contributor this year to a very good Braves team.
That Atlanta Braves have taken another blow to their potential starting rotation with news this afternoon that starting pitcher Hurston Waldrep had an MRI after experiencing discomfort in his elbow while throwing batting practice. The MRI showed "loose bodies" but no ligament damage. Braves manager Walt Weiss met with the media and gave some additional details on Waldrep's status. Weiss said Waldrep will be meeting with doctors on Monday. The assumption is that some type of procedure will be needed.
Jonah Heim was a free agent in the first place after he got non-tendered by the Texas Rangers following two underwhelming seasons. He hit .213/.271/.332 with a .266 wOBA and 69 wRC+ last season, which would be an acceptable amount of production for a catcher if their defense was good. Unfortunately for Heim, his defense was not good in 2025 as he graded below average in plenty of defensive catching metrics in 2025.
The rosters for the 2026 edition of the World Baseball Classic have been revealed and as it turns out, Ronald Acuña Jr. won't be the only Atlanta Braves representative at the WBC. In fact, Acuña won't have to wait too long to see a few of his teammates turn into opponents during Pool D action in Miami, Florida. The Netherlands will have three Braves players on their squad for the WBC.
Well, now we know why the Braves didn't join that pack of ballclubs when it came to making that jump. As it turns out, the Braves are reportedly about to launch their own TV network. Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal is reporting that this is the path that the Braves are going to go down. He laid it out pretty clearly in his article detailing what the Braves and the eight other clubs are planning to do with their TV coverage going forward.
You could spend hours digging deep into a player's profile and identifying reasons why they have good fortune or bad fortune, but in this article, we are going to look at a high-level view of three players. There are few areas you can look right off the bat on to help determine if a player has had bad fortune at the plate. First you can look at a player's weighted on base average (wOBA) versus their expected wOBA (xwOBA).
Sigh, this is a depressing one of these to do. Everything about Spencer Strider was, in theory, so awesome, that it didn't seem like a little thing like a year-long layoff due to elbow troubles was going to derail his career. Surely someone so diligent in being in tune with his body and mechanics could hit the ground running, right? Well, not exactly. After an uneven 2025, Strider's outlook is uncertain, and pretty fraught.
Injuries were the primary culprit, though there were certainly some underperformances as well. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Spencer Strider both missed time, as they did in 2024, and when they played they were still working their way back into form. Getting those stars and others, such as Austin Riley and Matt Olson, back to full capacity and/or productivity is the Braves' best hope for a quick bounce-back. The projections think they have a good chance of getting that.
Scott, 33, is a well-traveled righty who made 24 appearances between the Astros and Diamondbacks last year. He struggled to a 7.90 earned run average over 27 1/3 innings. The South Africa-born pitcher is only a year removed from firing 68 2/3 frames of 2.23 ERA ball with Houston. He carries a 5.51 mark with a 21.2% strikeout percentage and 12.2% walk rate over parts of five MLB campaigns.
