Bryce Elder joined the Braves in 2022 when they were an embarrassment of riches. The 2020 fifth-round draft pick fast-tracked his way through the minors and quickly became a face of Atlanta’s next wave of starting pitching. In 2023, he became a mainstay in their rotation, making 31 starts and getting selected to the NL All-Star reserves. Life comes at you fast in the big leagues. Unfortunately, that goes both ways sometimes.
In his first 40 MLB starts spanning from his debut to the end of the 2023 season, Elder significantly overperformed his peripherals. His FIP, xFIP, and xERA (the latter based on the quality of contact he allowed) were all noticeably higher than his actual ERA. He isn’t one to miss bats, sporting a career-best single-season K rate of 20.7% from that cup of coffee in ’22. He doesn’t have elite command either. To that point, his average velocity on fastballs was only 91 mph. When he got his All-Star nod, he had just turned 24 years old, so he was ahead of the game in many respects, but remained a prime regression candidate heading into the next year nonetheless. And regress he did.
In 2024, his ERA spiked to an unsightly 6.52. He only made 10 starts, getting passed over on the depth chart. In 2025, he made 28 starts, mostly out of necessity as injuries hammered their rotation, and a 5.30 ERA suggests he had yet to find himself. His peripherals, funnily enough, were not considerably different from that all-star 2023 campaign. Specifically, though, he caught my eye last September after an impressive stretch to close out the year:
| Split | IP/GS | ERA | K/9 | BB/9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 21 starts | 5.32 | 6.29 | 7.25 | 3.47 |
| Last 7 starts | 6.31 | 2.82 | 8.26 | 1.61 |
He didn’t coast through a weak schedule to get those results either. One of those final seven outings featured seven innings of one-run ball against the Phillies, who would go on to win the division. During the first week of September, he put the Chicago Cubs in a blender twice in the span of just five days. What did he do differently?
There were some strategic changes of note. Elder, a sinker-slider pitcher by trade, laid off the sinker in favor of mixing in his slider, four-seamer, and changeup a little bit more to keep hitters guessing. Throughout 2025, he also gradually shifted his release closer to the third-base side of the mound every month. The big difference, though? He threw harder. His sinker velocity averaged 92 mph in a single month for the first time in his career in September. His less-used four-seam fastball averaged 93 mph for the first time in August and was up to 93.7 in September. Throughout his MLB tenure so far, his velocity at the end of the season has always been higher than at the beginning, but this was different. It was his first run of consistent success since 2023, and not by accident.
Source: Baseball Savant
The Braves, unable to shake the colossal injury bug that has plagued them incessantly in recent years, opened 2026 with five starting pitchers on the IL (Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, Spencer Strider, Hurston Waldrep, Joey Wentz). Naturally, I was curious to see if Elder, who made the team as their fourth starter, would be able to carry this newfound positive momentum from last year into his season debut at home against the high-powered Athletics offense this past Monday.
He did all that and more (6 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 5 K, 1 BB), and what we saw was far more than a sudden velocity boost.
Elder has always had issues with left-handed batters (4.71 career FIP compared to 4.02 vs RHB). In 2025, he simply tried to mix things up as much as possible in those matchups, going with a slider-sinker approach as well as moderate usage of his four-seamer and changeup in support. This past week, he was dramatically different from a usage standpoint:
| Pitch | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Slider | 33% | 32% |
| Sinker | 30% | 19% |
| Four-Seam | 22% | 9% |
| Changeup | 15% | 26% |
| Cutter | – | 15% |
The sinker was his primary pitch overall in 2025, but it received a 30th-percentile grade from Pitcher List’s PLV model in 2025. It theoretically makes sense, then, to throw it less while continuing to rely on the slider in weak-side matchups (89th-percentile PLV). In its place, he relied more on the changeup (51st-percentile PLV) and introduced a new cutter, which isn’t going to be a pitch model darling but averaged nearly a foot of vertical separation from his slider in its first regular-season showing. That’s a considerable adjustment hitters are going to be forced to make against him. It’s a small sample, but the results for the trio of lefties that faced him on Monday (Nick Kurtz, Lawrence Butler, Jeff McNeil) indicate a step in the right direction compared to his career norms: 3-for-12, 2 singles, 1 double, 2 strikeouts, 1 walk.
Elder also experimented with his release point. His release height dropped a couple of inches compared to last year, and his release width moved even further to the third-base side of the mound than he ended up last year. The result is only a 3° drop in arm angle, which isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to wonder whether it’s somehow having an effect on his slider shape. The sliders he threw on Monday averaged -2.6″ of iVB and 3.1″ of glove-side movement compared to -0.1″ of iVB and 1.9″ of glove-side movement last year. The differences in release between the two screenshots below are very subtle (his forearm no longer blocks the front right corner of home plate from the vantage point of the Braves’ center-field broadcast camera), but noticeable nonetheless.
Bryce Elder release, August 2025 (left) vs 2026 debut (right)
Remember how Elder usually adds velocity as the season goes on? Well, his sinker averaged 91.1 mph on Monday night, which exactly matches last year’s April average. His four-seamer sat at 92.5 mph, which would be the highest opening-month average of his career if he can sustain it over the next few weeks. Does this mean Elder is primed to eclipse the career-highs he set toward the end of last year? Would throwing the four-seamer less, as he did on Monday, make it easier for him to throw it harder when he does use it for effect? Whatever the answer, the past couple of years have forced him to do some soul searching as he tries to stay afloat. His postgame comments after that start against the A’s indicate he has gained more awareness as to the things that will make him succeed:
“I think I’m more complete. I think in ’23, I went on a run and was just making good pitches over and over again. But from a stuff standpoint and the crispness and stuff, yeah, I absolutely do (feel better than 2023).” (Grant Mona, Yahoo)
Inquisitive fans and fantasy managers alike were absolutely correct to question the legitimacy of Elder’s initial breakout a few years ago, as all the signs that warned regression was near proved true. Those same people should be giving him his flowers right now. He has been on quite the run since around mid-August last year, one that has seen him make adjustments that other pitchers with below-average stuff can emulate. He throws three fastballs now and has completely revamped his approach in weak-side matchups. Progress isn’t always linear; he must show that he won’t be as susceptible to tougher opponents before he’s an automatic start in fantasy leagues. The crash back to reality was unforgiving once the lack of stuff caught up to him, but the progress toward redemption has been just as striking so far for Elder, and it could not be coming at a better time for the Braves.
