{"id":564507,"date":"2026-02-10T17:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/564507\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T17:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:50:16","slug":"braves-to-place-promising-young-starter-spencer-schwellenbach-on-60-day-il-with-elbow-inflammation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/564507\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves to place promising, young starter Spencer Schwellenbach on 60-day IL with elbow inflammation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The two worst words an MLB pitcher can hear in spring training is “elbow inflammation.” After a full offseason of rest, an early elbow injury can derail a player’s season before it even begins.<\/p>\n

The Atlanta Braves were the unfortunate recipient of those words Tuesday, as promising, young starter Spencer Schwellenbach will be placed on the 60-day Injured List with right elbow inflammation.<\/p>\n

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The team is hoping the 25-year-old Schwellenbach is dealing with bone spurs, and not a more serious issue.<\/p>\n

Even if the team gets “good” news on Schwellenbach, he’ll still miss the first two months of the 2026 MLB season. Players start accruing time on the 60-day IL once opening day happens, and that stint can only be backdated by a maximum of three days, guaranteeing Schwellenbach will miss significant time in 2026 even in a best-case scenario.<\/p>\n

Since making his major-league debut in 2024, Schwellenbach has flashed future ace upside. As a rookie, he posted a 3.35 ERA over 123 2\/3 innings with Atlanta. The advanced stats backed up that performance, making Schwellenbach a popular breakout candidate in 2025.<\/p>\n

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He lived up to those expectations early, posting a 3.09 ERA over his first 17 starts last season. But Schwellenbach sustained a fractured elbow in what the team called a “freak accident.” At the time of the injury, Schwellenbach had a 2.2 fWAR and was a candidate to receive Cy Young award votes if he continued to pitch well down the stretch.<\/p>\n

It was one of many injuries sustained by key Braves players<\/a> last season. As a result of all those injuries, the team finished 76-86, its worst win total since 2017 \u2014 excluding the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season.<\/p>\n

While the Braves initially believed Schwellenbach could return in September, that didn’t happen. He made his last major-league appearance in late June, and entered the offseason hoping to be fully recovered by spring training.<\/p>\n

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The injury puts a damper on both the Braves’ chances in 2026 and Schwellenbach’s development. When he’s been on the mound, Schwellenbach has looked like a future superstar who could carry a team’s rotation. But injuries in two straight seasons have now brought questions about Schwellenbach’s ability to handle a full major-league workload. And given that this is the second significant injury to Schwellenbach’s throwing elbow, there’s no guarantee he’ll show the same upside when he’s ready to return.<\/p>\n

If there’s a reason to be optimistic, the Braves are expected to bounce back in a major way in 2026. The team is projected to win 92.2 games and win the National League East, per Baseball Prospectus’ projections.<\/p>\n

If the Braves can live up to that projection \u2014 and Schwellenbach’s injury proves to be relatively minor \u2014 there’s still a chance he can return in time to pitch meaningful games down the stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two worst words an MLB pitcher can hear in spring training is “elbow inflammation.” After a full…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,5,4499,4,659,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-564507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-atlanta-braves","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-elbow-injury","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-spencer-schwellenbach","13":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116047606328926301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}