{"id":566477,"date":"2026-02-11T16:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/566477\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:34:14","slug":"braves-put-spencer-schwellenbach-on-60-day-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/566477\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Put Spencer Schwellenbach On 60-Day Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 11:\u00a0Schwellenbach\u00a0details (video link<\/a> via Chad Bishop of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that he felt strong throughout the offseason and had thrown off a mound four or five times without issue before experiencing discomfort right at the end of a 20-pitch bullpen session about ten days ago. He\u2019s since undergone imaging that led to his diagnosis and 60-day IL placement. Schwellenbach says he might require arthroscopic surgery \u2014 nothing is scheduled yet \u2014 and isn\u2019t sure what the recovery period would be from that procedure.<\/p>\n

Feb. 10: The Braves opened camp this morning with an unwelcome update on talented young righty Spencer Schwellenbach<\/a>. He\u2019s been placed on the 60-day injured list due to inflammation in his right elbow, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s hope is that the 25-year-old is dealing with bone spurs and not something more nefarious. Regardless, since the \u201c60-day\u201d term begins on Opening Day (and can only be backdated a maximum of three days), Schwellenbach will miss at least two months of action to begin the season. His IL placement should open space on the roster for catcher Jonah Heim<\/a>, who agreed to a one-year deal<\/a> with Atlanta earlier today.<\/p>\n

Injuries to the pitching staff were the hallmark of Atlanta\u2019s 2025 season, and their 2026 campaign isn\u2019t starting out much differently. The Braves have already been on the lookout for rotation help \u2014 perhaps already knowing that Schwellenbach would be sidelined \u2014 with reported interest in Chris Bassitt<\/a> and Lucas Giolito<\/a>, among others. Atlanta has already had to make one late-offseason pivot, signing Jorge Mateo<\/a> and Kyle Farmer<\/a> (the latter on a minor league deal) after Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> suffered a torn tendon in his hand when he slipped on some ice and fell in a fluke off-field injury. He\u2019ll need four to five months<\/a> to recover from the subsequent surgery. Schwellenbach\u2019s injury seems to set the stage for another late addition.<\/p>\n

The Braves had already been facing workload and health concerns in the rotation. Chris Sale<\/a> missed significant time with a ribcage fracture last season and has a lengthy injury history. Spencer Strider<\/a>\u2019s return from UCL surgery produced results that were nowhere close to his star-caliber performance prior to injury. Schwellenbach missed months due to an elbow fracture. Reynaldo Lopez<\/a> only made one start last year due to shoulder surgery. Promising young righty AJ Smith-Shawver<\/a> was shelved after a handful of starts due to his own Tommy John procedure.<\/p>\n

Entering the year, the Atlanta rotation figured to include Sale, Strider, Schwellenbach, Lopez and one of Hurston Waldrep<\/a>, Grant Holmes<\/a>, Bryce Elder<\/a>, Didier Fuentes<\/a> or an external addition such as Giolito or Bassitt. The Braves are down to three established veterans (Sale, Strider, Lopez), none of whom is coming off a peak season in terms of both health and performance. There ought to be a fair bit of urgency to add another starter to help keep pace in a perennially competitive National League East.<\/p>\n

How much space the Braves do or don\u2019t have to make that rotation addition happen isn\u2019t fully clear. RosterResource projects<\/a> an actual cash payroll around $268MM and a CBT payroll about $10MM less than that. That puts the Braves around $6MM shy of the second tier of luxury tax penalization. They\u2019d owe a 20% tax on any dollars up to the $264MM luxury mark and a 32% tax on anything from $264MM to $284MM. That\u2019s presumably the point at which Atlanta would prefer to halt its spending, given that crossing the $284MM third-tier threshold is the point at which a team\u2019s top draft pick is dropped by 10 places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 11:\u00a0Schwellenbach\u00a0details (video link via Chad Bishop of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that he felt strong throughout the offseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-566477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-spencer-schwellenbach"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116052968395012523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566477","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=566477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}