Jared Shuster offers late-round pitching upside
Jared Shuster has major upside to round out the Braves' rotation to start the season with Kyle Wright and Mike Soroka working their way back from the IL and looks like a strong target at the back-end of fantasy drafts.
Video Transcript
- Going into Monday's games, there were 14 pitchers this spring with at least 18 strikeouts and ERAs no higher than 2. Four of them will begin the season in the Braves rotation. Max Fried and Spencer Strider are in that group, of course, but so too are Jared Schuster and Dylan Dodd, both of whom will be deployed early with Kyle Rice serving an IL stint after being brought along slowly this spring due to shoulder concerns. Schuster and Dodd were believed to be competing for one spot before the news on Wright came down. And there might be room for only one of two by mid-April. If that's the case, Schuster would seem to have the edge.
A first round pick in 2020, Schuster posted solid results in the minors, but his stock had dimmed some because of a modest velocity drop since his college days at Wake Forest. This spring, his velocity has improved. And while he's still not going to overwhelm with his fastball, the extra juice will help keep hitters off his slider and changeup, both of which are strong offerings. He's not at all a sure thing to last in the Braves rotation, especially with Michael Soroka looking like he could factor in by the end of April. But as someone with a fair amount of strikeout ability in a fine situation for pitchers in Atlanta, he offers upside at the end of drafts.