<img alt="Milwaukee Brewers v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Q9gOreliz236gZfRKYlvRzsrtow=/0x0:8640x5760/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73729145/2165259625.0.jpg">
Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
In Dodd the Braves didn’t trust in 2024, and for good reason Dylan Dodd was a fun story last spring, earning a rotation spot out of Spring Training despite being a relatively unheralded senior sign who had started the year before in High-A. After an exciting MLB debut, though, he was pretty much horrible the rest of the way, and the Braves didn’t really have a need for him in 2024, either.
How acquired
The Braves made Dodd their third-round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, giving him the distinction of a (barely) top 100 overall selection. He flew through three minor league rungs in 2022, en route to earning a rotation spot out of the gates in 2023.
What were the expectations?
After Dodd’s 2023, they were pretty low. Dodd got a lot of hype for cruising through Grapefruit League play ahead of his MLB debut, which was also pretty nifty (3/0 K/BB ratio and a single run charged to him in five frames). But, he was profoundly, truly awful in pretty much every other major league outing that season, and also struggled at Triple-A when he wasn’t getting blasted off a major league mound.
Consequently, everyone knew that Dodd would hang around Gwinnett serving as a depth option for the inevitable spate of pitcher injuries, but there was little reason to expect him to do anything other than eat innings, and relatively poorly, at that. I mean, let’s be real: he had a 172/161/148 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) line in seven starts spanning 34 1⁄3 innings at the MLB level in 2023, and his ERA and estimators were all above 5.00 across another 74 2⁄3 minor league innings. Woof.
2024 results
At the major league level, Dodd only got the call once, and pitched two essentially garbage time innings against the Brewers — in which he was charged with two runs despite a 2/1 K/BB ratio. At the minor league level, he threw 107 2⁄3 innings for Gwinnett, mostly as a starter, posting a 5.35 ERA, 4.90 FIP, and 4.69 xFIP. As you can see, he gave the Braves little reason to call him up, especially later on in the year — he was actually pretty good in April for Gwinnett, with just one poor outing in five tries, but didn’t get the call then and really floundered afterwards.
What went right?
Well, he did make it back to the majors. And, those April outings at Gwinnett were pretty nice. He was mostly healthy. He got called up twice, though he didn’t pitch in one of those stints. He trimmed his walk rate at Gwinnett from about nine percent to about seven percent, without a corresponding drop in strikeout rate.
What went wrong?
The fact that the section above is so short, essentially. Sure, Dodd’s only major league outing involved him immediately getting punished for a leadoff walk, but the real problem for the 26-year-old southpaw is that he didn’t really take a meaningful leap forward despite working pretty much the whole season at Triple-A. Sure, he improved a bit, but probably not enough to change his role or place in the organization’s pecking order going forward.
2025 outlook
The Braves don’t need to transition Dodd into a reliever immediately, but the ship is probably going to sail on him having utility as a starter or bulk guy soon. He doesn’t project as a useful reliever right now, either, mind — it’s just that the Braves managed to get through all of 2024 by giving him just two major league innings despite trying their damndest to limit their primary rotation’s workload for most of the season, and it’s not clear why they’d need him even more in anything other than a short-stint role in 2025.
A Quad-A arm isn’t the worst thing in the world to be, but Dodd is going to need to show something that could be useful at the major league level to move past the “stable of replacement level or worse arms every team has when the injuries really start to grate” portion of the depth chart.
<img alt="Milwaukee Brewers v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Q9gOreliz236gZfRKYlvRzsrtow=/0x0:8640x5760/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73729145/2165259625.0.jpg">
Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
In Dodd the Braves didn’t trust in 2024, and for good reason Dylan Dodd was a fun story last spring, earning a rotation spot out of Spring Training despite being a relatively unheralded senior sign who had started the year before in High-A. After an exciting MLB debut, though, he was pretty much horrible the rest of the way, and the Braves didn’t really have a need for him in 2024, either.
How acquired
The Braves made Dodd their third-round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, giving him the distinction of a (barely) top 100 overall selection. He flew through three minor league rungs in 2022, en route to earning a rotation spot out of the gates in 2023.
What were the expectations?
After Dodd’s 2023, they were pretty low. Dodd got a lot of hype for cruising through Grapefruit League play ahead of his MLB debut, which was also pretty nifty (3/0 K/BB ratio and a single run charged to him in five frames). But, he was profoundly, truly awful in pretty much every other major league outing that season, and also struggled at Triple-A when he wasn’t getting blasted off a major league mound.
Consequently, everyone knew that Dodd would hang around Gwinnett serving as a depth option for the inevitable spate of pitcher injuries, but there was little reason to expect him to do anything other than eat innings, and relatively poorly, at that. I mean, let’s be real: he had a 172/161/148 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) line in seven starts spanning 34 1⁄3 innings at the MLB level in 2023, and his ERA and estimators were all above 5.00 across another 74 2⁄3 minor league innings. Woof.
2024 results
At the major league level, Dodd only got the call once, and pitched two essentially garbage time innings against the Brewers — in which he was charged with two runs despite a 2/1 K/BB ratio. At the minor league level, he threw 107 2⁄3 innings for Gwinnett, mostly as a starter, posting a 5.35 ERA, 4.90 FIP, and 4.69 xFIP. As you can see, he gave the Braves little reason to call him up, especially later on in the year — he was actually pretty good in April for Gwinnett, with just one poor outing in five tries, but didn’t get the call then and really floundered afterwards.
What went right?
Well, he did make it back to the majors. And, those April outings at Gwinnett were pretty nice. He was mostly healthy. He got called up twice, though he didn’t pitch in one of those stints. He trimmed his walk rate at Gwinnett from about nine percent to about seven percent, without a corresponding drop in strikeout rate.
What went wrong?
The fact that the section above is so short, essentially. Sure, Dodd’s only major league outing involved him immediately getting punished for a leadoff walk, but the real problem for the 26-year-old southpaw is that he didn’t really take a meaningful leap forward despite working pretty much the whole season at Triple-A. Sure, he improved a bit, but probably not enough to change his role or place in the organization’s pecking order going forward.
2025 outlook
The Braves don’t need to transition Dodd into a reliever immediately, but the ship is probably going to sail on him having utility as a starter or bulk guy soon. He doesn’t project as a useful reliever right now, either, mind — it’s just that the Braves managed to get through all of 2024 by giving him just two major league innings despite trying their damndest to limit their primary rotation’s workload for most of the season, and it’s not clear why they’d need him even more in anything other than a short-stint role in 2025.
A Quad-A arm isn’t the worst thing in the world to be, but Dodd is going to need to show something that could be useful at the major league level to move past the “stable of replacement level or worse arms every team has when the injuries really start to grate” portion of the depth chart.
Link to original article
