Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos joined Dukes & Bell to talk about his deals at the trade deadline, signing Austin Riley to a 10-year contract extension, and whether the team has an innings limit on Spencer Strider?
When asked about an innings limit on Strider.
“If I could jump on a roof at Truist and yell and scream, ‘We do not do innings limits with the Atlanta Braves,’ we don’t do innings limits," Anthopoulos said. "We don’t believe in them, we don’t do them, ‘innings limits’ those words do not come out in the Braves organization at least since I’m or since I’m running baseball operations from my standpoint. That doesn’t mean we don’t protect guys, that doesn’t mean we don’t watch guys and are casual.
"I don’t believe in them. I used to. I used to even to an extreme and it still didn’t work, and we still had to shut down guys all the time and as a young GM and it did not work. We can go across the game so many guys have been protected and still broke down, if we shut you down you can’t get hurt so there’s definitely a ‘CYA’ there that you know that but there isn’t anything proven.”
Anthopoulos talked about this question coming up with Max Fried earlier in his career.
“Everyone asked me about Max Fried after the COVID year, he pitched 60 some odd innings I think and what was gonna happen in 2021," said the Braves GM. "He pitched and we watched him and the same thing with Spencer. We watch all of our guys, day to day, start to start, bullpen to bullpen, inning to inning and we adjust if needed. Sometimes you see us move the rotation, sometimes you see us move the rotation around, there very well might be times when we feel we need to shut someone down and if that’s the case we’ll certainly do it.
"But unless there’s a reason to, I don’t believe in it. We don’t organizationally believe in it and Spencer Strider and every other guy that we have is available until we’re done playing or until God forbid there’s a health issue.”
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