60-Day IL
Injury Elbow
Est. Return 8/1/2026
2025 Stats
W-L
3-2
ERA
3.86
WHIP
1.42
K
42
SV
0
Rest-of-Season Projections
2025 Fantasy Outlook
Smith-Shawver has entered the post-hype phase of being a prospect. He surprisingly made five big-league starts as a 20-year-old in 2023 and cruised through three levels of the minors. However, he was less outstanding over 20 starts at Triple-A in 2024, which, combined with an oblique injury, limited him to one MLB start in the regular season and one emergency start in the postseason. Smith-Shawver has always had good fastball velocity (96.2 mph average in 2024), but the pitch lacked the same caliber of movement that it had in 2023, which led to him giving up 20 home runs in 87 innings at Triple-A. He walked 11 percent of batters at Triple-A in 2024 and 15.2 percent of batters at Triple-A in 2023, so it's not a given that Smith-Shawver will throw enough strikes to start. He's just entering his age-22 season, so it's too early to give up on the athletic righty, but 2025 is his last option year, so he'll need to show sharper stuff and more consistency to continue to be viewed as a rotation piece in Atlanta. Read Past Outlooks

Expecting surgery later in week
Smith-Shawver is meeting with orthopedic surgeon Keith Meister on Thursday and is expected to undergo Tommy John surgery later in the week, David O'Brien of The Athletic reports.
ANALYSIS
Smith-Shawver has officially been diagnosed with a torn UCL in his right elbow, though the team is still awaiting confirmation that he'll require Tommy John surgery. Once he meets with Dr. Meister, the right-hander will presumably go under the knife shortly after in an effort to begin his rehab as quickly as possible for a potential return during the second half of the 2026 campaign.
Smith-Shawver has officially been diagnosed with a torn UCL in his right elbow, though the team is still awaiting confirmation that he'll require Tommy John surgery. Once he meets with Dr. Meister, the right-hander will presumably go under the knife shortly after in an effort to begin his rehab as quickly as possible for a potential return during the second half of the 2026 campaign.
Pitching Stats
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2025
2024
2023
Minor League Game Log

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Pitching Appearances Breakdown
Average Pitch Count
79
Last 10 Games
79
Last 5 Games
80
How many pitches does AJ Smith-Shawver generally throw?
1-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
81-90
91-100
101-110
111-120
121+
What part of the game does AJ Smith-Shawver generally pitch?
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
Extra
% Games Reaching Innings Threshold
% Games By Number of Innings Pitched
Left/Right Pitching Splits
Since 2023
-10%
BAA vs LHP
2025
-29%
BAA vs LHP
BAA | K | BB | H | HR | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Since 2023vs Left | .213 | 40 | 20 | 33 | 8 | |||
Since 2023vs Right | .236 | 26 | 14 | 29 | 3 | |||
2025vs Left | .212 | 26 | 9 | 21 | 3 | |||
2025vs Right | .300 | 16 | 12 | 21 | 1 | |||
2024vs Left | .000 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | |||
2024vs Right | .300 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | |||
2023vs Left | .240 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 5 | |||
2023vs Right | .116 | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | |||
More Splits→ | View More Split Stats |
Home/Away Pitching Splits
Since 2023
-56%
ERA at Home
2025
-74%
ERA at Home
ERA | WHIP | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Since 2023Home | 2.35 | 1.04 | 38.1 | 7.0 | 4.0 | ||||
Since 2023Away | 5.30 | 1.57 | 35.2 | 9.1 | 4.3 | ||||
2025Home | 1.45 | 1.02 | 18.2 | 8.2 | 4.3 | ||||
2025Away | 5.61 | 1.71 | 25.2 | 8.8 | 4.2 | ||||
2024Home | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
2024Away | 0.00 | 1.15 | 4.1 | 8.3 | 4.2 | ||||
2023Home | 3.20 | 1.07 | 19.2 | 5.9 | 3.7 | ||||
2023Away | 7.94 | 1.24 | 5.2 | 11.1 | 4.8 | ||||
More Splits→ | View More Split Stats |
Stat Review
How does AJ Smith-Shawver compare to other starting pitchers?
This section compares his stats with all starting pitcher seasons from the previous three seasons (minimum 120 innings)*. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that stat and it would be considered average.
* Exit Velocity, Barrels/BBE %, Balls Hit 95+ MPH %, and Spin Rate are benchmarked against 2019 data (min 120 IP). See here for more exit velocity/barrels stats plus an explanation of current limitations with that data set.
* Exit Velocity, Barrels/BBE %, Balls Hit 95+ MPH %, and Spin Rate are benchmarked against 2019 data (min 120 IP). See here for more exit velocity/barrels stats plus an explanation of current limitations with that data set.
K/BB
2.00K/9
8.5BB/9
4.3HR/9
0.8Fastball
95.6 mphERA
3.86WHIP
1.42BABIP
.314GB/FB
1.18Left On Base
74.9%Exit Velocity
84.6 mphBarrels/BBE
9.3%Spin Rate
1764 rpmBalls Hit 95+ MPH
34.4%Swinging Strike
11.4%Prospect Rankings History
Advanced Pitching Stats
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Defensive Stats
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Stats Vs Today's Lineup
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Past Fantasy Outlooks
2024
2023
The second-youngest pitcher to make five-plus starts in the majors last year (only Eury Perez was younger), Smith-Shawver has an impressive combination of youth, size and stuff. He dominated over three starts at High-A and two starts at Double-A before spending the bulk of his age-20 season going back and forth between Triple-A and the majors. The 6-foot-3 righty sat 93-96 mph with his plus fastball while touching 98 mph in the big leagues. He has touched triple digits in the past, but command and control have been lacking at times, so he may have dialed back his velocity in favor of more control during his 25.1 innings in the majors. Smith-Shawver threw his mid-80s slider 22 percent of the time while throwing his upper-70s curveball and fourth-pitch changeup each over 10 percent of the time, so it's a true four-pitch mix. All three secondary offerings can flash plus, but his breaking balls are more consistent than his changeup. He missed over two weeks with shoulder inflammation in the second half but returned to make four appearances in September. All told, he tallied 87.1 innings across four levels, so we can hope for around 140 innings in 2024 with good health. The main thing to keep in mind with Smith-Shawver is that he is still developing and could be far from a finished product. His command, secondary offerings and sequencing could all improve over the next couple years.
More Fantasy News

Diagnosed with torn UCL
Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said Friday that Smith-Shawver has been diagnosed with a torn UCL in his right elbow, Grant McAuley of the Marietta Daily Journal reports.
ANALYSIS
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Shifts to 60-day IL
Atlanta transferred Smith-Shawver (elbow) to the 60-day injured list Friday.
ANALYSIS
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Dealing with elbow injury
Smith-Shawver was placed on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a right elbow strain.
ANALYSIS
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Hit by comebacker, exits game
Smith-Shawver was removed from his start in the first game of Thursday's doubleheader against Philadelphia after getting hit in his lower right leg by a comebacker, Justin Toscano of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He struck out a batter and gave up two earned runs on three hits and one walk over 2.2 innings prior to his exit.
ANALYSIS
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Atlanta-Philadelphia postponed
Smith-Shawver and Atlanta will not play the Phillies on Wednesday after the game was postponed due to rain, Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports.
ANALYSIS
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Latest Fantasy Rumors

Might be trade chip
Atlanta could consider trading Smith-Shawver this offseason, Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports.
ANALYSIS
Among Atlanta's top three pitching prospects in Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep and Cam Caminiti, it sounds like Smith-Shawver might be the one the club is most willing to part with. The 22-year-old made one spot start in the majors in 2024 but spent most of the year at Triple-A Gwinnett, posting a 4.86 ERA and 104:40 K:BB over 87 innings.
Among Atlanta's top three pitching prospects in Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep and Cam Caminiti, it sounds like Smith-Shawver might be the one the club is most willing to part with. The 22-year-old made one spot start in the majors in 2024 but spent most of the year at Triple-A Gwinnett, posting a 4.86 ERA and 104:40 K:BB over 87 innings.