Braves Set MLB Record With 71 Pitchers in Disastrous Season

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00:00Braves set MLB record with 71 pitchers in disastrous season.

00:05Among the many bizarre storylines from the Braves' disastrous 2025 campaign,

00:11perhaps none sums it up better than this.

00:13Atlanta set an MLB record by using 71 different pitchers in a single season.

00:19Had someone predicted that before opening day,

00:22it would have been much easier to envision the Braves missing the playoffs for the first time in eight years?

00:27This was a team that lost two cornerstones from its rotation, Max Fried and Charlie Morton,

00:32and its top two set-up men in A.J. Minter and Joe Jimenez.

00:36Despite losing nearly 500 innings of production,

00:39Atlanta chose not to spend a single dollar on pitching last winter,

00:43instead banking on internal reinforcements.

00:46That gamble backfired almost immediately.

00:49The Braves entered 2025 with minimal pitching depth,

00:52and once injuries began to pile up, the season quickly spiraled.

00:57Alex Anthopoulos worked tirelessly throughout the summer to patch together a staff,

01:01cycling through waiver claims, minor league call-ups, and openers,

01:04but the real fixes should have come months earlier in free agency.

01:08The result was chaos.

01:10An MLB record 71 pitchers were used,

01:13shattering the previous mark of 67 held by the 2019 Mariners.

01:18The instability is perhaps best illustrated by Bryce Elder,

01:22who didn't even make the opening day roster.

01:24By season's end, he led Atlanta in innings pitched,

01:28over 150, with a 5.3 ERA across 28 starts.

01:33Elder's durability kept the Braves afloat at times,

01:36but his performance underscored just how thin the club's rotation had become.

01:41If there's one takeaway from 2025, it's this.

01:45Atlanta can't afford another offseason of ignoring its pitching staff.

01:49Injured arms, such as those of Spencer Strider and Kyle Wright, are expected to return,

01:54but relying solely on rebound seasons is a risky plan.

01:58Pitchers returning from major injuries are notoriously unpredictable.

02:02What Anthopoulos can control is the quality of the depth behind them,

02:06and that must be a top priority this winter.

02:09The Braves' 2025 collapse wasn't about offense, chemistry, or effort.

02:13It was about depth and planning.

02:16Atlanta has the talent to rebound quickly,

02:18but only if it treats pitching not as an afterthought,

02:21but as the foundation it has always been in its best eras.