It’s officially Shohei Ohtani season.

The All-World designated hitter and starting pitcher will probably suck all the oxygen out of the room for the next few months (or however long it takes him to pick his future destination), but there’s other things to look forward to in free agency.

MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince released his “eight bold offseason predictions” article touching on some of those free agency storylines, and one involves the Atlanta Braves.

“High school teammates will reunite in Atlanta”

Stop me if you’ve heard this on a broadcast before, but Braves ace Max Fried attended Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles at the same time as fellow MLB pitchers Jack Flaherty and Lucas Giolito.

And given that both pitchers were traded in 2023 and subsequently struggled, Castrovince thinks Alex Anthopoulos can swoop in and take advantage:

Not far removed from being two of the more attractive starting arms in the sport, Flaherty and Giolito were both Trade Deadline duds in 2023. Under the right guidance, they can return to form and prominence on a Braves team that could use the innings.

It’s an interesting idea, one that could really strengthen the 2024 rotation if it works out. Let’s look at it.

The case for Jack Flaherty is there

When healthy, Flaherty has been excellent. In his rookie season of 2018, he finished in the top five for Rookie of the Year with a 3.34 ERA. He followed that up with a 11-8 record and 2.75 ERA in 2019, finishing 4th in the NL Cy Young race (and getting down ballot MVP votes, coming in 13th.)

But that caveat – when healthy – is the big thing there. He’s gone on the injured list seven times in the last three seasons, including three times in 2023 (Hand, Hip, and “general soreness”). His strikeout rate ticked up after the trade deadline move to the Orioles, but so did his ERA – 6.75 in only 34.2 innings in Baltimore.

More concerning – his fastball’s been rocked since 2020, including a -5 run value in 2023. Coming in at a below-average 93 mph, it allowed a .290 batting average and .411 slugging this season.

If Atlanta identifies something they can tweak to bring back the four-seam’s movement profile and velocity, there’s value to be had here, especially since underlying stats like FIP show that he was a bit unlucky in 2023 (4.36 FIP versus 7.99 ERA).

The case for Lucas Giolito is a bit harder to see

Giolito’s 2023 was even rougher than Flaherty’s – traded to the Angels at the deadline, he put up a 6.89 ERA in his six Los Angeles starts and was put on waivers, where the Guardians promptly claimed him and he put up a 7.04 ERA in his six starts there. 

Not only was Giolito’s ERA “only” 4.88, but his FIP was 5.27 and his WHIP (1.313) was among his highest of his career. In contrast to Flaherty, Giolito’s expected numbers were even worse than his actual ones.

Giolito, another pitcher with a below-average velo FB (93.1 mph) that was crushed, had a career batting average of.262, a slugging percentage of.546 and a -8 run value. At least he was healthy. Since turning into a full-time starter in 2018, he has started at least 29 games in each (complete) regular season with the exception of a brief stint on the COVID-19 injured list in 2022.

But it’s clear that both pitchers require some squinting and faith in Atlanta’s coaching staff to see them being contributing members of the rotation for a World Series contender in 2024.

There’s another potential upside to signing the pair, though

If—and this is a big “if”—Atlanta is determined to sign Max Fried again after this season, adding his enduring high school teammates would benefit the Braves further.

To retain their ace in future seasons, the Braves will need to put in a lot of work and be willing to pay more than the $22 million average annual salary that no player has ever exceeded.

Similar behaviors have been observed in other sports, such as LeBron James pressuring teams to trade for Kyrie Irving or Aaron Rodgers managing to land contracts for Randall Cobb wherever he goes. There’s nothing publicly that says that Fried’s asked for this to happen, but you have to assume it wouldn’t hurt Atlanta’s chances, right?

The drawback, though, could be substantial: the Braves face losing three-quarters of their rotation at the end of the season if Atlanta signs them and trains them to be starters for a postseason club (in addition to Charlie Morton’s impending retirement, which could happen at any time).

But that’s a problem for next offseason. The best course of action, it could be argued, is do whatever you can to give yourself as many potential high-level starting pitching options as possible and figure out the rest later.

And if everything breaks right, Flaherty and Giolito have shown they can be those guys.