5. Grant Holmes, SP, Atlanta Braves
Grant Holmes is another pitcher that logged time out of both the bullpen and the rotation in 2024, and will start in 2025 due to a rotation with some moving parts.
While Chris Sale was the ace of last year's Atlanta Braves, they lost their longtime ace, Max Fried, and Spencer Strider won't return to the rotation until sometime in the middle of the season. Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Reynaldo Lopez will fill in the first three spots in the rotation, while Holmes has a real shot at sticking in the back-end in the meantime.
Holmes had a long journey to the big leagues after being drafted in 2014, but made his time worthwhile in 2024. Holmes threw 68.1 innings to the tune of a3.56 ERA, 3.20 FIP, 1.19 WHIP, and a 19.5 K-BB%. 34.2 of those innings came out of the bullpen while the other 33.2 innings came over seven starts.
Over those seven starts, Holmes posted a 4.01 ERA compared to his 3.12 ERA out of the bullpen, but managed to increase his K-BB% from 17.1 to 21.8, as was the case with Osvaldo Bido.
What's intriguing about Holmes as a starter is his consistent ability to get hitters to chase pitches outside of the zone. He induced a 41.4 O-Swing% as a starter, compared to the 31.8% league-average.
This of course led to a lot of bad swings and weak contact. Because he also finds a lot success in the zone, his CSW% (called strike+whiff%) was 31.7. The only starters with a higher mark last season were Blake Snell, Chris Sale, and Tarik Skubal.
The Braves have already stated that the plan is to stretch Holmes out into a full-time starter for at least the first half of the season. With Spencer Strider returning midway through the campaign, he will obviously fill one of the two rotation spots currently filled by Holmes and Ian Anderson.
With that being said, the first couple of months in the regular season will serve almost as an audition for Holmes to remain in the rotation for the long haul. He's certainly a sneaky option for fantasy purposes in the early months of the season.