FG Top 30 Braves Prospects

E

Enscheff

Well-known member
FG has finally released their top prospects report for the Braves. While they have the best prospect content by far, no level of quality justifies how long they take to create this content. At this rate they won't be done with all teams by the time the draft rolls around.

Anyways...https://blogs.fangraphs.com/atlanta-braves-top-30-prospects-2023/

Random thoughts:

The system is shockingly barren, especially in terms of hitters. This is why the JJ trade was such a head scratcher.

They make it easy to dream on Shawver and Ritchie. These are clearly the next guys with potential to make an impact in the rotation.

Dodd "is back in the 90-92 mph range and he’s generating swinging strikes at a paltry 3.5% rate". We all saw it, and it's clear what he is at this point.

Shuster is basically the same thing as Dodd...backend SP when things are right. These guys fill in quality rotations for cheap.

After that there's not really anything to be excited about other than a bunch of lottery tickets. The Braves really need the international scene to pick up for them now that the sanctions are gone.
 
Agree it is bad, especially for hitters.

But it is exacerbated by Harris and Grissom losing prospect status at 21.

I'd like us to pick a bunch of position guys but the braves seem focused on college arms early.
 
I was sort of hoping that AA would try and package Dodd or Shuster out of spring and attach Ozuna with one of them.. I knew it wouldn't have been enough for a team to take his whole salary, but if we could have gotten rid of half of it for one of those guys, to me would have been worth it. These guys are redundant and having both doesn't really help the club near as much as getting rid of Ozuna.

Maybe AA tried and the other GMs just laughed at him.
 
It's one thing to have a barren minors because of years of bad drafts, but it's another to do it because you've been hitting on and graduating great players over and over again. The latter is what the Braves have been doing.
 
Nerfherders said:
It's one thing to have a barren minors because of years of bad drafts, but it's another to do it because you've been hitting on and graduating great players over and over again. The latter is what the Braves have been doing.
Click to expand...

Looks like that well has dried up though. Nothing seems to be on the horizon. Position player wise, the farm looks to be on par or worse than the post-2013 era, but we do seem to be much better off in the pitching department.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Looks like that well has dried up though. Nothing seems to be on the horizon. Position player wise, the farm looks to be on par or worse than the post-2013 era, but we do seem to be much better off in the pitching department.
Click to expand...

This is what free agency is for and I hope the Braves spend enough on depth peices in the next few years to get us by until we build up the farm a little.
 
Buzzworm said:
This is what free agency is for and I hope the Braves spend enough on depth peices in the next few years to get us by until we build up the farm a little.
Click to expand...

I know there is a need to worry, but this isn't really as big a deal as it's made out to be -- in my mind anyway -- so long as the Braves' young core has reasonable decline rates and the team doesn't completely blow the drafts.

And in any event, you're not really supposed to win 14 divisions on a row. Whenever it ends they'll have had a nice long run.
 
Any team in baseball would swap spots with us. Our major league team is loaded and all pretty much home grown and locked up. AA can build the minors up the next few years and have prospects ready when we really need them.
 
When Perdomo shows up, all of your concerns will be gone….having never even seen so much as a YouTube clip of him play, I have a feeling he’s gonna end up as one of the hottest prospects since Acuna around here ….
 
CyYoung31 said:
Looks like that well has dried up though. Nothing seems to be on the horizon. Position player wise, the farm looks to be on par or worse than the post-2013 era, but we do seem to be much better off in the pitching department.
Click to expand...

Pitching looks decent, but five of the pitchers on the list are recovering from major arm issues.

I think the graduation success is a bit misleading and masks the combination of low ceilings and lack of depth especially among the position players. No question that the ascension of Strider, Harris, and Grissom and the fact they've played so well shows that they've identified and developed some guys (although no one saw Strider coming), but there's not much behind them, particularly at the upper levels.

The Braves were aggressive with Alvarez and less so with McCabe (I thought their initial stops in 2023 would be flipped), but one thing that's impressed me about the player development staff is that they are pretty good at putting guys at the right level. Milligan and Waddell may turn out to be useful utility guys. I'm a little surprised, but not shocked, that Conley didn't make the list.

One of the most disconcerting angles for me is the K-rates for a lot of our guys throughout the system. I don't know if it's the ability of the hitters or if the Braves still subscribe to the Rocket Wheeler School of Hitting.
 
Hudson2 said:
Any team in baseball would swap spots with us. Our major league team is loaded and all pretty much home grown and locked up. AA can build the minors up the next few years and have prospects ready when we really need them.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone (Enscheff included) disagrees we're in a great spot but it is definitely time to begin taking care of the farm system and thinking ahead of this contention window before we end up like the Nats, who are stuck in mediocrity for another 3+ years and are only in a fairly decent position due to one great trade.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
I don't think anyone (Enscheff included) disagrees we're in a great spot but it is definitely time to begin taking care of the farm system and thinking ahead of this contention window before we end up like the Nats, who are stuck in mediocrity for another 3+ years and are only in a fairly decent position due to one great trade.
Click to expand...

They gave out a lot of stupid contracts like Corbin and Strasburg and have a ton of deferred money. We haven’t done that and have a better core than they did. We have a 5 year window and more if money keeps flowing. The farm will be fine. We’ve graduated more talent than any other team so it’s gonna be barren right now.
 
Hudson2 said:
They gave out a lot of stupid contracts like Corbin and Strasburg and have a ton of deferred money. We haven’t done that and have a better core than they did. We have a 5 year window and more if money keeps flowing. The farm will be fine. We’ve graduated more talent than any other team so it’s gonna be barren right now.
Click to expand...


Meh. We also gave a ton of long-term contracts to young talent... which isn't bad, but thinking it couldn't backfire on us is silly. Baseball happens. I love the moves and think we'll be more than fine, but there's a lot of risk there.

Regardless, the reason for this thread was to explain how horrible our current system is. We have a few talented pitchers but that is really it.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
Meh. We also gave a ton of long-term contracts to young talent... which isn't bad, but thinking it couldn't backfire on us is silly. Baseball happens. I love the moves and think we'll be more than fine, but there's a lot of risk there.

Regardless, the reason for this thread was to explain how horrible our current system is. We have a few talented pitchers but that is really it.
Click to expand...

Operative word there being 'young'- the Nats gave out long-term contracts to Strasburg through his late 30s and Corbin through his mid 30s. Those are both considerably riskier than any of the contracts we've given out- the two oldest Braves at the end of their contracts will be Olson and Riley, both of whom are corner infielders and will be younger than Srasburg/Corbin at the end of theirs. I believe the next 'oldest' extension we've given out runs through age 31 season (Harris).

No doubt any extension has risk, but I'm not sure we are remotely comparable to where the Nats were. AA hasn't shown a particular willingness to go that route, but if he ends up signing Fried to a monster 8 year extension through his age 39 season then maybe you're onto something.

The farm system is definitely bad at the moment, even with some promising young arms who are all very, very far away. Hopefully we will improve it over the course of the next few years and we can have enough player development to still produce the middle relievers, the back end of the rotation, and the utility guys that we'll need to have for cheap during this window.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
I don't think anyone (Enscheff included) disagrees we're in a great spot but it is definitely time to begin taking care of the farm system and thinking ahead of this contention window before we end up like the Nats, who are stuck in mediocrity for another 3+ years and are only in a fairly decent position due to one great trade.
Click to expand...

I would like to see us be in a position like the Dodgers or Yankees. They contend on a yearly basis, yet their farm system is consistently within the top 10. Sure we may not be able to spend like them on the major league roster, but those two organizations have done a great job of drafting well along with international signings, along with player development, to continuously stock their systems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top