Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospects: #2 Ozhaino Albies

Ozzie Albies 2016 Outlook

The acquisition of Swanson leads to an interesting quagmire for the 2016 season for Albies and the Braves. It’d make sense for him to start out at Carolina, but that’d also be the most natural starting spot for Swanson to start 2016 as well. With both elite prospects that play the same position currently, it’d make sense to do one of two things: move one to prepare for the future and move them up together, or stagger them to allow them both to keep playing shortstop until one definitively shows that he is the long-term answer at the position over the other. I do think the Braves have been a bit scared by the tremendous drop in value that Jose Peraza experienced after moving off of shortstop (much of it valid loss of value due to real defensive issues, but still), and it’d be more likely they do the latter of the two options, in my opinion.

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With his excellent moves to his glove side and his accurate arm, Albies is probably best suited for shortstop or second base, while Swanson is likely best suited to move to third base if he moves off short due to his strong arm and good glove side range. I’ve been a big fan of Albies since the first video I got to see of him in late 2014, and he’s still my #2 prospect for a reason. I think he’ll have an excellent career ahead of him, likely working from Carolina to Misssissippi this year and showing up in Atlanta late in 2017. At the plate, I see a ton of Jose Altuve in his approach, especially in the utilization of speed and gap line drives to generate batting average in their offensive game. Defensively, he reminds me a ton of a former pint-sized Brave that was a pretty vital part to the start of the 1990s Atlanta Braves run due almost exclusively to his defense, Rafael Belliard. The combination of a Belliard glove and Altuve bat is a pretty incredible possible future combination.