Atlanta Braves Midseason Top 50 Prospects: 20-11
Atlanta Braves Midseason Top 50 Prospects
A Quick Primer
Welcome to Tomahawk Take’s midseason look at the Atlanta Braves top 50 prospects! This list is compiled by Benjamin Chase, writer for Tomahawk Take, through hours (upon hours upon hours upon…well, you get it) of game watching on milb.tv, conversations with scouts around the game, conversations with front office folks, and lots and lots of reading of others’ reviews on Braves prospects. This is Ben’s baby, so if you have an issue with any of the placement of the players or any such things, he’s the guy to send your hate mail to, not Fred or Jeff or Alan or any of the other talented TT writers (they have their own reasons for you to send your messages).
About the Process
I take all that info mentioned above and try to put together a list of guys based on a number of things. I will openly admit that proximity to the major leagues adds a significant bonus to a player’s value in my eyes. I’m also admittedly biased against a guy who has converted to the bullpen full-time, requiring a pretty impressive performance out of the bullpen to rank a guy very highly.
This list will not contain any players who were drafted in June or signed starting July 2nd. While I recognize that guys like Ian Anderson, Joey Wentz, Kyle Muller, and Kevin Maitan will be important pieces of the minor league system going forward, there is much that is yet to be learned about each player acquired this summer before I can accurately rank them within the system, so to have this out to you at this point before having a chance to gather that information from the sources I mentioned above, I’ll keep the midseason list free of both types and then add them in in the offseason Top 100 list (yes, that’s happening again, so start getting excited already!).
General Rules/Requests
I am more than willing to discuss alternative views on a player, but please be respectful of all posters as they post and especially the front office and team in general. This isn’t a place to air grievances about who should have been picked #3 in June or whether a certain prospect should have been part of the Cameron Maybin trade or some other discussion. We can talk all about the players mentioned, and then when I release the top 10 on Friday, I’ll also release a list of a number of other prospects that fans should be aware of that just didn’t make my list for the midseason.
With all that said, let’s take a look at today’s group – #’s 20-11!
Next: 20, 19
20. Luke Dykstra, 2B, Low-A Rome
When I mentioned him in this range in the offseason, it caught many people by surprise because they hadn’t considered Dykstra as a legitimate prospect. He’s not flashy, he doesn’t put up big power numbers or steals or flashy defensive skills. How could this guy be someone that fans need to know?
Dykstra was drafted in the 7th round in 2014 out of high school in California, and in spite of his baseball bloodlines, many were worried that he’d never really develop into more than an org-filler type. His first season in the GCL didn’t exactly inspire anyone to think differently, as he hit .262/.316/.376 over 44 games. He did steal 7 bases, but he was not noted to have great speed, so it was figured he stole bases as much due to a mature baseball feel than anything.
Last season, he was simply a pleasure to watch. I think many people saw 0 home runs and 3 stolen bases and a guy playing 2B and thought he was nothing special, but if you look back, you see a combined line of .318/.353/.422 with an impressive 8/16 BB/K ratio over 241 plate appearances. Yes, he didn’t walk much, but he nearly never struck out either. He also had 19 doubles, so it’s not as if he was devoid of power.
What caught my eye on Dykstra last year and still does now is that he just always seems to do the “little things” right. He’s a guy who will hit the ball perfectly to the right to allow a runner to advance from second to third. He also always seems to throw to the right base and be backing up when he should be. Those little baseball things that are hard to teach just seem to come naturally for Dykstra.
On top of those little things, Dykstra’s done a pretty big thing this year, he’s hit. The 20 year-old is hitting .314/.344/.372 over 310 plate appearances with 15 doubles and 7 steals. Dykstra’s name has even started to pop up on other teams’ fan message boards as a player they’d like as a second-tier prospect involved in a trade. That’s something nearly no one was saying just a year ago!
19. Ray-Patrick Didder, OF, Low-A Rome
To say that Aruba doesn’t exactly have a rich baseball heritage would be drastically understating things. The first All-Star from Aruba was this season when Xander Bogaerts made the American League team for the Red Sox. Didder doesn’t exactly find himself coming from a country with a long-established history of baseball.
That it took Didder a couple of seasons to be noticed by scouts and still another couple of seasons to figure out his true position is not surprising as his skills were expected to be quite raw. However, he showed excellent plate discipline from the get go at every level, if not some raw skills with his blazing speed.
After two seasons trying to work his arm and speed into a tremendous shortstop in the DSL, Didder was transitioned to the outfield in 2015, and he took to the switch like a duck to water. Didder may be the best defender off the bat in the outfield of any outfielder in the entire Braves system. He doesn’t have the arm that Connor Lien has, but he has even better instincts, and that is saying something as Lien has received grades 60 and up on his range and fielding from scouts.
Didder may also be one of the fastest players in the entire system, but much like his fielding, he was initially quite raw. His big step in this area was taken this year, as he had stolen 22 bases in his 154 games played from 2013-2015 while being caught 14 times, a success rate of 61%, hardly passable at the professional level. This year in Rome, however, he’s taken that next step as he’s stolen 23 out of 28 attempts for a cool 82% success rate, where anything over 80% is considered among the elite.
Didder’s arm has been considered elite, but I think even the most optimistic scout has been blown away this season by how accurate he is. He’s not as strong-armed as Lien, but he has tremendous accuracy in his arm and the ability to put great accuracy on his throws while on the dead run. He’s already tallied 10 assists on the season from the outfield, and any season reaching double digits is an excellent year for a FULL season.
Didder’s .266/.383/.367 line may not blow anyone away, but his incredible defense, speed, and good OBP will keep him on the field, and this year he’s starting to flash more power (6 triples and 3 home runs). He may have gotten a late start, but Didder’s making up for that start in a hurry!
Next: 18, 17
18. Derian Cruz, SS, GCL
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Many will see Cruz’s stat line so far with the GCL after being one of the two big-money signings last summer out of the Dominican Republic, and the assumption will be that I’ve perhaps left Cruz a bit low on my rankings. That’s about as far from the truth as can be.
Cruz has a great build at 6’1 and 180, and he has a very controlled swing. So far, he’s put up a .355/.365/.516 line with GCL with 2 home runs and 4 steals in 14 games. Very impressive stuff from a pure statistical standpoint. However, he’s also walked one time this season so far and struck out 10 times (not a terrible strikeout rate, but with only one walk, it looks worse). He’s also looked quite raw on defense, having committed 4 charged errors and had a number of other plays that should have been made.
Cruz absolutely oozes the talent, but when I watch he and Pache, it’s obvious to me that Cruz is definitely the more raw of the two, and his ceiling likely isn’t as high. Of course, that’s like saying that Pavarotti has just a touch more range than Jussi Bjorling. Both are incredible in their own right, so preferring one to another isn’t exactly disliking the other.
It is quite possible that with more scouting and views on Cruz, he’ll jump up even further in the winter top 100 list.
17. Braxton Davidson, OF, High-A Carolina
I thought the 19 year-old Davidson would repeat Rome in 2016. Instead the Braves put their faith in the young outfielder, and when he showed up this spring, it was not a good situation. Braxton looked as if he’d trained all winter with a “bro” trainer, his arms and chest swollen with new muscle, but no such noticeable change in his legs and a very noted loss of flexibility in his movement.
This drastically hurt the start of his season, and the stats showed it. He hit .192/.261/.308 in April, and it was noted by national writers making scouting trips to the Carolina League that Braxton was having trouble simply catching up to anything with break. On defense, he was looking bad, to say the least, after showing very good defensive skills in 2015 that made me think he could stick in right field – not an elite defender by any means, but a good enough defender with an above-average arm.
His slugging percentage has picked up every month, as has his on base. In June, Braxton put up a .264/.398/.471 line with a 15.6% walk rate and a 26.6% strikeout rate, which seems high, but it’s the lowest monthly rate of the season by quite a ways. What is incredibly impressive for Braxton this year is that he has yet to face a single pitcher that is younger than he is. That is incredibly impressive, especially as he makes adjustments over the course of the season.
While he’s definitely not done what many hoped he would this year, Braxton certainly has shown resilience this season, and if he can build on his recent performance at the plate and in the field, he’ll end the season with many ready to see him at AA as a 20 year old in 2017.
Next: 16, 15
14. Austin Riley, 3B, Low-A Rome
When the Braves drafted Riley with the 41st overall selection in 2015, many were curious what to expect out of him. Riley was a more highly regarded pitcher on most teams’ boards, with a fastball that could touch the mid-90s and a big, sturdy frame that had one thinking he could move quickly. The Braves chose to make him a hitter, and they put him at third base.
Riley had negative reviews in draft season due to poor conditioning over the winter, and some of that was evident in his struggles in his first year in moving laterally at third. He struggled moving forward on balls at well, leading him to miss a ton of balls that an average third baseman would get and to struggle fielding balls he did get to cleanly.
However, his bat definitely played. Riley followed up a .255/.331/.500 line at the GCL by hitting even better at Danville, going .351/.443/.586. All together, he knocked out 12 home runs on the season, and he ended up ranked as the #79 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball Prospectus.
This season has been a season of ups and downs for Riley. His power is evident, but he has struggled to always access it, and I do believe there is some lingering injury after Riley missed some time early in the season.
He came out in much, much better shape this year and was playing very good defense, and since returning from that injury, he is struggling on defense again, but not in his speed of movement, but like he’s inflexible in spots when trying to bend. It makes his swings look awkward as well.
I think the power is still there, but he will definitely need the rest of the season with Rome, and he may even be sent back there to start 2017 depending on how he finishes the season and how
Juan Yepezand
Jonathan Moralestaking turns at third base works out for the team.
13. Patrick Weigel, RHP, Low-A Rome
While Meneses is certainly the biggest riser overall, the biggest riser among arms is absolutely Weigel, and I might even be too low here. Weigel is a big (6’6, 220 pound) righty that the Braves drafted out of the University of the Pacific in the 7th round last summer. Weigel has a fastball that can run to triple digits in short bursts, and many thought his future was going to be in the bullpen.
The Braves gave Weigel the chance to start last season, and he put up a 4.53 ERA and 1.53 WHIP with a 26/49 BB/K over 51 2/3 innings. When assignments came out and I noted Josh Graham and Weigel both in Rome, I figured it was Weigel going to the bullpen and Graham getting another shot at the rotation, based on their success last season.
The Braves saw what I didn’t, however. In working with their Rome rotation in dialing back a notch on velocity and using natural movement low in the zone to keep hitters swinging over pitches for either weak contact or swinging strikes, the Braves uncorked a beast in Weigel.
His velocity has played up well as he’s worked in the 91-93 range, but he’s dialed up some 96+ deep into ball games, so he’s able to hold his velocity later into games, and the change up has played up well with the change to his velocity.
The big change for Weigel this year has simply been consistency. His reports pre-draft were all about how he struggled to find his release point. By dialing back a couple notches on the velocity, he seems to have found a consistent arm slot, and that has allowed what was graded an average slider and below average curve to play up a grade each, at least. The slider has really worked well low in the zone with some sharp depth, but it’s also the pitch that he can get hit hard on when he’s off as he tends to hang it.
Weigel’s move forward in performance certainly seems to be simply unlocking what was already there and nothing fluky or anything like that. I’m very intrigued how the Braves handle the rest of the season and whether they give him a taste of Carolina before the end of the season.
Next: 12, 11
12. Rio Ruiz, 3B, AAA Gwinnett
It took Ruiz until August to show the Braves what they’d been looking for out of him all season at AA Mississippi last season, so many speculated that he would return to Mississippi to get his feet under him and make a push to Gwinnett in the second half of the minor league season. More than anything, he was thought to possibly need to try a new position as his defense at third in 2015 was quite stiff and forced, leading some to think a move to the outfield was in his future.
Instead, the Braves promoted Ruiz to AAA Gwinnett. He’s already equaled his home run output for the entire season from last year, he’s walking more, and that defense has turned into a major asset. I don’t typically utilize errors as a pure measure of defense, but the difference is so striking that it is hard to ignore with Ruiz. Last season with Mississippi, Ruiz made 16 errors, and that was in spite of generally poorly-rated range at third. This season in about 2/3 the innings at the position played so far, he’s only had four miscues. He’s turned nearly twice the double plays as well, and he’s received mention on multiple scouts that have made reports on his games about how much more fluid he is in the field.
The plate is always going to be the place of concern with Ruiz, and he’s still streaky for certain, but those streaks have been centered at a much higher level this season. He’s currently slashing a .276/.365/.385 line, good for a .750 OPS. He’s adjusted his swing, which is the change that helped his revival so much last year at the end of the season, and while that does lead to somewhat of a higher strikeout rate, it also leads to more power and a lot more hits falling as it allows Ruiz to access his natural line drive swing.
Ruiz probably isn’t ever going to be a guy to hit 30 home runs. Heck, he may never hit 25. He very well, with a full season of at bats, could be a guy who could rack up 35+ doubles, however, and that is something that can be very valuable. He’s also very patient in his at bats, making a pitcher have to work.
It’s doubtful that Ruiz would get any form of extended run in Atlanta this season, but he could certainly be a guy to get brought up in September and have multiple games of success at the big league level due to his approach.
11. Lucas Sims, RHP, AA Mississippi
Sims is a guy who has been very volatile this season. If I’d have done this list on April 25th, Sims would have been a top 6-7 guy. If I’d have done this list on June 25th, Sims would have been down to the 15-20 range.
The Braves 2012 first round selection has been a guy who has great outings marked by plenty of rough ones, and that’s been his MO since coming into the league. He’s not having big swings in his start by start numbers, but he seems to have big swings in his month-by-month records. With Lucas, his ERAs this season have been 2.03 in April, 7.76 in May, and 9.92 in June. He’s back down to 3.71 in 3 July starts so far. Sims has led the organization in strikeouts this year and is brutal to his when he’s at his best.
Next: Braves Minor League Database
I noted when Sims started to struggle with AAA Gwinnett that he appeared injured on his side. As he’s moved back to Mississippi, I’ve caught two of his starts from start to finish now, and his mechanics still look as if he’s favoring the arm side due to an injury, but he’s changed his pitch usage due to it, throwing a lot more of his incredible curve balls rather than leading with fastballs.