TomahawkTake’s Mid-Season Top 30-ish Atlanta Braves Prospects – Honorable Mentions

Opinions vary widely on the Braves Top Prospects, but that should tell us that the farm system depth is real as we gather a consensus from our writers.

Now that the 2016 North American (Rule 4) MLB draft is complete, the July 2 International Market has mostly settled, and the August 1 trade deadline is over, it’s time to finally see if we can rank the minor leaguers in the Atlanta Braves farm system.

This is a task that definitely has challenges.  Here we have a franchise that recently had highly-ranked players such as J.R. Graham, Aaron Northcraft, Edward Salcedo, Tyler Pastornicky, Randall Delgado, and Zeke Spruill.  It was sometimes tough to come up with even 20 names for a couple of years as we wondered whether some could ever get to the majors.

Now we have a different kind of difficulty: making guesses as to how high these new arrivals can go…  and when I started asking, I received 50 names in response.

This is a testimony of the scouting department and the players… but as always, this is a starting point.  The finish line is (hopefully) the development into quality major league players.

With the names on this list, it feels like there is a greater chance of this now than at any time that I can recall as a lifetime Braves’ follower.

The Ground Rules

There are a number of players that we excluded, for reasons of being on the major league roster for a long-enough period of time:

• Aaron Blair
• John Gant
• Mallex Smith
• Chase d’Arnaud

8 of our writing staff submitted entries.  Each player was scored 1-30, and scores were averaged.  Those left off one list or another were given a semi-arbitrary score of 33.

As mentioned, there were twenty other names that were mentioned, yet did not crack our Top 30.  These are identified as Honorable Mentions, and that is the subject of this post.

This list is not intended to compete with the Top 100 rankings that Ben Chase has graced us with – in fact, he was a contributor to this work.  Ben goes into considerable depth in an effort to put “eyes on” to everyone he ranks.  But this is an effort to get a snapshot of how the farm stands at this point – with more voices contributing.

The parameters have changed from Ben’s last updates:   we’ve expanded the search criteria to all new members of the organization, though some (especially the international kids) haven’t played much yet.  There are other factors, too:  many of the new draftees (especially the college talent)  should be dominating the Rookie leagues, and thus it’s hard to know how challenged they are just yet.  As a result, we made our best guesses based on the information at hand, but as always, the process is fluid.

So with all of those disclaimers, let’s see our team has come up with!

Next: Honorable Mentions Group 1

The Best of the Rest, Part 1

Do not be mislead by seeing names here that are not on the more formal “ranked” list that will come later… there will be major league players that come from this group.  But at some point we had to draw lines and say ‘this is all for now’.  But the cream will rise to the top over time.

This list will have many names that don’t jump out at you – but I will suggest that all are worth getting to know.

DREW HARRINGTON

• 21 years old, 6-2/225, LHP (Louisville, 2016, 80th overall pick)
• 10 innings, 0.90 ERA, 9/3 K/BB, 1.40 WHIP
• Danville Braves
• ACC pitcher of the year for Louisville
• Low 90’s fastball with sinker, change-up, and a breaker.  Could move fast through the system next year.  Will be curious to see if the club sees him as a reliever or starter (as he was in college) over the long term.  While I would lean ‘starter’, that might not be his fastest route to the majors.

YUNIOR SEVERINO

• 16 year old International signee in 2016
• ‘Bat first’ SS/2B
• 8th ranked J2 prospect, graced with a $1.9 million bonus
• Will be assigned to Dominican Summer League next year.
• Seems to be “toolsy”, but not much stands out at this time.  However, somebody thought pretty highly of him, so we’ll just have to watch and wait.

DILMER MEJIA

• 19 years old, 5-11/160, LHP
• International signee, Nicaragua, from 2013.
• Made the leap to the Gulf Coast League this season.
• 25 innings, 2.13 ERA, 23K/7BB, 1.42 WHIP
• Good chance of 3 plus pitches – definitely worth following, given early indications of dominant stuff plus control.

MAURICIO CABRERA

• 22 years old (23 next month), 6-3/225, RHP
• International signee, Dominican Republic in the 2010-11 period.
• Jumped to the majors from AA in June, reliever
• Will graduate off this list by year’s end
• Two pitches:  Fastball and a breaker.  But that fastball ranks as the fastest in the majors, on average.
• Our voters tend to have a bias against relievers in general due to the limited impact that they tend to have in games overall, but thus far, Cabrera has been keeping his perennial control issues in check, resulting in solid outings.  Fears that he would become another Juan Jaime have not materialized.

CALEB DIRKS

• 23 years old, 6-3/220 RHP
• Selected by Braves in Round 15/2014 draft out of California Baptist University.
• AA Mississippi, reliever.
• Traded to Dodgers as part of International bonus slot deal in 2015.
• Traded back to Atlanta in the Bud Norris/Dian Toscano deal that also brought Philip Pfeifer to us… and he should probably have been on this page somewhere, too.
• ERA in the 1.40’s for 2 different AA leagues this year.  52/14 K/BB, 1.07 WHIP in nearly 50 innings.
• From those numbers, there’s not much left to show in AA for Dirks.  Next stop, AAA.

RAY-PATRICK DIDDER

• Full 80-grade name:  Ray-Patrick Elijah Khalil Didder.  6-0/170.
• Will be 22 in August; from Aruba.
• Plays the entire outfield and middle of the infield
• A/Rome
• Weirdest stat of any player I’ve seen short of somebody like Willians Astudillo: 35 HBP in 109 games at Rome.  That plus 42 walks and 107 hits makes for a .389 OBP.
• Oh, and he’s also smacked 4 homers with 21 other XBH while hitting .270.

RAMON OSUNA

• 21 years old, 6-3/240, 1B
• Selected in Round 14/2016 draft, Walters State Community College (TN)
• Interviewed by TomahawkTake
• Danville Braves
• .337/.410/.500/.910 in 28 games/105 PA with 9 doubles/2 HR/16 RBI.
• 12 BB, 31 K
• Update:  make that 3 homers.  In a BaseballAmerica story about Ian Anderson, there was a note about Osuna’s homer during the game:  110mph exit velocity and 430 feet.  Nice.

MATT LIPKA

• 24 years old, 5-1/200, OF
• 1st Round pick in 2010 by the Braves (35th overall), McKinney HS (TX)
• AAA Gwinnett
• Former top prospect with “tools”, never has blossomed as anticipated, as hitting has never clicked.
• Currently .237/.286/.378/.663 at AAA (44 games).  Without a sudden breakout, could be a release candidate soon.

JONATHAN MORALES

• 21 years old, 5-11/180+, C/DH
• 25th round draft pick of Braves in 2015; Miami-Dade College (FL), native of Puerto Rico.
• A/Rome
• .304 in 2015 Rookie ball; slowed to .254 at Rome (92 games).  Some power still possible:  21 doubles and 3 homers this year.  K rate is good at under 14%.
• Full scouting report

CONNOR LIEN

• 22 years old, 6-3/225, OF
• 12th round pick by Atlanta in 2012 from Olympia HS (Orlando, FL)
• AA Mississippi
• Elite defender with an arm, though hitting has lagged a bit (.243 this season) with high strikeouts, though 700-800 range OPS at times.
• Getting more playing time at Mississippi lately; mostly center field.
• Full scouting report

Next: Next Group