Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on IF Travis Demeritte
Scouting Report
More from Tomahawk Take
- Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
- Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
- The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
- Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
- Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
Demeritte is listed at 6′ and 180 pounds. He’s a right-handed thrower and swinger.
Hitting
Demeritte, in spite of his slight build, generates a ton of power in his swing. His swing is long, which does make it difficult to adjust mid-swing to pitches, so barring a change in his swing mechanics, he’ll likely never be a guy who hits for a big average, and the strikeout numbers will always be fairly high.
That all said, I was very impressed by Demeritte’s pitch recognition. His walk rates are not simply a product of pitchers pitching around his prodigious power. He’s legitimately able to recognize spin well, and he tracks curves better than one would think when viewing his high strikeout rate. I do think that some slight adjustments to his swing could absolutely bring plenty of improvement in contact and reduction in strikeouts to really make that power a threat.
Base Running/Fielding
Demeritte may stand 6′ tall, but he is built with long legs and arms for his height, and those long legs serve him well in running the bases. He eats up a ton of space with each stride after he gets going, and he took first to third and took a double on a number of plays that many would have ended up with a single. That said, he does take a step or two to get to top speed, so his base stealing speed isn’t as good as his base running speed, but in the few chances I had to watch him go at the plate, he did have excellent reads on pitchers, but his success rate will probably be lower than you’d expect because of that step or two to get ready.
Watching Demeritte in the field is quite a treat. He is very smooth in his range, though his hands are not exactly the greatest, which predicated his move off of short. At second, however, his hands are above average for the position. He also has quite a bit of arm, which would allow him to move to third or even an outfield corner in the future if that was where the team found him as a best fit.
I found his footwork around the second base bag to be very good. I was pleasantly surprised at just how good his defense really was. I really could see him fitting in quickly at the upper level of the minors due to excellent defense.
Video
Next: Future outlook