Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on IF Dylan Moore
Future Outlook
The first time I watched Moore at the plate, I really didn’t have a great comparison for him, but as I watched him in the field, I started to feel like I’d seen him before. Then I found one game with him playing shortstop and fielding a ball to his right, and the movements and throw immediately clicked. Moore is the spitting image of one of my favorite early 1990s Montreal Expos, Mike Lansing.
Lansing was a college guy who went in the 6th round of the draft out of Wichita State and he came up at an older age as well, debuting in 1993 at 25 years old. Lansing played mostly second base in his career, though he played over 100 games in the majors at both short and third base as well.
The similarities are more than just their defensive utilityman skillsets. Lansing had a solid gap power approach that produced 20 home runs in 1997 for his career high, but he eclipsed 30 doubles four times in his career. Lansing was also more a smart base runner than he was an elite runner, and he stole 20 or more bases three times in his career as well. The downfall to all of this is that by starting at 25, Lansing had only a 9 year career before he was out of the game. I could see a similar path for Moore working his way to the majors with a sub-10 year career if he did make the majors, but having a solid career in that time, like Lansing did, hitting .271/.324/.401 for his career with a per-162 average of 12 home runs, 37 doubles, and 17 stolen bases for his entire career.
Next: Braves Minor League Database
Moore showed well in the playoff run with Mississippi, and I’m sure that he’ll be at Mississippi to start 2017. Interestingly, he may have a clear path to playing on the left side of the infield as he’ll be alongside Travis Demeritte to start the year. Moore is 23 at this point, so he’ll not really have a ton of time for development, but I will not be surprised to see him really click and move to Gwinnett in 2017. However, he was available as a piece of a late-August trade for a reason, so remember that in viewing his upside. There’s a solid, gritty, instinctive ballplayer here, but if you have guys with tools as loud as Swanson, Albies, and Demeritte in your system, he’s likely a future utility guy.