Jun 14, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; New York Mets fans attempt to catch a home run ball hit by Mets catcher Travis d /
The Atlanta Braves drafted Justin Ellison as a toolsy outfielder, and he’s shown the positive and negative of that. What can he be going forward?
Who Is He?
Ellison was drafted in the 12th round in 2015 out of one of the Atlanta Braves’ favorite community colleges to work with, Western Oklahoma State College, where they also once drafted a two-way shortstop/pitcher named Andrelton Simmons.
Ellison was initially sent to the Gulf Coast League, where he flashed a lot of tools, hitting .255/.315/.388 with 2 home runs and 5 stolen bases. That earned him a promotion to Danville in the Appalachian League, where he hit .238/.311/.450, flashing more power and less speed, but still a lot of tools with 3 home runs and a stolen base.
On the season, the Columbus, Georgia native totaled .247/.313/.416 in 2015 over 198 plate appearances with 5 home runs and 6 stolen bases without a caught stealing.
The Braves sent the now-21 Ellison to Rome in the South Atlantic League. He became a vital part of the lineup, showing off his defensive chops along with solid power and speed as well. Ellison hit .247/.304/.370 with 37 extra base hits and 18 stolen bases and a 37/88 BB/K ratio over 476 plate appearances.
Ellison is a left-handed hitter and thrower. He is listed at 6’2 and 175 pounds. He could be a bit heavier than that weight, but he’s still extremely lean in his build.
Hitting
Ellison has a lean build, and he has a very spring-loaded swing. He has a long swing path, but he explodes the bat through the zone when he swings, so he has excellent torque on his swing, allowing him to generate very good power from his lean build. Ellison’s explosive swing with a little bit of muscle added to his frame could certainly turn into some big time power numbers.
His long swing does make it tough for Ellison to adjust to pitches once they’re released, and he has looked bad, but to his credit, he’s been able to keep his strikeout numbers fairly reasonable (18.5%), so he’s been able to get the bat on the ball enough to foul it off when he is fooled on a pitch. His swing path really does portend a lower batting average with an uppercut swing that’s a bit exaggerated in its path.
While he does keep his strikeout numbers low, Ellison did not display great pitch recognition in the games I watched. He does see break well, but he really struggled to get more than “foul” wood on hard breaking stuff, even when it was left in great position to be driven. That’s something that going forward could absolutely improve his walk rate and his power once he was able to better recognize those pitches out of the hand.
Base Running/Fielding
Ellison has tremendous speed, from a lightning quick first step on the bases to stretching out his long legs for quick moves from first to third and second to home on long singles very well. His first step allows him to get a lot of stolen bases just based on that first step alone. He was artificially suppressed in his stealing this year as he was often in the middle of the order, but if he’s working from the top or bottom of the order, Ellison has the requisite speed to be a guy who could steal 30 bases in a season.
Ellison is very rangy in the outfield, using his exceptional speed to track down balls as well as any corner outfielder in the system. He’s likely best suited for left field due to an average-ish arm, but he handles left field very well, and he never has shown an issue at all with going hard toward the wall in pursuit of a ball.
Video
Next: Future outlook
Future Outlook
For the guy that I see in Ellison, I had to go back in the database a bit. In the 1980s, the Toronto Blue Jays had a pretty impressive outfield of George Bell, Jesse Barfield, and Lloyd Moseby, all the same age. When I saw Ellison, he reminded me of the lean Moseby, who played center field for those Blue Jays teams.
Moseby was a guy who had a similar big swing and explosive, lean frame through his swing path. Moseby played center field, but he was probably best suited to a corner, but with big boppers Bell and Barfield on either side of him, he handled center. Moseby had a number of very solid seasons, but his best season was probably 1984, when he hit .280/.368/.470 with 28 doubles, 15 triples, 18 home runs, and 39 stolen bases.
I don’t want to say that Ellison is going to be a guy who puts up 8 consecutive double-digit home run seasons in the big leagues and finishes with a 102 career OPS+ over a dozen major league seasons. However, Moseby is one of those guys that was very solid and most people don’t recall from that era, and I could see Ellison being a similar type of contributor if he made the major leagues. He’s probably not going to be the star of a team, but he could be an excellent under-the-radar contributor to a good team.
I do see Ellison likely needing to work his way up fairly quick if he wants a chance as he has guys like Ronald Acuna, Cristian Pache, and other young outfielders coming up soon through the system, so he needs to make his impact soon in order to have an established spot in Atlanta before those guys get there. A big performance in the next year or two could also help the team swing a trade to get Ellison somewhere that could give him plenty of playing time as well.
