A couple of Atlanta Braves catching prospects are off to hot starts

It’s been well known for quite some time that the Atlanta Braves haven’t had a lot of depth at their catcher position. To the Braves’ defense, they’re not the only organization suffering from such a dilemma. Catching prospects are extremely hard to find, so teach your kids how to catch.

Since Brian McCann, the Atlanta Braves haven’t really had a long-term answer behind the plate. They thought it was Christian Bethancourt, but we saw how that turned out. Then, they flirted with Evan Gattis behind the plate, and while it could be argued that he deserved a chance, due to injuries it made more sense at the time for the Braves to trade him for Folty.

Mo Better

If you’ve followed my writing (God will forgive you), you’ve heard me talking about Jonathan Morales. I was extremely high on him last season, as I watched him up close in Rome. Last May I wrote about how I thought he could be Atlanta’s long-term solution behind the plate.

Jonathan “Mo” Morales began his 2016 campaign in low-A Rome. Going into the season and even leading into the All-Star break, Lucas Herbert seemed to be the favorite behind the plate among writers, but Morales soon ended up being the better hitter and advancing to high-A, while Herbert remains in Rome this year.

Morales clearly benefited from his year in Rome. If you’re not privy to how Atlanta treats their Rome Braves affiliate, they value it a little bit differently than other levels.

In general, they like for each player, no matter how good they are, to spend an entire year in Rome because they believe Rome has the strongest field staff.  In 2015, Morales had 11 passed balls, compared to just 8 in twice the amount of games in Rome, so his stay in Floyd County seemed to pay off.

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Mo started off with an okay start in 2016, but ended up hitting .296 in the second half. So far, he’s mostly a contact hitter with very little power, but that’s okay.

This year, starting of in high-A Florida, he’s slashing .304/.360/.391 and seems to be improving his defense behind the plate.

It’s most definitely still early in the season, so we’ll see if he can sustain his offense. If Jonathan Morales continues his trajectory, he’ll certainly give the Braves something to look forward to, as hits are always important.

Alex Jackson

This past off-season the Atlanta Braves sent Rob Whalen and Max Povse to Seattle for outfield prospect Alex Jackson. Well… the Mariners thought he was an outfielder.

Alex Jackson was drafted as a catcher in 2014 by Seattle, when he was ranked the best offensive prospect in all of baseball that year. Seattle felt the need to switch Alex to the outfield immediately, believing that such a move would somehow speed up his progress offensively.

Long story short – This never happened. Over three seasons in Seattle’s system, Jackson never made it past A-ball, which led Seattle to trade him.

Atlanta jumped at the opportunity to obtain what they felt was a misunderstood 21-year-old prospect for two expendable pitching prospects. They were excited about his bat, his power, and felt that all Alex needed was to get back to his original position – catcher.

The Atlanta Braves’ catching coordinator Jeff Datz lives in Sacramento, so when the deal was made, the Braves conveniently sent Datz down to Jackson’s High School in San Diego to work with him every week for one month prior to Spring Training.

Braves director of player development Dave Trembley told MLBPipeline.com during Spring Training that “he could really be a diamond in the rough for us in the catching department, and he’s all for it.”

The Braves have laid out a plan for Jackson to ease back into his original position. For now, the plan is for him to play somewhere around 65-70 games from behind the plate and DH when he’s not catching, to get him 450-475 at-bats.

For now, while it’s still early in the season, the plan seems to be working. If Alex Jackson ends up hitting for contact AND power like the Braves think he will, we’ll be talking about him being the future behind the plate very soon.

Next: The roster moves the Braves SHOULD do

So far, Jackson has appeared in 14 games for the high-A Florida Fire Frogs hitting .304 with 5 home runs and 12 RBI. Time will tell, but the Atlanta Braves could truly have found a diamond in the rough in the former outfielder.