Atlanta Braves: momentum toward drafting a hitter?

It’s now 11 days until Draft Day 2018, and a consensus is developing toward who the Braves might choose with their first pick on June 4th.

Who to choose?  Who will they choose?  Those are the questions for fans of the Atlanta Braves as their 8th overall pick could garner them a player with a strong upside.  We first looked at the history of Alex Anthopoulos-led drafts from the past.  We then looked at recent trends about 3 weeks ago.  A few additional mock drafts and analyses have been published since then, so let’s take a look.

BASEBALL AMERICA

I am looking to BaseballAmerica.com for guidance on the draft as a whole, and their latest take suggests that collegians will prevail, though this may be more about reasons related to a mortal fear of high school pitchers than pure talent.

As such, they say this:

"This draft has a clear No. 1 and a more stratified group of college bats and arms that are rising to the top, but after that it should be a wild first round."

That ‘clear No. 1’ remains Casey Mize of Auburn.  Beyond him? There’s a sense that the second round could still have a nice collection of premium high school arms (if there is such a thing) still on the board, so many teams – including Atlanta – could roll the dice on waiting until them for a pitcher.

Let’s see what the Braves might be looking at for their #8 slot.