Atlanta Braves 2018 top 125 prospects breakdown and prior list review

The top 125 Atlanta Braves prospects have been listed. Now we review the make up of the list and previous lists.

In October of 2015, I put together my first Atlanta Braves top 100 prospect list. At the time, it was an incredibly challenging undertaking to get the information required to put together a list that deep, even with the Atlanta Braves farm system on its way up already.

This past week, I released my fourth Atlanta Braves list. This season, the list expanded to 125, after I had so much information from various contacts that it was hard to put down the pen after 100!

We’re going to look deeper into the makeup of the 2018 list in this post, and then review those past top 100 lists. In the reviews, we will use the final update on the list for that season.

Before we break them down, here are the lists from this week:
Monday – 101-125
Tuesday – 76-100
Wednesday – 51-75
Thursday – 26-50
Friday – 1-25

2018 Atlanta Braves Prospect List Breakdown

There are plenty of ways to break down the list, so we’ll do a number of them!

Pitcher vs. Hitter
Pitchers 74
Hitters 51

Handedness of pitchers
Right-handed 47
Left-handed 27

By position
Starting Pitcher – 43
Relief Pitcher – 31
Outfielder – 20
Shortstop – 9
Catcher – 9
Third Base – 6
Second Base – 4
First Base – 3

How they became Atlanta Braves
Draft – 63
International signees – 43
Trade – 13
Undrafted free agents – 4
Waivers – 2

Round they were drafted in
1st – 8
2nd – 4
3rd – 1
4th – 4
5th – 2
6th – 2
7th – 2
8th – 1
9th – 3
10th – 1
11th – 3
12th – 4
13th – 1
14th – 2
15th – 1
17th – 1
18th – 1
19th – 2
20th – 2
21st – 2
23rd – 1
24th – 1
25th – 1
27th – 2
28th – 1
29th – 1
30th – 1
31st – 1
32nd – 1
35th – 1
37th – 1

Now, let’s take a look at some of those old lists, starting with the original, released in October 2015 and updated in January of 2016.

The 2015-2016 list

1. Dansby Swanson
2. Ozzie Albies
3. Sean Newcomb
4. Aaron Blair
5. Hector Olivera
6. Manny Banuelos
7. Lucas Sims
8. Tyrell Jenkins
9. Mallex Smith
10. Touki Toussaint
11. Austin Riley
12. Braxton Davidson
13. Kolby Allard
14. John Gant
15. Max Fried
16. Ronald Acuna
17. Mike Soroka
18. Rio Ruiz
19. Chris Ellis
20. Casey Kelly
21. Andrew Thurman
22. Dustin Peterson
23. Juan Yepez
24. Isranel Wilson
25. Leudys Baez
26. Jonathan Morales
27. Luke Dykstra
28. Dan Winkler
29. Derian Cruz
30. Randy Ventura
31. Ryan Weber
32. Zachary Bird
33. Lucas Herbert
34. William Contreras
35. Cristian Pache
36. Josh Graham
37. Connor Lien
38. Ricardo Sanchez
39. Max Povse
40. Daniel Castro
41. Brandon Barker
42. Ray-Patrick Didder
43. Steve Janas
44. Luis Valenzuela
45. Robert Whalen
46. Keith Curcio
47. A.J. Minter
48. Johan Camargo
49. Justin Ellison
50. Seth Webster
51. Carlos Franco
52. Collin Yelich
53. Ryan Clark
54. Omar Obregon
55. Tanner Murphy
56. Mauricio Cabrera
57. Ricardo Rodriguez
58. Chris O’Dowd
59. Jason Hursh
60. Carlos Castro
61. Bradley Keller
62. Joseph Odom
63. Kurt Hoekstra
64. Anthony Concepcion
65. Alejandro Salazar
66. Jaret Hellinger
67. Kyle Kinman
68. Carlos Lopez
69. Sean Godfrey
70. Caleb Beech
71. Jose Morel
72. Patrick Weigel
73. Elias Arias
74. Trevor Belicek
75. Dian Toscano
76. Chase Johnson-Mullins
77. Tyler Brosius
78. Sander Boeldak
79. Matt Withrow
80. Dilmer Mejia
81. Wes Parsons
82. Chad Sobotka
83. Kelvin Estevez
84. Joseph Daris
85. Alec Grosser
86. Evan Rutckyj
87. Anthony Guardado
88. Sean McLaughlin
89. Jake Lanning
90. Jose Ramirez
91. Luis Barrios
92. Ryan Lawlor
93. Alex Aquino
94. Gilbert Suarez
95. Jose Pina
96. Luis Gamez
97. Bradley Roney
98. Jorge Zavala
99. Zach Quintana
100. Trey Keegan

Breakdown

Woof! This first one was rough, mainly due to rating close to majors so highly. That led to guys like Banuelos and Jenkins getting ranked so highly. Of course, no one could have seen Olivera turning into a POS off the field.

Thurman is still a sad story to me. He was a guy with excellent stuff that was a late-bloomer that the Atlanta Braves got from the Astros in the Gattis/Foltynewicz deal. Thurman in his first year with the Braves organization had a brilliant start with Carolina before the bus crash that happened in 2015. He missed nearly 2 months and was never quite the same. When the crash happened, he had made 6 starts, tossing 32 1/3 innings, with a 2.51 ERA and a 7/23 BB/K ratio. He was let go by the Braves organization in 2016.

The 2017-2018 list

1. Ronald Acuna
2. Mike Soroka
3. Luiz Gohara
4. Kyle Wright
5. Cristian Pache
6. Kolby Allard
7. Max Fried
8. Austin Riley
9. Bryse Wilson
10. Ian Anderson
11. Alex Jackson
12. Touki Toussaint
13. William Contreras
14. Tucker Davidson
15. Joey Wentz
16. Patrick Weigel
17. A.J. Minter
18. Dustin Peterson
19. Drew Waters
20. Kyle Muller
21. Travis Demeritte
22. Tyler Pike
23. Juan Carlos Encarnacion
24. Matt Withrow
25. Freddy Tarnok
26. Jacob Lindgren
27. Huascar Ynoa
28. Isranel Wilson
29. Brett Cumberland
30. Akeel Morris
31. Dan Winkler
32. Ricardo Sanchez
33. Braulio Vasquez
34. Lucas Herbert
35. Corbin Clouse
36. Jefrey Ramos
37. Anyelo Gomez
38. Jared James
39. Anfernee Seymour
40. Jacob Webb
41. Drew Lugbauer
42. Carlos Castro
43. Thomas Burrows
44. Josh Graham
45. Derian Cruz
46. Dilmer Mejia
47. Tyler Neslony
48. Ray-Patrick Didder
49. Leudys Baez
50. Chase Johnson-Mullins
51. Kade Scivicque
52. Devan Watts
53. Jonathan Morales
54. Yoeli Lopez
55. Adam McCreery
56. Joey Meneses
57. Alay Lago
58. Troy Bacon
59. Alejandro Salazar
60. Phil Pfeifer
61. Justin Ellison
62. Luis Valenzuela
63. Carlos Franco
64. Jasseel De La Cruz
65. Connor Lien
66. Jeremy Walker
67. Austin Bush
68. Bradley Keller
69. Drew Harrington
70. Brandon White
71. Jon Kennedy
72. Braxton Davidson
73. Shean Michel
74. Jaret Hellinger
75. Tanner Murphy
76. Caleb Dirks
77. Gary Schwartz
78. Wes Parsons
79. Bruce Zimmermann
80. Luis Mejia
81. Alan Rangel
82. Dylan Moore
83. Ryan Lawlor
84. Odalvi Javier
85. Chad Sobotka
86. Alger Hodgson
87. Filyer Sanchez
88. Manuel Juan
89. Albinson Volquez
90. Sean McLaughlin
91. Zach Rice
92. Luis Mora
93. Matt Rowland
94. Kevin Josephina
95. Hayden Deal
96. Luis Gamez
97. John Curtis
98. Marcus Mooney
99. Miguel Jerez
100. Tyler Marlette

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Breakdown

Tale of two pitchers near the top as I can be happy to have been as high on Bryse as I was coming into 2018, but I was definitely low on Ian! Likewise with a pair of catchers not far behind them, where I certainly put Alex way too high, but having Contreras so high was spot on, if not a bit low!

Even though Jacob Lindgren retains his rookie eligibility, with a second Tommy John surgery, his chances of ever being the guy his stuff pre-surgery suggested he could be is out the window, sadly. On the flip side, it’s great to see how quickly a guy like Chad Sobotka flew up the rankings once he was able to have a healthy year.

After seeing the top 100 lists of the past, what do you think of this year’s list? Anything surprise you? Comment below!