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 2016-2017 list

1. Dansby Swanson
2. Ozzie Albies
3. Sean Newcomb
4. Kolby Allard
5. Ronald Acuna
6. Kevin Maitan
7. Max Fried
8. Ian Anderson
9. Mike Soroka
10. Luiz Gohara
11. Touki Toussaint
12. Patrick Weigel
13. Dustin Peterson
14. Cristian Pache
15. Austin Riley
16. Lucas Sims
17. Travis Demeritte
18. Joey Wentz
19. Rio Ruiz
20. Kyle Muller
21. Yunior Severino
22. Ray-Patrick Didder
23. Alex Jackson
24. A.J. Minter
25. Juan Yepez
26. Derian Cruz
27. Braxton Davidson
28. Jonathan Morales
29. Connor Lien
30. Matt Withrow
31. Ricardo Sanchez
32. Michael Mader
33. Joey Meneses
34. Tyler Pike
35. Dylan Moore
36. William Contreras
37. Bryse Wilson
38. Keith Curcio
39. Tanner Murphy
40. Braulio Vasquez
41. Randy Ventura
42. Dilmer Mejia
43. Anfernee Seymour
44. Brett Cumberland
45. Carlos Castro
46. Corbin Clouse
47. Akeel Morris
48. Isranel Wilson
49. Abrahan Gutierrez
50. Jeremy Walker
51. Kade Scivicque
52. Caleb Dirks
53. Mel Rojas, Jr.
54. Jared James
55. Wes Parsons
56. Joseph Odom
57. Luis Ovando
58. Lucas Herbert
59. Justin Ellison
60. Jason Hursh
61. Jacob Webb
62. Devan Watts
63. Drew Harrington
64. Thomas Burrows
65. Shean Michel
66. Livan Soto
67. Luis Mora
68. Josh Graham
69. Yoeli Lopez
70. Taylor Lewis
71. Jhon Martinez
72. Chad Sobotka
73. Kevin Josephina
74. Carlos Salazar
75. Johan Camargo
76. Chase Johnson-Mullins
77. Anthony Concepcion
78. Yenci Pena
79. Ricardo Rodriguez
80. Bradley Roney
81. Alejandro Salazar
82. Jaret Hellinger
83. Alan Crowley
84. Luis Gamez
85. Jackson Pokorney
86. Jasseel De La Cruz
87. Armando Rivero
88. Evan Phillips
89. Luis Mejia
90. Alan Rangel
91. Carlos Lopez
92. Yefri Del Rosario
93. Juan Contreras
94. Jon Kennedy
95. Matt Custred
96. Phil Pfeifer
97. Steve Janas
98. Bradley Keller
99. Lisandro Santos
100. Ramon Osuna

Breakdown

To be fully honest, this is the list that I have the most trouble finding any issue with in retrospect. Where guys were ranked before the 2017 season bore out to be the right spot before the season and the guys who jumped forward (Acuna) were already ranked highly, and the guys who fell off (Janas, Osuna) were already ranked low.