Not just pitchers: The Atlanta Braves have a top-10 position-group in the Minors
By Clint Manry
We know about the top-grade pitchers that the Braves have been forging down in the Minors, but don’t let them obscure the position-player talent currently stockpiled as well.
There has been an unbalanced, or maybe even a “lopsided” interpretation of the prospect talent in the Atlanta Braves‘ organization. As a consequence, there’s an entire group of young Braves’ players that aren’t getting the industry-wide attention they may deserve.
Now to be fair, Braves’ fans may not necessarily represent this group of uninformed. We all have a pretty knowledgeable handle on how things are going down in the Minors.
The writers here, and at other Braves’ sites, stay on top of things rather diligently. But I have noticed that even among fellow fans of the team, there is a bit of neglect when it comes to non-pitching prospects in the Braves’ organization.
On February 11th, Kelsie Heneghan of MiLB.com, covered the top-ten team for position-player prospects of Major League Baseball. Her report not only ranked each ten organizations, but she also included a general overview of the top talent on each team.
Several of the rankings should be of little surprise, as it’s pretty apparent who the top-three or even top-five organizations are. However, it did somewhat surprise me that the Braves were included on this list, as a top-10 organization.
I assumed that with the likes of: Cristian Pache, Austin Riley and Drew Waters, that the Braves would certainly be ranked in the top half of Major League Baseball, but according to Heneghan’s respected research, the Braves come in at a solid 9th.
That’s ninth in all of baseball, folks. When you think about the starting-pitching depth in the organization right now, coupled with the fact that the Braves, recently announced, also have a top-ten position-player group – the reality is really eye-opening.
I’ve already covered the top-10 Braves’ prospects overall this past weekend, on the subject of the recently released Top-100 Prospect Leaderboard that the guys at Fangraphs put out annually.
Also, the unofficial, but official yearly “Prospect Week” is all wrapped up, so there’s no need for me to go into too much detail regarding these players. Most of the information would be redundant with other things you might have read.
However, a look at the prospect position-player rankings put out by MiLB.com is an appropriate conclusion on the topic, if you will.