Atlanta Braves Newly Ranked Prospect Trey Harris Finally Gets Promoted

After two months of dominating Single-A baseball, the 23-year-old and recently ranked prospect, may actually be challenged at the plate now with the Atlanta Braves sending him to High-A.

It’s been a heck of a start to the season for Trey Harris. There’s absolutely no denying that. If you’ve been reading any of my weekly Farm Reports than I’m sure that name rings a bell. That’s because Harris is having indisputably the best season in all of the Atlanta Braves organization, so far.

Well, except for Austin Riley. What’s better than what Riley has done in the first 60 days of this season… minors and majors?

But as far as players who have yet to make their dreams come true and finally make the big leagues — Trey Harris is currently playing better than anyone. MLB.com recently put him in the Braves top 30 prospects.

https://twitter.com/FireFrogsBB/status/1136026344033259528?s=19

On Tuesday, before Florida’s game against Fort Myers, Harris was promoted to the Florida State League (A+), where he will suit up for the Florida Fire Frogs as their right fielder.

But before we talk about his new team, we need to look at his old team, the Rome Braves, and fully appreciate what he did during his time there.

Harris played 56 games for Rome this season, and probably 30 games too many if we’re being honest. From the very get-go, the Georgia native just never seemed challenged.

After his final game with the team on Monday — he went 1-for-3 with his 14th double of the season, recording one of only four hits by Rome — Harris was slashing .366/.437/.594, good for a 1.031 OPS.

He was easily leading the team in all slash-stats, as well as home runs (8), RBI (44) and total bases (120).

Heck, he knocked in 14 more runs than the second-most on the team and totaled 41 more total bases than the closest player, outfield mate Justin Dean.

Harris was also tied for first in triples and runs-scored, leaving Rome with four 3-baggers and 38 runs. The man did it all, and there’s no reason to believe that he can’t do it all in the Sunshine State as well.

You’ll read about it coming up on Monday, but in Harris’ first High-A game with the Fire Frogs (Tuesday night), he played a key part in their win by scoring three of the team’s eight runs and finishing the contest 2-for-3.

Both of his hits were singles, in a game where no Florida batter had an extra-base hit.

In that inaugural game, Harris slotted in at 7th in the batting lineup, in between .300-hitter Kevin Josephina and first baseman Drew Lugbauer.

Size and Tools

I have to say that most Atlanta Braves fans know their players. However, the reality is that there’s a lot of baseball fans that have never even heard or seen the name Trey Harris (don’t say that to Mizzou baseball fans!).

Selected in the 32nd round of the 2018 MLB Draft, Harris was knocked for his size (only 5’10”) and his weak arm coming out of Missouri.

Also, despite his decent home run total in Rome, Harris was never lauded for his power (only hit 28 homers in his career at Mizzou).

Many early scouting reports called for a position change, and that can still be possible, but I think the days of size and position placement being some perfect and standardized correlation are over.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in that regard either way, and let’s just say Harris was to convert to an infielder — that just adds even more value as he’ll be even more flexible, creating an easier path to the majors.

It’s a cool story, seeing a player that’s undersized and picked towards the end of the draft developing and advancing so well though it’s not an ideal situation. With him turning 24 in January, this isn’t the storybook-type headliner we usually see.

It’s not as if he’s some teenager who basically walked into the majors and won Rookie of the Year after 3-4 years of pro baseball (hello, Acuna!).

This is just a player that went from average to great in college, got drafted extremely late because of his size and low-grade tools, and is currently having one of the best 2019 seasons of any player in the organization.

It may not be the most noteworthy thing that happens in the minors this season, heck it may not even be right now, but it’s always fun when the non-prospects become prospects, and the forgotten picks turn into stars.