Atlanta Braves Minor League Spotlight: Bryce Ball is having a blast in Danville

The Atlanta Braves have seen some nice early returns from several 2019 draftees, and arguably the best play has come from the big guy, first baseman Bryce Ball.

With the calendar turning over to July, last month’s MLB Draft is no longer a common storyline for the Atlanta Braves.

Now that all 30 Major League teams’ Rookie and Rookie-Advanced clubs have started play, all the hype surrounds the newly-drafted players and their performances thus far.

For Atlanta Braves fans, we shouldn’t look any further than our own organization to find such a performance, for first baseman Bryce Ball has been amazing in his first two weeks of play.

Ball was a late-round pick, selected by the Atlanta Braves in the 24th round out of Dallas Baptist, where he played just one season.

He led the Missouri Valley Conference in home runs with 18, hitting six more homers than the second-place finisher.

Here’s an absolute bomb he hit, while with DBU, back in March…

Still just 20-years-old, you could’ve considered him in between a high school and college prospect leading up to the draft (he turns 21 on July 8).

Despite his torrid start to professional baseball (which we’ll get to in a minute), it’s not as if this is unchartered territory for Ball. He was a great player this past season with DBU:

• 63 games
• .325/.443/.614
• 1.057 OPS
• 18 home runs
• 12 doubles
• 54 RBI
• 23.2 K%, 22.3 BB%

As you can see, Ball was an elite player in college and well above-average in terms of getting on base, illustrated by him finishing with only two more strikeouts than walks (53 Ks / 51 BB).

So you may be asking, why did he go so late in the draft?

Well, demand for a 6-foot-6, 235-pound corner-infielder has fallen quite a bit over the years. Teams (whether right or wrong) are more interested in position flexibility and elite defense, as the influx of home runs and poor defenders have somewhat watered down the coolness of powerful hitters.

Because of his size, Ball is mainly restricted to first base or DH, and as we all know, one of those positions is held by the face of the franchise (Freddie Freeman) and the other… well, it doesn’t even exist for the Atlanta Braves (yet).

However, the Braves chose Ball. Home runs may not be as big a deal as they once were, but there’s no doubt that the home run is how teams score most of their runs.

And Ball has done just that since starting his pro career a couple of weeks ago.

The Braves assigned Ball to the Rookie-Advanced level, Danville Braves, a team made up of mostly this year’s and last year’s Draft picks (average age is roughly 20-years-old).

In Ball’s very first game, the big fella came to bat three times, hitting two base-hits and plating a run. Games two and three … more of the same, except even better.

• Game 2:  2-for-4, HR, 2B, RBI
• Game 3:  2-for-4, 2 RBI

Ball is basically just carrying over his season with DBU, never missing a beat, even though now he is being paid to put up big numbers.

And as I mentioned in the last report, Ball took home the Appy League Batter of the Week award.

Ten games is always a nice and neat, yet extremely small, sample size. In Ball’s first 10 games as a pro, he carried a .389/.476/.861 slash line, slugging 5 home runs.

I’d say he’s met his goal of hitting the ball hard, at least so far.

I wrote about his performance in this past week’s Farm Report, and it looks as if he’s set to continue his hot hitting: on Monday Ball went 1-for-2 with an RBI and a run, also walking twice; although, he did go 0-for-5 with a strikeout on Tuesday.

Regardless, a 1.195 OPS with 5 home runs in your first 12 games is a heck of a way to start a career.

The Atlanta Braves drafted several talented players last month, and there’s more than just Ball that are starting the season on a good note.

But given what kind of bargain Ball was (signed at $197,500), he could be a player that brings back a rather nice return on investment.