End of season recap: The 2019 Gulf Coast Braves
An end-of-season recap covering all seven Atlanta Braves minor league teams from the 2019 season: Gulf Coast Braves.
In this series I will cover each of the seven Atlanta Braves minor league levels, evaluating each club and its top performers.
If you’re interested in jumping to previous recaps:
Today we move on to the Gulf Coast Braves, who wrapped up their 2019 season on Tuesday, August 27.
The team
The 2019 GCL Braves finished with a woeful 18-31 record, earning them a fifth-place finish (out of six) in the South Division, 18 games behind the first-place Orioles.
Things ended bad for the team as they finished the 2019 campaign by losing 8 of their last 10 games.
Despite such a poor overall win/loss record, the rookie-Braves slugged a respectable amount of home runs as a team, belting 22 long balls — good for 9th-most in the entire GCL. However, as a group, the Braves hit just .224 and finished 2019 with a team-OPS of .639 — well below average.
Overall, when held up to their opponents in the league, the GCL Braves just didn’t develop on offense, scoring 188 runs all season (3.83 runs/game), good for last-place in the Gulf Coast.
When it came to pitching, the Braves didn’t fare much better: Out of 18 GCL teams, the Braves finished 13th in team-ERA, ending the season with a 4.31 mark. However, the group did an outstanding job preventing home runs, as they surrendered just 13 homers all season (2nd in the league).
In terms of strikeouts and walks, Braves’ pitchers were middle-of-the-road, punching out 385 batters (12th-most) and serving up 184 free passes (8th-fewest).
Seeing how they were elite in home run prevention, while also performing decently in terms of strikeouts and walks, one could determine that Braves’ pitchers suffered from some bad luck in 2019. But that’s purely an assumption.
Compared to the DSL Braves, the Gulf Coast squad seemed to have performed much better on defense, finishing with 52 unearned runs (remember, the DSL Braves tallied 70 such runs).
The top performers
Starting with the offensive side, the Braves received a strong season from 18-year-old shortstop Vaughn Grissom, who hit .288, scored 22 runs (led team), belted 3 home runs (2nd on team), and led the team with 23 RBI.
Grissom, an 11th round selection in the 2019 draft, has made some waves on the Braves’ prospect rankings list, already listed as the 18th-best prospect on the team (according to FanGraphs).
Outfielder Michael Harris was another key hitter for the GCL team in 2019 and actually performed better than Grissom, though Harris was promoted straight to Rome after 31 games on the Gulf Coast.
Harris still slashed .349/.403/.514 with 2 home runs (161 wRC+), while also stealing 5 bases with the GCL Braves.
Splitting time between right field and center, Harris is an incredible defender and recorded 9 outfield assists in 2019. Yes, that’s right, nine! So if you were wondering why an 18-year-old kid was pushed from the lower rungs of Rookie-ball all the way to Single-A in less than 40 games-played, this is why.
Third baseman Darling Florentino led the team with 6 home runs but hit just .202 in 32 games with the GCL Braves, after hitting .198 in 36 games with Rome.
On the mound, 22-year-old righty, Zach Seipel, was all-around the best starting pitcher on the team in 2019. Seipel, a 27th round pick in 2018, pitched in 8 games (4 starts / 4 relief app.) and maintained a 3.45 ERA while striking out 33 batters in 31.1 innings pitched.
Carlos De La Cruz and Eudi Asencio also pitched well in 2019. Cruz was used solely out of the bullpen, appearing in 12 games and pitching to a 3.65 ERA.
Asencio finished 2019 with a 3.82 ERA, starting 3 games and making 9 relief appearances for the Braves.
The verdict
Like the DSL team, watching live GCL games on TV are impossible, and without seeing these players in-person it’s hard to fully determine their potential. But at the end of the day, there’s a few from the team that put up strong numbers in 2019.
These are still mostly teenagers or first-year players, but the GCL team may have a few diamonds in the rough.
Grissom and Harris are two hitters that appear to have real potential, and the Braves’ promotion of the latter confirms as much. Seipel had small stretches of excellent pitching, though he accrued nowhere near enough innings to provide a worthy enough sample.
In the end, the GCL and DSL share a lot of the same conditions, in that these guys are just too young to really project at the moment.
Hopefully in 2020 a few will separate themselves, as more playing-time and larger sample-sizes will allow for a better assessment of their true talent.
Up next is a recap of the Rookie-Advanced club, the 2019 Danville Braves.
dark. Next. What's at stake in September
Don’t forget: The Gwinnett Stripers will play Game 1 of their semifinal series against the Columbus Redbirds, tonight at 7:05 p.m. EST. Check back on Thursday morning for a full recap of the game, as well as a few Gwinnett awards from the 2019 season.