Atlanta Braves: A deeper look at 3 positive takes from 2019

Waters, Pache poised to be stars — possibly in 2020

After both outfielders had banner years that spanned Double-A Mississippi and Triple-A Gwinnett, Drew Waters and Cristian Pache have firmly placed their names on the radar for the Opening Day roster in 2020.

The idea that both would make the Major League roster coming out of Spring Training is probably a long shot. And it depends on the moves we make in the offseason.

Do we bring back Adam Duvall, Billy Hamilton or Matt Joyce? Do we pick up Nick Markakis and his option? What can Ender Inciarte bring to the table?

Since Ender is under team control, will he prove himself to be both healthy and useful, or will he have enough trade value to garner a return?

Lots of questions.

I can say one thing with relative certainty – neither player is going to be called up to fill a bench role.

With Acuna Jr. and Ender as incumbents in the outfield, for both to start, one of them would have to beat out Ender, therefore making him a rather expensive bench option. Inciarte won’t be easy to unload, especially if he struggles in spring.

Here’s their respective production:

Waters: 134g, .309 avg, .360 obp, 163 hits, 40 doubles, 9 triples, 7 home runs, 52 RBI, 16 SB, 164K, 39 BB

Pache: 130g, .277 avg, .340 obp, 135 hits, 36 doubles, 9 triples, 12 home runs, 61 RBI, 8 SB, 122K, 43 BB

Waters remained consistent throughout, winning Southern League Player of the Year honors. His production didn’t experience a sharp drop in Triple-A, and across all levels, he’s been able to maintain similar offensive outputs.

Drew strikes out often and needs to reduce his strikeouts and walk more often to really help himself as a top-of-the-order kind of player.

The beautiful thing is that if he’s on the Opening Day roster, he isn’t going to be a top-of-the-order guy. He’ll slot in nicely near the bottom of the lineup.

Pache was pretty consistent too – the only thing that really stood out to me was that in Double-A, he hit 11 home runs over 392 at-bats. In Triple-A, he hit just one home run in 95 at-bats.

If he kept pace with his numbers at Mississippi, expecting 3 or 4 home runs at Gwinnett wasn’t too unreasonable.

The Dominican Republic native excited scouts when he hit eight home runs in 2018 after hitting zero home runs prior to that over 689 professional at-bats.

His 2019 numbers were comparable and improved a bit in terms of power.

Both outfielders are great defensively. I know this from watching about eight Mississippi games this summer.

They work well together, they room together – it would be great to keep them together as often as possible. There’s a lot of good chemistry here, and that’s the way it is with the Atlanta Braves as well.

An outfield of Acuna Jr., Pache, and Waters – that would be a sight to see.

There are about four months left until Spring Training — get excited. There are lots of moves to be made and they’ll be important, but remember, you’ve got a great core that’s under control, a general manager that’s made a ton of good moves, and two exciting offensive prospects. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.