TomahawkTake’s top-30 Atlanta Braves’ prospects: The Top 10

Today we release the final installment of our Braves’ Top-30 Prospect Rankings, capping off the series with the organization’s top-10 players.

The final installment of our prospect rankings series starts now, as we’ve spent the last couple of days delivering quite an impressive list of twenty Atlanta Braves prospects.

We started here on Monday, sharing the back-10 of the rankings, featuring a few players that took the pros by storm in their first year in the system; guys like right-handed pitcher Kasey Kalich (No. 24) and first baseman Bryce Ball (No. 26), two players that greatly exceeded expectations and even made it to Single-A Rome by the end of the 2019 campaign.

Monday also included a couple of Braves’ prospects that didn’t quite perform as we had hoped this past season; guys like catcher William Contreras (No. 23) and third baseman CJ Alexander (No. 27), though the latter of that duo was limited to only 43 games in 2019.

Then on Tuesday we hit the middle of these rankings, covering Nos. 20-11 on the list; that group had a little bit of everything, featuring the Braves’ top-two picks in 2019, catcher Shea Langeliers (No. 16) and shortstop Braden Shewmake (No. 15). The list also included a few breakout-players from 2019, as outfielder Justin Dean (No. 14) and reliever Daysbel Hernandez (No. 19) both flourished this past season, even earning invites to the Arizona Fall League several months ago.

Outfielder Greyson Jenista (No. 17) — also an AFL invitee — and pitcher Freddy Tarnok (No. 20) were also included in Tuesday’s group of ten, though both didn’t exactly excell in 2019, at least when considering what each had accomplished in the season prior.

But now we’ve made it to the most elite group of Braves’ prospects, the top-10 players within the organization’s minor league system. These are the players with the most upside, talent and tools; the guys that make this current prospect class one of the best in the business.

Several of these players are right on the cusp of making it to the big leagues, while a few may still have a ways to go but have been so impressive in recent seasons that their talent level had to be reevaluated.

Some nuances to consider

After fighting with several different objective-based models, we have decided to go with a subjective approach for these rankings.

But keep in mind, this list is meant to be the first report for the 2020 season, meaning there will be more versions of these rankings to come later on. Think of this as the Spring report, with a Midseason and End-of-season report to follow. Each version will be updated according to how each player is trending (via performance, upside, promotions…etc).

Obviously, everyone won’t necessarily agree with each and every ranking, as we all have our own opinions regarding these players; although, it’s much easier to look at the list of 30 players overall in terms of tiers instead of attempting to assess the report as a whole.

Consider my tiers for the list below:

• Nos. 1-10 —   Tier 1
• Nos.11-20 —  Tier 2
• Nos. 21-30 — Tier 3

You could perhaps break the rankings up in to even more tiers or groups if you desired, but the point is that the actual ranking is less important than the tier or group the player is part of. Obviously, the higher the tier means the player has more upside and is closer to the majors.

Remember, these rankings are subject to change, as an updated version of this list will be published around the midseason point of the 2020 season (July-ish).

With all of that now covered, let’s look at our final group of rankings, the Braves’ top-10 prospects.