Could the Atlanta Braves be drafting a high school pitcher?

A typical Atlanta Braves selection?

Baseball America ranks the 6’3″/215 Jared Kelley twelfth overall in the 2020 class, calling him “A man among boys in the high school class” and “the most MLB ready prep pitcher. As it happens, MLBPipeline also ranks him 12th.

Kelley is said to have “easy gas” in the upper-90’s range with Soroka-esque location along with a changeup that’s perhaps 15 mph under his fastball rate. He needs an improved and consistent breaking pitch, but that might be the only thing holding him back.

They think he has #2 starter upside, which wouldn’t be a bad thing for this position in the draft.

For their part, BA thinks he could be an Orioles pick at #30… or something earlier. Either way, if the Braves end up taking Kelley, I might have to pay homage to Law in some form.

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With BA, their latest pick for Atlanta is more conservative and flows with the emphasis of this draft class. They are going with the aforementioned Duke righty Bryce Jarvis, despite their own rank of 37th overall (MLBPipeline pegs him at exactly on-slot at 25th).

Jarvis has already been working with Driveline and Cressey Sports Performance, which has reportedly added 4-5 mph on his fastball and helped him to a perfect game with 15 K’s against Cornell this year.

The knock on Jarvis that BA’s scouting report notes is that this new-found velocity was great at the beginning of the season, but they question whether it could be sustained for the whole year.

They label velocity as a risk item since we never got the answer to that question and postulate that he could fall into the 2nd or 3rd rounds… which is likely too late for Atlanta, given their limited draft picks.