Braves Prospect Group Remains Strong at the Top

We’ve had a lot of prospect ranking lists come out lately and the Atlanta Braves still have a strong system at the top end. 

If you go back to 2016 when the rebuild got started for the Atlanta Braves, their top 10 prospects list included Dansby Swanson, Ozzie Ablies, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard, Ian Anderson, Kevin Maitan, Mike Soroka, Joey Wentz, Travis Demeritte, and Touki Toussaint.

Max Fried was 11th, Austin Riley 15th, and Ronald Acuna Jr. 18th.

Seven of those top 18 players are now a huge part of the Braves current roster, and that’s certainly a success percentage you can live with when it comes to prospects.

You look at the top 10-20 prospects for the Braves in 2020 and wonder how many of those will actually become a big part of the Major League club.

Obviously, we expect Cristian Pache and Anderson to assert themselves as regulars in 20201.

But everyone else on that list is a big question mark in my mind.

A lot of people love Drew Waters, right now I’m not one of them, but he can certainly change my mind with big improvement in 2021.

Along with Pache, Anderson, and Waters, Shea Langeliers is the only Braves prospect currently ranked among the top 100 by MLB Pipeline.

While I like Langelliers at this point, there is a chance his bat doesn’t develop enough to be anything more than a back-up, which would be a disappointment for someone drafted ninth overall.

I’m not trying to knock any of these prospects, I’m just pointing out that I don’t see any obvious All-Stars among this group.

Going back to that 2016 prospects list, you have one superstar, a couple of top of the rotation starters, and a couple of everyday regulars. Three of which have already made All-Star appearances.

And again, once you take Pache and Anderson out of the prospect list, this system gets very weak outside of the top 10.

So while there are still some solid names at the top of this system, if the Braves don’t do a better job of drafting — and in the international market now that sanctions have been lifted — their farm system is set to fall apart.

I’m not saying it’s the right decision by Alex Anthopoulos not to trade some of these guys away, but I can understand the hesitancy with the direction the farm is going.