Three Atlanta Braves featured on Keith Law’s top 100 list
Three Atlanta Braves prospects appear on the latest top 100 list, but rankings are in the eye of the beholder.
Keith Law published his 2022 top-100 list in The Athletic (subscription required) this morning, not in the order some might expect, but the order is probably meaningless anyway. However, 3 Atlanta Braves farmhands are named.
Law has Cristian Pache at number 38, down from his third-place start to 2021… so what happened? Pache quickly found out the difference between AAA pitching and the arms in the majors, and that’s not his fault.
The Braves gave him 105 AAA PA in 2019 and four Major League PA in 2020, then threw him into the pond without a life preserver. Before anyone screams Andruw Jones, stop and take a breath; you’re comparing prodigy to prospect, and they aren’t the same thing.
Andruw destroyed pitching at every level on his rocket ship ride through the minors while Pache progressed at a more human pace. Pache’s defense remains elite, and I believe he will hit well enough to hold down an everyday spot on a Major League team. However, he’s not a 25-homer, .500 slug bat; also, he’s still only 23 years old, so relax.
Michael and Shea
Michael Harris slots in at number 61 for Law, he believes Harris is a 70-grade centerfielder, which would make for a heck of an outfield down the road if everyone stays on board, but they won’t.
Michael’s progress resembles Andruw’s, but it’s still early for him. He’ll start in AA and play at 21 this year. If his progress continues as it has so far, he’ll play at Gwinnett as well.
Shea Langeliers rounds out the Braves on Law’s list, coming in at number 80, I believe Langeliers is the Braves catcher of the future, and as Law pointed out, the Braves were confident enough in his defense to add him to the travel team for the playoffs.
At least one notable name from the 2021 list is missing here, but never fear; he’s still hanging around.
Braves drought at Gwinnett
Atlanta Braves fans believed Drew Waters was destined to line up alongside Pache and Ronald Acuña Jr. for years to come, but Waters’ 2021 wasn’t what everyone hoped for.
Law wasn’t as high on Waters as some others, and when the young outfielder struggled through the 2021 season at Gwinnett, he had no chance of getting on Law’s list.
Related Story. International prospects signed. light
Despite batting .240/.329/.381/.710 and striking out just under 31% of the time, MLB Pipeline kept Waters on their top-100 at number 79. Waters is still 23, and there’s an argument that losing the 2020 minor league season stalled his progress.
Even bouncing back to his 2019 numbers may not be enough; centerfield is starting to look crowded, particularly if Harris continues to progress as quickly as he has in the past.
Baseball Prospectus slicing things up
BP’s list (subscription required) divides their top-101 players up ranks them at their position as well as giving us a perspective on where players fir with their peers as well as with the herd; MLB Pipeline also provides a list by position, but only shows the top-ten at each.
BP has Pache at the number 14 outfielder of 18 on the list, with Harris at number 11. MLB ranks Pache ninth.
BP and Pipeline agree that Langeliers is tenth on the catcher list; BP has Kyle Muller as second of the nine lefties on their top-101 list.
Every lottery ticket isn’t a winner
Since 2017, the Atlanta Braves regularly saw three to five names on everyone’s list of the league’s top prospects, but few emerged and hung around.
TNSTAAPP* is real: Max Fried, Ian Anderson, and Mike Soroka – when healthy- proved that it does indeed take ten pitching prospects to get two good starters.
Austin Riley is the only position player to make the adjustments needed against pitchers who adjust to him game-to-game and we’re still looking for a centerfielder for the 2022 roster.
I love to dream on prospects like everyone else, but sometimes those dreams turn into nightmares, which leads me to one of MLB’s great ideas.
* – There’s No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect
Prospects are suspects
The January 13th proposal by MLB to encourage teams not to screw with service time is nearly as hilarious as using any flavor of WAR to set arbitration salary.
Baseball America (subscription required) reported that MLB wanted to give a draft pick to a team if a player won an award.
. . .owners proposed a new incentive system where a team that kept a rookie on the roster all season could receive a bonus draft pick if that player (finished0 top three in Rookie of the Year, MVP or Cy Young balloting over the first three seasons of their MLB career.
However, there’s a kicker.
Also heard MLB owners offered a potential solution to service time manipulation in their proposal:
— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) January 13, 2022
•if a highly-ranked prospect (within top 150 on prospect lists) plays a full year and finishes top five for a major award like MVP, Cy, RoY his team would get a bonus draft pick
BA went on to say that adding such a caveat to the proposal wasn’t needed; Jarrett Seidler from Baseball Prospectus went further.
. . . rewarding teams for putting prospects on one of our lists is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. Not just ethically . . . but on the details of outsourcing this to prospect writers.
I mean, what could go wrong? Surely no one would try to entice someone to add a player to or remove him from that list. If a player isn’t on the list and wins an award — like, for example, Paul Goldschmidt — his team doesn’t get the draft pick because someone wasn’t smart enough to see what was coming?
Like most of MLB’s proposals – and the union’s so far – it doesn’t take a scholar to see the holes and laugh.
That’s a wrap
Prospect lists are fun, but in the long-term, no one cares if the prospect was selected first or 131st, as long as he’s doing well for the team.
BA looked back at the individuals who won the awards that would have earned their team a draft pick; only 54% fit that criteria. I want MLB to end service time manipulation; it’s not fair to the player or the fans.
The negotiation where they never meet. dark. Next
There are ways to do it that will do nothing but improve the game for both sides. Solutions come from open and honest discussions. I look forward to that happening at some point because so far, all we’ve seen is jockeying for position.