Braves’ recent failures in developing hitting prospects is becoming a real concern

There’s no denying the Braves success of developing the players on the field right now as they tout a roster full of homegrown players such as: Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, and Austin Riley, Max Fried (via trade),and more. They’ve used players they have drafted to help secure Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Jarred Kelenic, Joe Jimenez, and other key members of the organization.

The current state of the farm system is rated near the bottom, but has shown promise - producing the likes of Spencer Schwellenbach, and AJ Smith-Shawver who both figure to be key contributors to the big league team for an extensive amount of time as well as a number of intriguing pitching prospects. 

That’s the biggest issue, and the focus of this article - the lack of positional prospects in the organization. Yes, the Braves did an absolutely masterful job of assembling an extremely young, and talented lineup that should be together for the next 6+ years, and built around one of the games best players.

Can the Braves develop more position players?

However, when you look down at the farm system there are some major issues that must be addressed for the overall future of the organization. As of right now, the Braves have two positional prospects (Drake Baldwin, Nacho Alvarez Jr.) who rank in their top 30, above Double-A. They have one top 30 prospect, David McCabe who is coming off of major tommy john surgery and may project to be leaving third base, in Double-A.

Over at High-A Rome the Braves do not have a single top 30 position prospect on the roster, and while Low-A has quite a few, these are extremely young players whose futures are really up in the air. 

If we start from the top of the top 30 list - international signings Luis Guanipa and Jose Perdomo slot in at eight and six on my personal top 30, both have seen their struggles this year with Guanipa coming in with a .598 OPS for the GreenJackets, and Perdomo with a .568 OPS of his own, though has missed a majority of the season with a lingering hamstring issue.

While both are still very young, and their ceilings un-impacted by their performances this year, it still does not exactly paint a rosy picture. The toolsy John Gil slots in at 15, and much like Guanipa, has struggled at Low-A with a .630 OPS of his own. David McCabe, ranked 20th, has appeared in just 14 games this season for the Mississippi Braves and has a .545 OPS of his own, while hitting just .152.

Ambioris Tavarez sits at 19 but has missed significant time with a broken wrist and he too, had just a .634 OPS for Augusta. The final two players are the newly drafted Nick Montgomery at 25, and Isaiah Drake at 26. Drake has also missed significant time with injury and has a .634 OPS in 41 games for the Augusta GreenJackets. 

While the ceilings of these players remain high, especially Guanipa, Perdomo, Gil, and Montgomery there is still not enough higher end positional talent in the organization. This has resulted in the Braves having to go outside of the organization when injury has occurred - resulting in the acquisitions of: Jorge Soler, Gio Urshela, Whit Merrified, and Ramón Laureano while giving significant playing time to players that have struggled such as Adam Duvall.

While nobody is expecting the Braves to put together a farm system like the Orioles have recently, due to the Braves continually drafting low in drafts along with only recently coming off international signing restrictions, you would still expect, or at least like to see, more positional prospects with value across each level as much of the Triple-A and Double-A rosters project more for Quad-A, or MiLB talents without MLB ceilings. 

It’s worth saying that should all the players listed above rebound next season - the system will be in a much better spot, but there is still a glaring lack of positional prospect depth within the organization. The Braves must do a better job of acquiring positional talent, and developing them so that the pipeline to the majors remains strong whether it be leveraged for trades to strengthen the roster, to use in case of injury, or overall just to improve the state of the organization.

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