The Atlanta Braves draft history showcases how much things have remained the same

The Atlanta Braves made their first two selections for the 2024 Rule 4 Amateur draft on Sunday – Pitchers, of course. When it’s over, they’ll have added 20 players to the 2791 players selected by the Braves over the past 59 years. It's the 60th birthday of the draft, but 121 drafts have taken place along the way. That's a lot of players, so how have the Atlanta Braves fared?  Let’s take a look.

The Atlanta Braves" first successful draft of a position player one-one was Bob Horner.
The Atlanta Braves" first successful draft of a position player one-one was Bob Horner. | George Gojkovich/GettyImages
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Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine leads all pitchers drafted by the Braves with 518 appearances for Atlanta. | Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Late round pitching

The Braves drafted 287 pitchers after the 20th round, but only 15 pitched at least one game in the majors. Of that group,10 pitched for the Braves. Jonny Venters has the most appearances with the Braves (267), followed by John Rocker (210) and Tommy Hanson (108).

John Foster is next (67), followed by Chuck James (64), Tim Spooneybarger (55), Shae Simmons (33), Ryan Weber (21), Jason Shiell (4), and Darrell May and William Woods (2 each).

Top 20 rounds

One hundred twelve of the 527 pitchers taken in the first 20 rounds made at least one appearance wearing the Tomahawk.

Second-rounder Tom Glavine’s 518 games are the most for any drafted pitcher as a Brave. Home run hero Rick Camp is second with 414, followed by Mark Wohlers (388), AJ Minter (375), Steven Bedrosian (350), Mike Stanton (304) and Craig Kimbrel (294).

Kent Merker was the last Brave to toss a no-hitter and leads all Braves first-round pitchers to date with 251 appearances. Jeff Dedmon (229) and Steve Avery (203) are the only other pitchers who pitched in more than 169 games for Atlanta.

You can see the full list of these pitchers at this link, and this link shows every pitcher drafted by the Braves to pitch at least once in the majors. Five of the names on the list are position players, making the list look longer than 169.

How many pitchers?

From the beginning, the Atlanta Braves decided to draft pitching and trade for everything else, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’ve drafted only 26 position players in the first round and taken a position player 1-1 twice, Bob Horner and Chipper Jones.

The Atlanta Braves selected 1436 position players in the last 59 years and signed 854, but only 124 played at least one Major League game.  

Chipper, Brett Butler, Dale Murphy, and Dusty Baker are the only drafted position players with over 2000 games; Butler was a 23rd-rounder, and Dusty a 26th-round pick. Freeman has 1982 games, Gant’s exactly 140 behind him, and Jermaine Dye’s another 70 back; Wes Helms sits in 25th, with 1212 games.

Chipper leads all drafted players with 85.3 rWAR as a Brave, with Freddie Freeman’s 59.7 in second. Brett Butler (49.7), Dale Murphy (46.5), Jason Heyward (41.3), and David Justice (40.6) are next, and it drops off pretty quickly after that. Austin Riley is in 16th place with 20.5 and should pass Jeff Blauser and Bob Horner this year.

You can view the complete list at this link.

Drafts create wonderful fantasies about superstars in the making, but over time, unexpected prospects emerge, and hot prospects vanish. The draft's a tease, and we love it.

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