When it comes to Atlanta Braves prospects, few have done more to increase their stock than starting pitching prospect JR Ritchie. Not only did Ritchie show out in the 2025 Futures Game, but he has also just shoved all season long to put himself on the radar for a call-up in 2026. Now, after a tremendous 2025 season, Ritchie is starting to rack up the end-of-season accolades.
Baseball America is the gold standard when it comes to prospect coverage alongside MLB Pipeline as they actually, you know, watch prospects and look for actual intel instead of just scouting stat lines. Every year, they take a look at the prospects in each team's farm system and identify players that warrant special mention as the best of the best.
On Monday, BA named Ritchie as their Braves Minor League Player of the Year and honestly, it isn't really that close and BA was spot on here.
Case to put JR Ritchie in Braves' rotation gets even stronger after Baseball America names him their Minor League Player of the Year
Ritchie was simply fantastic all season long as he ascended multiple levels of the minor leagues to make it all the to Triple-A while ending 2025 with a 2.64 ERA across 140 innings of work. Coming off needing Tommy John surgery in 2023, Ritchie emphatically answered any lingering doubts of his durability this season with a clean campaign that had a similar workload to what one would expect to see him have in the big leagues.
At this point, the arguments to not give Ritchie an opportunity in the majors to start the 2026 season are getting to be few and far between. Ritchie had a strong case to be a September call-up this season, although there were at least some defensible reasons to not do that. With so many injuries to the Braves' pitching staff in addition to Ritchie showing out, he absolutely needs to be in the running.
Not only would giving Ritchie a chance mean that is one less arm Atlanta has to go out an add this coming offseason, but he is good enough to where Ritchie has a real chance of winning ROY and getting the Braves an extra draft pick in 2027. We'll see how he looks coming into spring training next year as that does matter, but Ritchie's is quickly becoming an important storyline for the Braves going forward.