Joey Terdoslavich to AAA, Christian Bethancourt to AA

After putting up impressive Springs Joey Terdoslavich and Christian Bethancourt have found out where they will be starting their respective regular seasons. Bethancourt will be going to Double A Mississippi as most of us expected but Terdoslavich will be making the jump from high A to Triple A in Gwinnett.

The move may surprise some people and I definitely wasn’t expecting it, but it does make some sense. Terdo was 2 years older than most of the people in high A and Chipper Jones will be playing his last season with the Braves. The organization is hoping that Joey will be able to adjust to the hot corner defensively and as well as handle the toughest pitching he will have ever faced for an entire season.

If all works out the way it is planned, the 23 year old 3B/1B/OF will be ready to play third in the bigs at the start of 2013. There is no other explanation to this move unless the team feels that he could help out offensively on the bench at some point this year.

It is an interesting idea, to have him on the bench but he definitely needs to see some good pitching before he earns a spot on the major league roster.

Christian Bethancourt will hopefully continue to develop offensively in Mississippi and by the end of the year we should have a good idea of where he stands. Double A will be his first real challenge and if he succeeds here we could have another great catcher on the rise.

Another prospect you will want to watch for is Edward Salcedo. His stock dropped a lot this past year but he was once the player who was supposed to take over after Chipper left. He has been the ‘prospect’ while Joey came out of nowhere to steal his thunder. It would be better for the team if Salcedo was able to figure it out because he is a more natural third baseman, and Terdo could help to fill the abyss that is our organizational outfield depth.

It’s a big year for prospects, some of which could have a big impact on the major league team sooner rather than later.