Tomahawk Take’s Top 20 Atlanta Braves Prospects: Just Missed

Tomahawk Take’s “Just Missed” Atlanta Braves Prospects

So, today’s post is probably a little anti-climatic. You got to see the top 5 of the list yesterday, and for many places, that’s the apex of their coverage. Instead, we at Tomahawk Take do one more day for you…

First, a few bits and pieces on the process – I started asking in early January for top 20 lists from the Tomahawk Take writers, and I had them start coming in fast and furious in the early part of February. After doing some tabulation, I put together our top 20 based on scoring the cumulatives of the top 30 lists. A few things I found interesting: first, a number of writers have differing views on including guys who spent a decent amount of time in Atlanta last season or have previous “professional” experience. For instance, Hector Olivera ranked 10th due to his overall score, but his average score on the lists he was placed on would have put him 3rd on the list. No other player had such a discrepancy from his total score to his average score. Second, there seemed to be some clear tiers in the TT writers’ eyes. Dansby Swanson and Sean Newcomb were heads and tails above all others, then there was a pretty significant drop before Aaron Blair and Ozhaino Albies were a single point apart (one of four such one-point differences on the list in placements), and there was a steady decline down to Max Fried at #13, after which there was a big drop in points down to Braxton Davidson and a gradual drop down from there. It was also interesting that some guys got left off lists entirely, yet ranked high, and others seemed to make every list, but down at the bottom, so they still ended up at the bottom of our top 20. Ryan Weber, for instance, only appeared on 3 lists, yet Rio Ruiz, who finished just one spot behind Weber in the rankings, appeared on 6 of our 8 lists.

In all, we had 30 players named on at least one list among the 8 writers who participated. I’d like to thank all the writers who did participate and especially those who took the time to write up pieces of this top 20 this week.

Next: Just Missed

Now we’ll focus on some guys who also deserve some attention in 2016. I’ve got them separated out into three pages coming up: “Just missed TT’s voting”, “Keep your eyes on in 2016”, and “On the horizon.” I hope you enjoyed the lists and keep coming back for more as we start next week a two-week series of scouting reports on minor league hitters, some featured in our top 20 and in this post, and some not, so there will be a good selection of player information about the minor leagues all the way up to opening day in Atlanta, when the focus will turn on the big league club – at least until I can turn my focus on to live game action in the minors!