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TomahawkTake’s Mid-Season Top 30 Atlanta Braves Prospects – the Ranked List

By Alan Carpenter

Feb 22, 2016; Port St. Lucie, FL, USA; New York Mets relief pitcher Akeel Morris (64) throws during spring training work out drills at Tradition Field. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 22, 2016; Port St. Lucie, FL, USA; New York Mets relief pitcher Akeel Morris (64) throws during spring training work out drills at Tradition Field. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /
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Feb 22, 2016; Port St. Lucie, FL, USA; New York Mets relief pitcher Akeel Morris (64) throws during spring training work out drills at Tradition Field. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 22, 2016; Port St. Lucie, FL, USA; New York Mets relief pitcher Akeel Morris (64) throws during spring training work out drills at Tradition Field. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

It was tough to sort these guys out, but we came up with a consensus list among us of the most promising 30 Atlanta Braves prospects for 2016.

I won’t reiterate everything said from Friday when we rolled out the Honorable Mentions list.  If you’d like to see that (which includes the scope of this ranking and how we scored it), then click over here to that prior post.

Otherwise… let’s dig right in:  our 2016 Top 30  Atlanta Braves of the future!

One reminder note:  this took a few days to put together, so active stats will have changed a bit here and there, especially for the position players.  Don’t beat me up over that.

Prospect Rankings 21-30

30. AKEEL MORRIS

  • 23 years old, 6-1/195, RHP
  • International signee of the Mets in 2010; from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
  • Acquired in the second Kelly Johnson trade with the Mets; Mets fans were not pleased.
  • Has 1 game of major league experience – didn’t end well, but has electric stuff (~12 K/9 on average); needs to cut down on the walks (~6 per 9).
  • AA/Mississippi
  • 2.78 ERA in 23 innings over 18 appearances.

Note:  yes, he was actually on this list before we found out that he’d been promoted!  Congrats to Akeel for getting back to the majors.  You think that the Mets are gritting their collective teeth that we got him for Kelly Johnson while they tried and failed to get Jim Johnson?

TIE 28-29. LUCAS HERBERT

Fun fact: there are now 3 notable Braves prospects named Luke or Lucas.

  • 19 years old, 6-1/195, Catcher
  • Round 2 draft pick (#54 overall) of the Braves, shortly after having taken classmate/batterymate Kolby Allard
  • A/Rome
  • Struggling to hit in his first full-season league: .184/.230/.285/.515 with 6 HR in 334 PA over 84 games. That should improve.
  • Known for field leadership and defense as well.
  • Full scouting report

TIE 28-29. BRETT CUMBERLAND

  • 21 years old, somewhere between 5-11/205 and 6-0/188, Catcher
  • Round 2 draft pick in 2016 draft out of Cal/Berkeley
  • PAC-12 player of the year
  • A/Danville
  • .231/.321/.385/.706 thus far with 3 homers, 9 doubles.
  • Projects to be a ‘hit first’ catcher with average defensive abilities.
  • With both of these catchers (Cumberland and Herbert), our writers were a bit divided on their ceilings, with rankings ranging from about 22nd to 30+

27. LUKE DYKSTRA

  • 20 years old (21 in November), 6-1/195, Middle Infielder
  • 7th round draft pick of the Braves in 2014 (Westlake HS, CA)
  • A/Rome
  • Lenny Dykstra made a pretty solid career with limited power (though he hit 19 HR in one season) while hitting in the high-200’s, stealing a bunch of bases and generally just getting on base a lot. His son is dong exactly that.
  • .300/.335/.385/.720 at all minor league stops so far with 17 steals in 183 games. K-rate is excellent at under 10%, though walk rate is limiting his OBP.
  • Defense seems solid at well. Now hitting .304/.332 at Rome. Should go to Carolina next Spring.

26. RICARDO SANCHEZ

  • 19 years old, 5-11/170, LHP
  • International signee of the Angels; acquired via the trade for Kyle Kubitza in early 2015.
  • Fangraphs scouting grades highlight his curve with an overall 50 rating
  • Patience will be the key here, though improvement is being seen
  • A/Rome
  • 97 innings, 5.20 ERA, 1.44 WHIP. 82 K/44 walks. That represents a consistent reduction in walk rates since 2014. Location and command will be important.
  • Many (if not most) prospect watchers have Sanchez ranked higher; as a group, we are still a bit pessimistic on the command, though he still has plenty of time to sort that out. Meanwhile, others with high upside and less risk have filled in spots above him now.

Curious thing happened on Friday afternoon (8/12):  Kyle Kubitza became a Brave again… claimed on waivers from Texas.  So the Angels have nothing left from this deal that gave us Ricardo Sanchez (they had sold Kubitza to Taxes in June).

Kubitza, a third baseman by trade, is still a ‘rookie’ with 19 major league games of experience, but will not crack our lists here.

25. BRAXTON DAVIDSON

  • 20 years old, 6-2/230, OF/DH
  • First round pick in 2014 (#32 overall) via TC Roberson HS, Asheville, NC
  • A+/Carolina
  • A bit of an enigma still, but we have to continue to remind ourselves that he’s still just barely 20 years old.
  • Ben has documented a major cause for issues this season (see scouting link below); it’s something he’s finally working out of at the season winds down.
  • The power in his hitting is there; the question will be whether the hit-for-average tool will come as well. Very patient at the plate with high OBP, but also with some scary strikeout rates (spiked 34% this season, partly for reasons Ben described).
  • .226/.342/.379/.721 at Carolina w/10 HR, 23 other XBH; numbers have generally been consistent across levels
  • Full scouting report

24. A.J. MINTER

  • Nearly 23 years old, 6-0/205, Southpaw Closer
  • 2nd round pick of the Braves in 2015; Texas A&M
  • Here is where our individual relief pitcher biases bubbled to the surface. Minter had ranking votes among our crew everywhere from 11th to ‘out of the Top 30’. This is, again, largely because of the disparate value that we place on relief pitchers as part of their limited role. In the case of Minter, it’s also a factor of how close to Billy Wagner or Craig Kimbrel a voter might believe his ceiling lies. Personally, I tried to balance those views in my own votes and put Minter at 16th… this position is probably a decent compromise between all viewpoints.
  • All that said, this kid is tearing up the minors. He’s already been at 3 different levels this season and hasn’t really been slowed down yet.
  • AA/Mississippi
  • Across all levels: 0.32 ERA in 24 appearances. 28 innings. 11 hits, 6 BB, Thirty-Nine strikeouts. 0.607 WHIP. Averaging nearly 2K per inning at AA… with only 1 walk.
  • I’m kinda drooling at the possibility of RH Shae Simmons and LH Minter at the back end of the 2017 Atlanta Braves’ bullpen.

UPDATE:  MLBPipeline added Minter as the 30th-best prospect for the Braves on Friday.  We do think a bit better of him than that.

23. CHRIS ELLIS

  • close to 24 years old, 6-4/190, RHP
  • Round 3 selection of the Angels in 2014 from Hoover, AL (just south of Birmingham) via Ole Miss
  • Acquired along with Sean Newcomb in the Andrelton Simmons trade
  • AAA/Gwinnett
  • Was promoted from AA Mississippi after strong first half (2.75 ERA in 79 innings).
  • Has had difficultly adjusting to AAA: generally has been either very good or very bad (earned runs in 10 AAA outings: 0, 6, 1, 2, 8, 0, 2, 1, 5, 5). Has not gotten into the 6th inning with Gwinnett as yet; managed 7 innings twice while at Pearl.
  • 6.64 ERA, 1.97 WHIP, BAA .288 in ~41 innings at AAA; again, much better at AA. Another season at AAA would get him deeper into games and add consistency.

22. MAX POVSE

  • Nearly 23 years old, 6-8/185, RHP
  • Round 3 draft pick of the Braves in 2014 (102 overall) out of UNC/Greensboro
  • Name is pronounced ‘Posey’
  • Promoted from Carolina to Mississippi a month ago; stats are actually better now
  • AA/Mississippi
  • 91 K, 17 BB at Carolina; 26/5 at AA with a 2.65 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP in 37 innings. Has remarkably consistent outing durations between 5 and 7 full innings throughout the year (exceptions: one 3.2 inning stint; one nearly 8 innings).
  • Another “where does he fit on the list?” guy.  Some of us ranked Povse as high as 10th in this list (myself included), while a couple didn’t have him in the top 30. Certainly, he’s an under-the-radar name, but if he can maintain this kind of performance for the rest of the year, then AAA is almost a given with a shot at the Atlanta rotation not too far behind that.

21. ROBERT WHALEN

  • 22½ years old, 6-2/220, RHP.
  • Mets draftee from Round 12 in 2012. Born in Pennsylvania, but plucked from Haines City HS (FL).
  • Major league debut this month, nearly skipping AAA.
  • Atlanta Braves
  • 101 innings at AA: 2.49 ERA with lots of ground-outs; keeps ball in the park
  • 3 starts at AAA: 1.93 ERA with very consistent K/BB numbers 8.3/3.3 ratio
  • Walks burned him during debut start (though he got the Win); was better at Milwaukee on Monday
  • Likely will be optioned back to Gwinnett once Teheran or Gant come back, but he’s earned future shots… definitely on everyone’s radars now.

Next: 11 Through 20

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