Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Top Prospects Getting Ink

Keith Law and MLBPipeline are both rolling out their lists of the best prospects in baseball… and it only serves to confirm what we already know about the job the Atlanta Braves are doing.

Tis the season for rankings, and ESPN’s Keith Law and MLBPipeline.com are both in the midst of their efforts, with BaseballAmerica.com to reveal theirs soon. Atlanta Braves prospects are getting some solid press from these lists, too.

ESPN has their reports hidden behind a pay wall, but some of our friends have graciously revealed some of their rankings for us. In their case, it’s a Top 100 reveal for all teams, and thus far Law have only written up players ranked from 71 to 100 on his list.

That said, the Braves are getting some recognition.

Keith Law/ESPN

Last week, Law gave the Braves a #1 rank for their total farm system. He didn’t cite any particular rankings at that time, but the appearance of this pair in these positions suggests that there will be very high scores for several Braves farmhands still to come.

For certain: Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies will be near the top of his list – even as Swanson should ‘graduate’ from the prospect ranks on Opening Day 2017. But the rest?

One hint from Law was that “Ian Anderson… couldn’t even crack their top six”. So he’s probably the seven-best on the list… with Gohara and Newcomb perhaps coming in at 8th and 9th… maybe 9th and 10th?

If so, that would be extraordinary to place so many among the MLB elite. We will see how that shakes out in the next few days… Law’s Top 100 series runs through Jan 28.

MLB Pipeline

Braves’ fans have been having a running feud with Jim Callis, though perhaps he and colleague Jonathan Mayo are starting to come around a bit.

This week, they are ranking the Top 10 by position. Thus far, the reveal has been for Southpaws, Right-handed pitchers, Catchers, 1st basemen, 2nd basemen, and today 3rd base.

Braves represented thus far are:

Austin Riley, 3B (8th)

They don’t say a lot about Riley, but give praise to his arm (former pitcher, so – yeah) and power potential, noting 17 homers over the last half of his year at Rome.

>> Rafael Devers (Red Sox) and Nick Senzel (Reds) are the top 2 in their 3B list.

Kolby Allard, LHP (4th)

The expectation is that this is the year in which the Braves actually let Allard go out and cut it loose without restrictions…. for the full year. They did so in the Summer, and he responded well. Now he’ll have a full season to build on that and we should all be able to see what he’s really got.

Sean Newcomb, LHP (9th)

He has dropped on several lists… partly due to an influx of new talent, partly due to the wait for him to find that elusive command. Nonetheless, he’s still on the cusp and the team is still hopeful.

>> First pair on this list was Josh Hader (Brewers) and Jason Groome (Red Sox).

Ozzie Albies, 2B (2nd)

Noting that he could easily have been near the top of the SS list, we all know why Albies is currently a second baseman. He’ll have plenty of arm and range at second, and in my own witness of his play, seemed like a natural there.

Travis Demeritte, 2B (5th)

Clearly a happy problem to have – so many premium middle infielders coming quickly. MLB Pipeline suggests that a move to third base could be in the offing, but this will be something to pay close attention to this season.

Meanwhile, it’s looking like Demeritte’s bat will play – fewer strikeouts would be great, sure, but first, let’s just see how he fares during a full Southern League season… in a pitcher’s park.

>> Yoan Moncada was their #1 pick at this position.

Further Review

More from Tomahawk Take

Jonathan Mayo used a mailbag session to discuss some names that failed to make their Top 10 list for left-handed pitching… mostly and specifically Max Fried.

"I get it. Fried still has a tremendous amount of upside. And yes, he had a tremendous second half, punctuated by a great playoff run as part of that very deep Rome rotation that led that team to the South Atlantic League title. Rest assured, Fried will work his way onto that list at some point in 2017. But keep in mind that last year was the first time he had pitched in two years and he’s yet to pitch above A ball. Again, not taking anything away from the former first-rounder. I’m a believer. I think we all just want to see what he does as he moves up."

Kolby Allard threw to a 3.73 ERA in 60 Rome innings last season. Fried went 3.93 in 103.

For that matter, Mike Soroka had a 3.02 in 143 innings and didn’t get a sniff on the rankings… nor did Patrick Weigel‘s 2.51 in 129, or Touki Toussaint‘s 3.88 in 132.

All of these guys struck out batters at a rate right around 1 per inning (Soroka’s 125 in 143 IP perhaps the lowest rate) and only Touki had excessive walks (71). Fried had a few more than you’d like to see (47), but wasn’t getting hit, either (87 hits).

Frankly, it’s hard to separate these guys…but having no other pitchers listed is a bit tough to figure.

This was a heckuva staff at Rome last year… no matter how you slice it. Hopefully they all move to Kissimmee and start terrorizing the Florida State League. At some point, the rankings won’t make a difference – particularly if they’re in the major carving up hitters.

Then we’ll know.

Next: How To Wait...

Until then, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that some of these guys are kept under wraps. The only problem with that is this: Baseball people already know about them.

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