The Atlanta Braves and MLBPipeline: Do We Hate Their New Top 100?

Over the last week or so, we’ve been teased with top positional prospects and with Keith Law’s ESPN list of the Top 100 prospects.  How do the Braves fare with a new update from Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo?

There were some reactions to the last Top 100 list that came out of MLBPipeline, and Atlanta Braves fans pretty much let them have it.

It got so bad that this was a twitter response from their Jim Callis after a later comment that was somewhat complimentary:

That prior MLBPipeline list from the Summer looked like this:

• 91 – Mike Soroka
• 90 – Kevin Maitan
• 77 – Ian Anderson
• 61 – Kolby Allard
• 47 – Sean Newcomb
• 12 – Ozzie Albies
• 4 – Dansby Swanson

Seven Braves were on that list, but with a lot of ‘bottom weight’, suggesting that some of these guys were barely making the list.  4 of them are in the lower 50, and Newcomb was nearly a 5th.

Are we getting greedy as Braves’ fans?  Yeah – but it’s because we believe in our farm system and in the players that are part of it.

You could safely wonder if perhaps some of these chart makers are afraid to overload their results from some teams under the thinking that they would appear biased in one direction or another.

In Law’s latest update, nine Braves broke through to his new Top 100:

• 81 Sean Newcomb
• 77 Luiz Gohara
• 59 Kevin Maitan
• 52 Ian Anderson
• 50 Max Fried
• 36 Ronald Acuna
• 32 Kolby Allard
• 26 Ozzie Albies
• 2 Dansby Swanson

It’s very nice to see Max Fried and Ronald Acuna getting recognition, but I was a bit surprised that Ozzie Albies was “only” at number 26.

Kevin Maitan’s position is rightfully up for debate since hardly anyone has seen him play yet, but this 59 position is very strong for a debut from Law…. and five Braves in the Top 50 “feels” better, at least.

So that leads us to the new list from MLBPipeline.com…

MLBPipeline’s Top Braves

Tonight on the MLB Network, Callis and Mayo revealed their new Top 100.  Here are the Braves making the chart.

• 86 Ian Anderson / RHP (down 9 positions)
• 80 Sean Newcomb / LHP (down 33 spots)
• 78 Mike Soroka / RHP (up 13 spots)
• 53 Kolby Allard / LHP (up 8 spots)
• 32 Kevin Maitan / SS (up 58 spots)
• 11 Ozzie Albies / 2B (up 1 spot)
• 4 Dansby Swanson / SS (no change)

I will say this up front and clearly:  this is a bizarre list.

Callis and Mayo don’t rate either Fried or Luiz Gohara very highly at all – 11th and 12th on the Braves list at last word (that is also about to be updated) and truly ignore several other breakout candidates – among them Patrick Weigel, A.J. Minter, Travis Demeritte, and a bushel of additional pitchers.

In short, it’s literally and precisely the same list of names as before – with some minor shuffling other than a rocket move upward for Maitan.

So 7 Braves… and one of those will graduate from the list after Opening Day 2017.  The Yankees and Braves were tied with the most players in this Top 100, but it was still a bit underwhelming.

More Comparisons

It wasn’t just Keith Law’s ESPN list that got us jazzed this week.  Earlier this month, we had a another update.

Our minors watcher Ben Chase has this as his new Top 10 for the Braves:

• Swanson (#4 on his overall Top 125)
• Albies (#13 overall)
• Newcomb (#37)
• Allard (#41)
• Ronald Acuna (#44)
• Maitan (#48)
• Fried (#51)
• Anderson (#62)
• Soroka (#66)
• Gohara (#71)

Aggressive, but seems much more representative of the depth that Atlanta enjoys with its minor league system right now.

So what I see in the new MLBPipeline list is… nothing new.  They have not looked very far beyond what they had before and (excepting Maitan) made only modest improvements to the rankings overall for Braves – something that is essentially attributable only to the graduation of a few new major league players in the past 6 months.

Next: Will it be Frenchy?

So in short… yes Jim:  we still think you hate us.