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Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on OF Ray-Patrick Didder

By Benjamin Chase

Jun 22, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; A bat rests inside a baseball glove at an MLB game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 22, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; A bat rests inside a baseball glove at an MLB game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports /
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Jun 22, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; A bat rests inside a baseball glove at an MLB game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 22, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; A bat rests inside a baseball glove at an MLB game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports /

Ray-Patrick Didder may have turned more heads in 2016 than nearly any other Atlanta Braves prospect. Is there still more he could do?

Player Profile

The Atlanta Braves signed Ray-Patrick Didder out of Aruba before the 2013 season. An under scouted area, Didder was older than your typical Latin American prospect when he signed due to the lack of scouting in his home country.

To give an idea of how under scouted Aruba is, only 5 major leaguers have ever come from Aruba, and Xander Bogaerts this past season in his third full professional season took a substantial lead in career WAR over the next closest competitor, Sidney Ponson.

Didder came to the Atlanta Braves as an infielder, and for his first two minor league seasons, the Braves attempted to use him as a shortstop.

In 2013, he started his professional career in the Dominican Summer League, and he hit .259/.420/.289 with no home runs and 8 stolen bases, posting a 17.2% walk rate and a 18.9% strikeout rate.

In 2014, he moved up to the Gulf Coast League, and while still playing primarily at shortstop, he hit .274/.354/.376 with no home runs and 4 stolen bases, posting an 8.2% walk rate and a 17.9% strikeout rate.

Current Braves front office member Kiley McDaniel may have been the first person to really hit on Didder when he mentioned him before the 2015 season in his review of the Braves, saying he had the tools to stick at short, but was still raw in all phases.

The Braves decided instead to move Didder to the outfield, and it was very soon into that transition when I started making contacts in the minor leagues and among scouts that I started to hear raves about Didder’s defense in the outfield, no matter where the team put him in the outfield.

With advanced rookie Danville in the Appalachian League that season, Didder hit .247/.346/.332 with no home runs and 10 stolen bases, posting a 7.7% walk rate and a 19.7% strikeout rate.

In the 2015-2016 offseason, there were two guys I kept hearing better and better reports on, so I kept bumping them up farther and farther in my Braves top 100. One was Patrick Weigel, the other was Ray-Patrick Didder who I finished at #42 overall in the system going into 2016.

That definitely looks light now. Didder moved up to full season ball with low-A Rome, and he did nearly anything and everything you could ask – he played right field and center field both exceptionally, taking over the latter for most of the season when Ronald Acuna went down with injury, he hit for average, he flashed power, and he was a major threat on the bases as well.

In the regular season, Didder finished with a .274/.387/.381 line with 6 home runs and 37 stolen bases, posting an 8.8% walk rate and 17.5% strikeout rate. He then was a key cog in the Rome playoff run, hitting .292/.452/.375 over the two series with 3 stolen bases.

Next: Didder's scouting report

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