Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Pache is hitting, but not driving

There’s still some other baseball going on right now, and you can be sure that the Braves are paying attention to it.

The annual festivities known as the Arizona Fall League are well under way and several of our Atlanta Braves‘ farm hands are showing what they can do against some better competition.

Atlanta and 4 other clubs contributed players to the Peoria Javalinas. As of this writing, Peoria has the best record of the 6 AFL teams at 10-6 – already leading the Western division by 3 full games.

Last year, it was Ronald Acuna Jr. lighting up the league. This year the Braves have a couple of noteworthy outfielders playing: Isranel (Izzy) Wilson and Cristian Pache.

Izzy – Ben’s #22 prospect on his Braves’ list – has been struggling a bit, hitting .235 thus far, but that’s over just 17 AB.

But it’s Pache that I want to highlight here.

In Saturday’s win (11-5) over Salt River, Pache went 2 for 5 with a triple and a run scored. This brought his average for the Fall back up to .300 over a nice sample of 50 AB.

In those 50 AB, Pache has walked 3 times and K’d just 8 times (16%), which is right about what you’d like to see… a shade lower on K’s than his 2018 numbers and a single walk off his fairly meager walk rate.

The question about Pache, Ben’s #3 ranked prospect, has never been about his glove… it’s all been about the bat. At the A+ and AA levels, he hit .279, and thus it’s a good sign that he’s exceeding this out in the desert.

Power Outage?

The question now may be about how much the Braves care about power.

While he lashed 23 doubles and 6 triples in “regular” minor league action, the 9 homers he hit was a milestone… they were first homers he’d actually hit as a Brave since coming stateside in 2016.

Oh, did I forget to mention that he won’t be 20 years old for another 3 weeks?

However, that power hasn’t really materialized yet in Arizona.

Of Pache’s 15 hits, there’s just 2 doubles thus far and Saturday’s triple. Nothing out of the park. All of that hitting is good, but it leads to an OPS rate of just .720 right now.

More from Tomahawk Take

That might be good enough for a future lead-off singles hitter, though that’s not been how he’s been utilized for the most part – and it might not ultimately be his game.

All of this seems to suggest that Pache could see another season starting at the AA level… and see if that allows him time to fill out and find the power alleys.

Pache’s glove will get him to the majors – but we’d like to see him do so as a gap hitter as well.

The fangraphs’ scouting report suggests a current power level of 20 (the bottom of scouting ranks) with a projected future level of 45 (just below average… but serviceable).

His speed, glove and arm all scout out “plus-plus” and maybe even another “plus”: 80, 80, and 70 respectively. You truly can’t get better than that.

Next. Still awaiting that next pitching coach. dark

Happily, the Braves still have some time to see those “hit” and “power” tools develop. In the meantime, even AFL pitching hasn’t figured him out just yet.

Home/Braves News