Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: have patience with a couple of top prospects

On paper, the Mississippi Braves are loaded with top prospects.  On the field, some of that talent is translating well to performance, but not all of it.

This last weekend, the Atlanta Braves AA minor league affiliate from Mississippi made its closest orbital approach to me, and so I decided to meet them halfway… in Birmingham.  There were some surprises.

As an aside, the Mississippi Braves made some news on Sunday when they added Jasseel De La Cruz to its roster – immediately after he no-no’d the A+ Jupiter Hammerheads (Marlins affiliate).

Now it’s probably necessary to note that De La Cruz’s promotion was earned even apart from the no-hitter:  he’s had ERA’s of 2.50 and now 1.93 at both levels he’s pitched at this season, but more importantly he is also showing command:  2.25-to-2.50 walks per 9 innings.

That’s what earned him this 2nd callup… not just by beating up a hapless Marlins affiliate into submission (they are 13-28 on the year as of this writing).

Either way, he’s part of things still to come for the M-Braves… and I didn’t see him pitch, but it’s still worth a mention.

Saturday’s game

Mississippi’s offense has been coming generally from just 2 sources – Cristian Pache and Drew Waters.

1B Ryan Casteel is the only other hitter with an OPS over .800. Their next-best contributors (Tyler Neslony and Connor Lien) are both in the .700’s and both on the injured list right now.

I was therefore looking forward to seeing Waters and Pache hit.

They went a collective 0 for 9 on the night.  We will discuss this.

The M-Braves’ defense is outstanding:  the infield up the middle is excellent, but the outfield probably features the best defensive trio you could find below the major league ranks (and even including many of those) with Waters (LF), Ray-Patrick Didder (CF), and Pache (RF).

Offensively, though… let’s look at the headliners…