Atlanta Braves: Shea Langeliers Showing Spring Polish
By Seth Carter
The Atlanta Braves top draft pick from last season is showing off his glove and his bat already this spring.
The Atlanta Braves have a line of talented catchers in the system, but that wasn’t enough to stop them from spending their first pick (ninth overall) of the 2019 draft on Shea Langeliers.
While he’s known for his glove according to most scouting reports, he is responsible for the greatest single-game offensive performance in NCAA playoff history.
Langliers slashed .289/.370/.521 over three NCAA seasons with Baylor. In 157 games with Baylor, he clubbed 41 doubles, 31 homers, and 124 RBI.
On Saturday Langeliers made a throw to second that raised some eyebrows.
Snitker said Langeliers' pop time on his throw to second in the eighth inning was 1.87. Per Statcast, Realmuto led MLB with an 1.88 average pop time on throws to second last year.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) February 22, 2020
Pop time is the time it takes from the moment the ball hits the catcher’s mitt to the time it reaches the intended target.
Last season, the average pop time in the major leagues was 2.01 seconds. Travis d’Arnaud was in the upper half of the league with a 1.99, while Tyler Flowers was 76th out of 78 in pop time with a 2.12.
Granted, you need to be accurate to throw out base runners, but it was exciting to see Langeliers display some of his already legendary defensive capabilities.
J.T. Realmuto led the league with an average pop time of 1.88. As Mark Bowman tweeted, Statcast clocked Langeliers’ pop time on that throw at 1.87 — it’s elite.
This pop time is par for the course for Langeliers. He has hit 1.7 pop times in practice and hit 1.8 in games during his sophomore season at Baylor.
The Bat
https://twitter.com/MLBPipeline/status/1232455271789674496
Langeliers hit the first homer of the Spring for the Atlanta Braves with the rocket in the video above.
He’s the top long-term option and the future isn’t that far away. Tyler Flowers is on a one-year deal and Travis d’Arnaud has two years on his deal.
If Langeliers shows he can handle the bat this year in the minors, we could be seeing Langeliers sooner rather than later.
For a player that was drafted for his glove, he has a lot to offer with the bat.
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Do you think Langeliers will be a middle-of-the-order bat as well as a Gold Glove defender?