Atlanta Braves prospects Q and A with Kiley McDaniel

Atlanta Braves prospects are lighting up spring training and giving fans hope for another division title and a World Series visit. This is a good time for my promised follow-up on my Q&A session with ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the prospect Q&A with Kiley McDaniel.  At that time, I had to work from notes.  What follows are the details from the transcript. I edited out some of the repetitive comments and unnecessary words (so, like, half-sentences he reworded, etc.) to make it easier to read.

I’ll interject now and then, separated by (ED) so it’s easy to see who’s speaking. I began by asking about the Atlanta Braves’ twin centerfield prospects.

Q: . . .we have Cristian Pache coming up, and he’s going to be our center fielder this year . . . On the other hand, everybody is happy about Drew Waters.  I get (hear) mixed feelings about him. Some people really love him; some people say he’s just going to air-condition ballparks. Where do you see Drew Waters in this process? Is he going to be as good or as good as Pache . . . ?

"Kiley McDaniel: I have reservations about both of them. Pache, I think his floor is basically like a decent everyday guy like Kevin Pillar. . . speed and defense and can hit a home run off of a mistake . . . That’s kind of what he is right now. He could also be a five, six-win perennial All-Star if he kind of puts it together. (There’s) a big gap there, but . . . he is going to be an everyday guy. So I think you’re right to sort of feel some optimism there, that he’ll be some version of better than Inciarte essentially. Waters it comes down to . . . his pitch selection . . .when you talk about is he going to be good, is he going to have a good hit tool. And then the hit tool for him. . .speed and plate coverage and raw power. All those elements are there, which is why he was a 19-year-old center fielder in Triple-A that was hitting the ball harder than almost anyone else in the league in terms of the frequency of hitting it hard. . . . that’s pretty much everything you can ask for (because) high schoolers are still that age and he’s in Triple-A hitting Big League pitching. This issue . . .  and this has come up with Lewis Brinson . . . as an example of where it didn’t work out. Acuña had this issue about a month and then figured it out. I was concerned (about) Luis Robert . . . and it took him a month or two to figure it out. It’s basically are you physically talented enough to swing at too many pitches but still figure it out and do what you are supposed to do in terms of reaching the ceiling. Waters is obviously somewhere between Luis Robert and Acuña at the very top of the scale of physical skills, . . .then Lewis Brinson is . . .in the area where it’s like this guy has really got to improve his pitch selection and might never figure it out as a result. I think Waters is like a little north of Brinson but not that far, and maybe he settles as like Starling Marte where it’s like a really good, above-average everyday player, but never quite gets as good as he could (be). . . Alex Rios is another example of this. This is (who) he’s like, and only one of them I gave you was actually bad. So I think he has a similar floor as Pache. (he’s) Not as a speed and defense . . .fringe to solid everyday player . . . he might go on bad streaks. He might not get to all of his power, but he has a chance to have five plus tools . . . . . . (his) ceiling is really high and the floor isn’t that low, but there’s still a big gap for guys in Triple-A similar to Pache. (But he has a)  different sort of concern."