Atlanta Braves and the 2022 draft: 10th round takeaways

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Robert Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball, announces the 20th pick Owen Murphy by the Atlanta Braves during the 2022 MLB Draft. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) /

Day 2 of the 2022 MLB Draft is complete, but are there any trends that the Atlanta Braves are showing us thus far?

10 rounds are done and the Atlanta Braves have made 12 selections with 10 more rounds to be finished up on Tuesday.

But what can we make of how things have progressed thus far… both for the Braves and for the rest of the league? What things stick out?

First off… a quick review of recent events.

The Braves Picks

Here are the players selected through the first 10 rounds. High-school players are marked with an asterisk (*):

Round 1, #20: Owen Murphy, RHP*
Round 1 CBP #35: JR Richie, RHP*
Round 2 #57: Cole Phillips, RHP*
Round 2 COMP #76: Blake Burkhalter, RHP
Round 3 #96: Drake Baldwin, C
Round 4 #125: David McCabe, 1B/3B/DH
Round 5 #155: Ignacio Alvarez Jr, 3B/INF
Round 6 #185: Seth Keller, RHP*
Round 7 #215: Adam Maier, RHP
Round 8 #245: Jackson Franks, RHP
Round 9 #275: Cory Acton, 2B
Round 10 #305: Andrew Keck, C

First: a word about the 4th pick — Blake Burkhalter (Auburn University’s closer in 2022).

A lot of discussions have come up about him being “the compensation for Atlanta’s loss of Freddie Freeman.”

That characterization is wrong on many levels, and this kid deserves the respect of being a wanted selection of the Atlanta Braves without being saddled with this kind of nonsense.

First off, the fact that Atlanta got an extra draft pick at that position does not “compensate” the team for losing Freeman. He’s an MVP-level talent and at the abstract level, no single draft pick can compare.

After all, suppose that the Dodgers had executed a trade with the Braves to receive Freeman. What kind of “compensation” would the Braves have expected in that circumstance?

If you want a reasonably close comparison, then look at the recent trades of Matt Olson, Mookie Betts, and Francisco Lindor to get an idea: multiple high-level prospects (or outright major league players) were involved.

Also, the Braves received the right to spend additional bonus monies thanks to getting this extra draft pick — just as they did with last week’s trade with the Royals. That further muddies the waters (no Drew Waters pun was intended there).

These are monies that don’t necessarily impact just one draft pick, but probably will help their ability to spend — and draft — more aggressively with other selections… not just pick 76.

So this isn’t about Burkhalter… it’s about a token acknowledgment that the team lost a great player and gets back a small level of compensation… but that has turned into Murphy, Richie, Phillips, Burkhalter… maybe even more.

Besides… the Braves themselves took care of their own need for compensation. That player’s name is Matt Olson.

Let’s move on to the draft itself…

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