The Atlanta Braves continue to see strong opinions about their pitchers in their minor leagues
In their minor league system, the Atlanta Braves have prioritized pitching, and it’s starting to pay off.
As we recently talked about a few days ago, since 2018, Atlanta has allocated more bonus pool space—more than any other organization—to pitching, with over 60% of total bonus pool funds going to arms. And it’s probably been a success because Atlanta has benefited from trade assets like Ryan Cusick, Joey Estes, and Kyle Muller as well as major league pitching in the form of Spencer Strider and Bryce Elder.
Prospect rankings also reflect this emphasis on acquiring pitching, with a large number of Atlanta’s top prospects projected to be starters in the future.
FanGraphs released their top prospect rankings for the Braves on Thursday. Right-handers Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver were named two of Atlanta’s Top 100 prospects. Both of them received Future Value “50” grades on the 20-80 grading scale, which indicates a floor as a #4 starter in the major leagues. You can learn more about FanGraphs’ grading system.
FanGraphs notes that Smith-Shawver is still holding plenty of projection because he’s so new to pitching, having only completed two years as a full-time baseball player since being drafted out of high school. This is similar to our analysis when we debated Smith-Shawver vs. Waldrep for the organization’s #1 prospect.
They have some excellent observations about some of the mechanical changes Atlanta has made to Smith-Shawver. For example, they have changed his release point to obtain more horizontal movement on his slider, and they have modified his toolkit while he has been in the minor leagues to concentrate on improving his slider and subsequently his curveball.
When you consider that Smith-Shawver is now functioning as a “sum of his parts” pitcher rather than having developed his secondary alternatives to be plus or better offerings, the success he has already demonstrated is even more amazing. They have him ranked #1 in the system because of the alluring bundle.