Friday, December 27, 2019

Review: 30 years of Atlanta Braves #1 prospects and their careers

https://tomahawktake.com/2019/12/25/review-30-years-of-atlanta-braves-1-prospects-careers/3/
By Alan Carpenter, 12/25/2019

When it comes to dealing prospects, the best ones are always the most coveted.  It turns out that most of these Atlanta Braves' top prospects have turned out really well over the years.

The Atlanta Braves have enjoyed the benefits of an excellent farm system over the past 3-4 years and are now reaping those benefits.

We may soon be moving to a phase in which the Front Office deems it necessary to trade some of these minor league assets for major league talent, and therefore it's reasonable to ask:  how good could these guys be?

We'll look through some history today - the roster of the Atlanta Braves' best prospects over the last 30 years - to see how these players panned out.

TheBaseballCube.com site is going to be most helpful here in that they not only have those pre-season #1 prospects compiled from BaseballAmerica going back  for 30+ years, but they also indicate where those #1's ranked overall against the other prospects in their day... and that extra detail will prove useful.

In this day and age of analytics and almost universally available statistics, it's truly hard to keep secrets or to hide flaws in prospects. As we go back further into time, that statement becomes less true as teams were more reliant on scouting reports... and scouts can't be everywhere, so the variability of results can be a bit wild at times.

Still, there are modern instances of prospects seemingly 'coming out of nowhere':  Ronald Acuña is a prime example.  He was largely unknown outside of Braves' circles until about 2016 when he starting busting up the charts (he was 5th on our end-of-2016 rundown; by mid-2017 we had him at #1).


All that said, here's that list, along with the player's overall ranking that season:

Let's now break down some of the trends we can learn from this...

Jamie Squire/Allsport

An Impressive Record
Okay, what of this list?  First off, one thing is noteworthy:  every single player listed here eventually made it to the major leagues.

That fact might sound like something expected, but over a 30-year period of time, it's still notable that there have been no exceptions, including the lowest-ranked #1 prospect (Lucas Sims).

(You could even go further back than just 30 years:  BaseballCube's archives chart continues through 1983, and the same is true even back that far).

Some of those careers have certainly been better than others, and the Atlanta Braves have seen its share of both superstars and "4-A" performances:

-8 players on this list are still active - all of them except Riley at the major league level.

-There's 1 Hall of Famer (Chipper) and a near-HOF player (Andruw)

-Cardinal fans might argue that Wainwright should make the Hall, but a 162-95 record with no Cy Young awards (2nd twice) is going to be a hard sell despite a career 3.39 ERA.

-A vast majority of these #1's have had major league careers than spanned 10+ seasons... or will hit that milestone before they're done.

-Only Schafer, Sims, Marte, Hanson are those not getting that far (or not likely to).  Peraza is still unknown:  2020 will be his 6th ML season; Riley has just gotten started.  The deceased Tommy Hanson's career has to be considered under special circumstances.

-Marte and Sims have perhaps the weakest resumes at this point:  Marte saw 7 different seasons in the majors, but 308 games combined; Sims 47 games in 3 seasons, mostly in relief for the Reds thus far.

-In most cases, the overall MLB prospect ranking by Baseball America seems strongly indicative of future major league success... whether via outright production (either of the Jones') or via
sustained longevity (Chen, Klesko, Wainwright)

-Marte is perhaps the best/only example of an exception to that rule, ranking as high as 11th overall.

But what of today's prospects?

The Current Crop
Baseball America's pre-season 2019 list placed Austin Riley at #22 overall, but with pitchers Ian Anderson (24) and Mike Soroka (25) close behind.

Riley, of course, kept the streak of 'reaching the majors' intact with a big early debut in 2019.

As of right now, MLB Pipeline has Cristian Pache as their #1 Brave, with Drew Waters and Anderson the next pair.  Their reckoning puts this trio 11th, 23rd, and 31st overall.

BA was less bullish on Pache and Waters early this year, placing them 85th and 83rd respectively, so clearly this still isn't an exact science.  BA's rankings are a bit surprising, but there's still room for growth for both players and the site's consistently good results over these decades does suggest that they can be relied upon.

Looks like a good crop is ready to be harvested... whether by the Atlanta Braves or by some other club.

Baseball America's pre-season 2019 list placed Austin Riley at #22 overall, but with pitchers Ian Anderson (24) and Mike Soroka (25) close behind.

Riley, of course, kept the streak of 'reaching the majors' intact with a big early debut in 2019.

As of right now, MLB Pipeline has Cristian Pache as their #1 Brave, with Drew Waters and Anderson the next pair.  Their reckoning puts this trio 11th, 23rd, and 31st overall.

BA was less bullish on Pache and Waters early this year, placing them 85th and 83rd respectively, so clearly this still isn't an exact science.  BA's rankings are a bit surprising, but there's still room for growth for both players and the site's consistently good results over these decades does suggest that they can be relied upon.

The Point for Today
For 2020, you can expect Baseball America to dub one player from the group Pache/Anderson/Waters as the #1 Braves prospect... assuming, of course, that all are still in the organization.

Austin Riley will not be among them as he's no longer eligible, thanks to 80 games and 138 days of major league service time.

It's a reasonably tough call among that trio, and probably close enough that you could apply most of the history above to each player.

Thus, when a team trades top prospects like these, it's vital to know you're getting an impact player in return, for you're fairly certain to give up a player that will be useful for multiple seasons.

That's the rub when you're making deals to fill out spots that are intended to finish out a World Series contender:  it's a balance between the need to get that prize vs. knowledge that you will be losing something significant.

All this is being said and done because it's quite reasonable... and truly almost expected... that the Braves will attempt an 'impact' trade come January.  But realize no top prospect is going to be dealt on a whim:  there's going to be an expectation that the deal will be worth the expense.

That may not take away the short-term pain... but let's all hope that come next Christmas we'll all be getting World Series merchandise under the 2020 tree.



Ali H. Johnston, MBA in Real Estate




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