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This year’s top prospect list looks completely different from recent years and is a million miles from the embarrassingly loaded lists following the organizational rebuild of the mid-2010s. Team president Alex Anthopoulos has raided the farm over the last two seasons to fuel important trades for first baseman Matt Olson, catcher Sean Murphy, reliever Joe Jiménez and a handful of others. Combined with the wildly successful promotions of Rookie of the Year Michael Harris II and runner-up Spencer Strider and you have a prospect group that is ranked last or near last among major league organizations by every national publication.
That said, different doesn’t mean empty. This year’s list is simply headed by much younger, less-proven talent than in recent years. As this talent matriculates and hopefully proves itself, it’s likely some of that young talent will gain in reputation and elevate evaluators opinions of the group as a whole.
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Or the Braves could trade a bunch of these guys for major league talent. Really could go either way.
Changes From 2022
From the most recent prior list, updated midseason, we had #2 Bryce Elder and #3 Vaughn Grissom graduate off the list following Harris, Strider, and reliever Dylan Lee from the 2022 pre-season list. In addition, the following prospects from that list have left the organization this offseason:
- #1 Kyle Muller, #4 Freddy Tarnok, and #40 Justin Yeager were traded to the Oakland A’s for C Sean Murphy
- #13 William Woods was designated for assignment and claimed by the New York Mets
- #15 Indigo Diaz was traded to the New York Yankees for LHP Lucas Luetge
- #22 Jasseel De La Cruz signed as a minor league free agent with the Oakland A’s
- #24 Justyn-Henry Malloy was traded to the Detroit Tigers for RHP Joe Jiménez
- #41 Odalvi Javier signed as a minor league free agent with the Washington Nationals
- #33 Corbin Clouse, #36 Brandon White, and #37 Thomas Burrows are unsigned minor league free agents
If they were still in organization, Muller would remain #1 on the new list, Malloy would have leapt up to #2, Tarnok would have been #7, and unranked Royber Salinas, included in the Murphy trade, would have been #10.
Debuting on this list is our new #1 and #2, righties Owen Murphy and J.R. Ritchie fresh off being selected in the first round of the 2022 amateur draft. Second-rounder Cole Phillips enters the list at #6, while fourth-rounder Drake Baldwin starts out at #14. Behind him is right-hander Adam Maier at #15, infielder Ignacio Alvarez at #20, righties Blake Burkhalter and Seth Keller at #21 and #22 respectively. In the back-half of the list are new draftees Noah Williams (#35), David McCabe (#41), and Kevin Kilpatrick (#43).
The most recent international signing period brought three new entries to the list and to the organization with outfielder Luis Guanipa leading the charge all the way up at #11 with fellow outfielders Carlos Monteverde and Jhon Estevez at #28 and #36.
Preview for 2023
The place for prospect watching looks like to be low-A Augusta with Murphy and Ritchie likely to headline the rotation and #10 Ambioris Tavarez at shortstop. High-A Rome won’t be too far behind with the possibility of #5 A.J. Smith-Shawver in the rotation and Quintero, Baldwin, and Alvarez in the line-up.
Mississippi may once again have a lot of familiar faces, and with high-level pitching depth still a relative strength there could be some pitchers there that would normally be in AAA. Gwinnett’s whole pitching staff could challenge some major league squads.
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