2260 - 2026 Atlanta Braves Top 10 Prospects

The following players are discussed:

1. JR Ritchie (RHP)
2. Cam Caminitti (LHP)
3. Didier Fuentes (RHP)
4. Jose Perdomo (SS)
5. Tate Southisene (SS)
6. Alex Lodise (2B)
7. Briggs McKenzie (LHP)
8. Dure Hackenberg (RHP)
9. John Gil (SS)
10. Patrick Clohisy (OF)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning everyone. It is November eleventh, about nine point
fifteen in the morning. This is our Hot Prospects of
I guess, not of the week, but just our hot
prospects of the Atlanta Braves. I released that last Friday
for everyone. Our Patreon members got all twenty one players
in the system. Everybody else got the top ten. And

(00:23):
obviously we are the day following Drake Baldwin winning the
Rookie of the Year in the National League, and it's like,
you know, it's just I was thinking about it as
I was trying to figure out kind of how to
introduce the Atlanta Braves. But every time I go through
their system, I think, yeah, it's not that good. There's
always a couple three players that look promising, and those

(00:46):
couple three players always seem to make major contributions. I mean,
it is pretty impressive. Drake Baldwin was highly rated, as
was aj Smith's Shaver coming in Chavre looked great before
his elbow broke down on him. And obviously Drake Baldwin
was great the entire season and wound up as Rookie

(01:07):
of the Year. And then you just look through the roster.
Ronald Acunya one of the best players in the league
was a homegrown player. Austin Riley. You know, he's had
a rough couple of seasons, but you know, really showed
some flashes. Obviously homegrown. Ozzie Alby's I think he's way overrated.
He's only twenty eight years old, but he was homegrown.

(01:28):
Michael Harris has shown flashes and if he could just
learn to develop a little bit more plate patience, he
could be one of the better players in the league.
He was homegrown. And then they're pitching staff with Schwellenbach,
Strider and Waldroup listed, you know as three of the
top five starters all homegrown. And you can even argue

(01:49):
on Matt Olson's not homegrown, but Freddie Freeman was. And
if you remember, they flipped Friedman for Olsen, so you know,
you can free who they flipped for Olsen. Olson was
with Oakland, I can't remember, but they flipped somebody for Olsen,
and uh so that's you know, so Olsen was traded

(02:11):
for one for one. And so every time you think
the Brave system isn't very good, and you know, so
you look down and they've they've they're you know, more
than or half of their major league squad is homegrown players,
so they're doing something right. So maybe they don't have
you know, the kind of Griffins of the World or
the Hazers, Maza Maday, et cetera on their on their

(02:35):
minor league roster, but you know, there are some decent
players in This year, we've seen a few more positional
players start to pop up. Because the Braves have always
gone with a very pitching heavy draft. This is the
first year and five that they went with a positional player. First,
I don't like the positional player, but again, they seem
to overperform based on their draft pedigrees and based on

(02:59):
how I like a player, so they you have to
give it up to the Braves. They've done a really
good job at player development, and maybe they don't have
the most talented system compared to everybody else. I was
just looking at I don't rank the minor league systems,
but I looked at where MLB dot Com ranked the

(03:19):
Braves mid season ham twenty eighth, so that kind of
gets and mark my word, they will overperform with these
guys just because they seem to do it every year.
At the top of the list is JR. Richie let's
go to our So there's no Tier one Fantasy Impact
targets that AI Engine kind of put ups every all

(03:43):
the players are tier two or Tier three. He goes JR. Richie,
Cam Kenninett Caminetti, and Diego Torn's number three, which is interesting,
Jose Perdoma, John Giel, who I wrote Our Patreon members
know that I wrote about John Gil a lot this season.

(04:03):
So those are his top five guys, and you know,
we agree with JR. Ritchie and Cam Caminetti and then
he and I diverge a little bit. But at the
top of the list is JR. Ritchie. I think we
see him early in the season. I think it's just
a matter of when somebody gets hurt, and we always
know somebody is going to get hurt or underperformance, but
I think it's with the Brave, somebody will get hurt.

(04:26):
I think he's a number four, number three starter. He's
been around for a while, just slowly kind of working
through the system in and out with injuries. But it's
not a high strikeout guy, but he knows how to pitch,
and it's just one of those guys that you're going
to you know, you're going to look down in five
years and three see a three seventy five year a

(04:46):
guy with twelve to thirteen wins and maybe eight to
nine strikeouts per nine and just a really good, solid
pitcher and number three starter. He won't be a stud,
he won't be, you know, kind of a guy that
you're going to put at the top of the rotation.
But I think he's going to be really good and
just a guy that's going to be around for a
long time. Again, fastballs SIT's ninety three to ninety four,

(05:08):
maxing out at ninety six miles an hour. Cam Kennanetti Caminetti,
I think his uncle is Ken Camanetti back in the day.
He's got a lot more upside than Jay r Ritchie,
but also still in low way, lots of volatility still
left with the picture. But it was also the Braves

(05:31):
took a draft strategy of always drafting college level pictures,
but they really went with a young lefty in twenty
twenty four, and I think they got a good win
with Cam Caminetti. It's tough to say Cam and Cammanetti
together fastballs up to ninety seven and again ninety seven
up to with a right hander is really good and elite,

(05:53):
but you can. You can say that, but when you're
a lefty throwing up to ninety seven that's rare territory.
So you kind of should get get your attention when
you see a lefty thrown in ninety seven miles an hour. Yes, right,
it's fantasy. Managers should treat Caminetti as a long term investment.
I think he starts the season in High A. There's

(06:15):
a chance he gets to Double A next season, but
I still see that it's a couple a couple more
years in the minor leagues. I'm thinking twenty six and
twenty seven, where he's maybe this season coming up, it's
mostly High A. Maybe he spend six six starts or
something like that in Double A. Then in two thousand
and twenty seven it's probably the same kind of pattern

(06:37):
where it's you know, two thirds of a season in
Double A, and then when he gets up to Triple
A at the end of the season, then I start
I think, you start to look the countdown to him
being called up, and I think he's going to be
really good. So he is. I have to bring up
my my prospect list, and I will do that as
I'm talking to see where I have ranked cam Caminet

(07:00):
the d D or Frontes. We saw him in the
minor league, excuse me, the major leagues this season look
good before he got caught up, got rattled around a
lot when he a couple of starts that he made.
But I think he's probably going to be a back
of the back of the bullpen kind of guy. So

(07:21):
I think the upside is really a closer. It's a
big fastball up to ninety six miles an hour, really
really good sweeper. So you kind of liked that fastball
sweeper combination. He really doesn't have a change up, and
I think ultimately that's going to limit him to the
bullpen that it's a really really good arm. So should
he be at number three? And somebody else brought up maybe,

(07:41):
as my AI assistant said, maybe per Domo or Tours.
I got Tours way down there. I got tours is
number twelve, So that's a DSL guy. So the upside
is there with Touris, but I think Didier Frontes is
he gets a little bit of extra use for me
just because of his proximity to the major leagues. Jose

(08:05):
Prodoma is more of a famous guy at the moment
as opposed to somebody deserving a high ranking. He was
a five million dollar sign in twenty twenty four, which
I think made him the top guy in twenty twenty four.
I have to go back and look to see who
else was in that class, but it was, uh the

(08:29):
Rise in that in that class Starredy in double A.
Could he been in that class, Yeah, because the Risee
skipped the DSL and came straight to low Way. I
think the Rise was in that was in that class,
and I think he was a four or five million
dollar guy. I might have my my years off, but
I'm pretty sure the Rise was in that class. But anyway,

(08:51):
signed for five million dollars. Injured a little bit in
twenty twenty four, made his North American debut slash line
of two twenty three, two seventy five, two seventy so
that wasn't great, but he made pretty good contact at
nineteen percent, so I think there's good speed there. I

(09:13):
think he probably eventually moves off third base. So it's
a guy that's still kind of relying on his his
signing pedigree of five million dollars and he really has
not put it together yet. There's a lot of physical
immaturity still that I think get bigger and stronger. I
think once that happens, you're going to start to see
the game place. I think twenty twenty six is going

(09:34):
to be a critical year. If we see a guy
who's coming bigger and stronger and is starting to impact
the ball a little bit more in low way, then
we might have something. If not, then I think we
got to really start to downshift on them. Tate South
a Scene that was their first round pick this season.
Shortstop picked twenty second overall athletics, speed, good contact, and again,

(10:00):
as I write, it was the first positional player that
the Braves took number one overall in five years, which
I think is pretty telling. So just to give you
the ranks, Jair Ritchie is number eighty eight, Cam Camminetti
has won fifty three Ditty or Flint Days as two nineteen,

(10:21):
Perdomo's two sixty, and Seth is sent Southeast Scene is
too seventy one. Not Joe Alvarez still ranked in there,
so he is no longer eligible, so I will take
him out of the mix yet. So I have passed
my top five found rankings to a handful of people
as they said, haven't gone through and completely scrubbed the list.

(10:43):
Yet there's still some of those guys that are not
eligible anymore and should be taken out again. Not Choe
Alvarez another one of those guys that contributed to the
Braves this Season's not going to be a star probably
you know, an extra bat role type of player. But
he still made it up, which is great anyway, south
a Seine athletic. Their speed, there's good contact, there's not

(11:08):
a ton of power. I've got his fantasy see only
as a middle infielder. I think it's gonna take him
a couple three years to move through the system. But
the fact that he was only seventeen years old. And
there's a big philosophy about teams wanting to acquire, particularly
in the Rule four Draft, which is the amateur draft

(11:29):
that occurs in July at the All Star break, is
getting guys younger. The data suggest that they have a
tendency to develop better. Teams get a chance to get
them while they're young and break any kind of habits
they might be forming before they get to college or
a little bit older. Those habits are harder to break,

(11:49):
and you know, and they're less physically developed, so you
can get them on better nutritional programs and strength and
conditioning kind of programs earlier. So that's the kind of
fundamental philosophy about why you want to bring these guys
in as early as possible. And so south Asine seventeen
years old, so he's got a chance to really grow

(12:11):
into his tool. So I kind of like the player.
To me, it's is twenty second So if I can
get him in the middle to the back end of
the first second round, I would be probably pretty interested
in that. Alex Lowdce is a little bit more famous
than Tate south Ascene. He was actually taken with the
sixtieth overall pick. My good friend Hold on for a second,

(12:39):
my dog is barking. Okay, yeah, just the FedEx guy
delivering something. Sorry about that. So it's about Alex low
Dice went to Florida State, which is where my good
friend Bob king High went, so I'm sure he's seen
him a lot. Look at that slash nine three ninety four,
four sixty two seven five seventeen home runs. I didn't

(13:01):
put down the stolen basis, so it was pretty impressive.
He's already the Braves got him up to high A
didn't play all that well, but I think there's chance
for twenty home runs, five to ten stolen bases. Is
he going to hit an off That's what we don't know.
I mean, the swing can get a little bit long.
He does have trouble picking up spending and never like

(13:21):
to hear them, but that's just the reality. But you know,
a guy that you take maybe is a I call
a sneaky third round pick in a first year player draft. Yeah,
I kind of like that. So so again, two guys
that I might consider targeting South East Scene and Alex
LOWDCE in a fantasy draft. And I haven't said that

(13:42):
for a long time first year player draft. I haven't
said that in a long time. Spuds mackenzie otherwise known
as Briggs McKenzie. He's a left and a pitcher, projectable kids,
way over signed guy, drafting one hundred and twenty seventh round,
three million dollars to buy him at an LSU. And
again a little bit like if the Dodgers sign anybody

(14:03):
or trade for anybody, it should open your eyes. If
LSU decides to sign, particularly a pitcher to play for them,
that's a good science. That's a pitching factory down there.
They have really good they're one of the first major
programs to develop a pitching lab, so lots of analytics

(14:24):
driven processes there. Their school. Really overall, the Science and
Technology group contributes to that, to that pitching program and
to that pitching lab, so they spend a lot of
time and again developing, working with cameras and trying to
get guys to conditioning correctly and analyzing pitches, et cetera.

(14:48):
So if you see that, that's a big deal. So
I kind of like the pick here with Briggs McKenzie.
Now he's a kid, he's a long way off because
he's a high school kid. But again I see him
as a third round first year player draft picked up
one twenty seven. I don't think you need to get
him in the third round because in most first year

(15:08):
player drafts, unless you're a Patreon member or you're listening
to this podcast, most people are not going to have
heard of Briggs mackenzie because one twenty seven was that
a fourth or fifth round? Probably a fourth round. Did
I break down where he was selected? I didn't. But
the thing is he's got a long arm, sling kind
of in that Madison bump Gardener. I don't like that

(15:30):
because Madison Bumgardner was kind of the goat of that,
if you will, most hitters pick up stuff better when
you've got that arm, long arm swing, and sometimes you
have a tendency to have more injuries when you get
that long arm swing. But it is what it is,
and you know, you could see the Braves trying to
shorten them up a little bit, but usually those broad

(15:51):
mechanics like that, that's usually not changed unless it's just
not working. We even see with the other McKenzie. Oh,
the kid with the Nationals signed as a signed as
a padre, and Tim loves him, has them on all
these teams. He's got the really high leg kick and

(16:13):
when he was really struggling going through the minor leagues,
the padres tried to quiet him down on that very
high leg arch that he does, and he did to
a certain extent, but it's still his signature kind of look.
And the same thing is true with these long arm swings,
so teams will try to modify, but in essence, this
is the player. Somebody sent me a picture. I think

(16:36):
it was the pitching Ninja who put down the most
bizarre unusual pitching mechanics. Some kid in college that literally
almost does a backbend as he's throwing the pitch, and
you know, like, how does he repeat his delivery? He
claims he can't. I doubt he can. It's any kind
of muscle tweak or any kind of physicality issue. I mean,

(16:59):
he's going to be able to repeat that delivery. But see,
you do see a lot of these odd deliveries and
quirks that players have, and you just kind of have
to kind of work through that with them if you
decide to roster them. Okay, next guy is Drew Hackenberg
wrote about him, a lot heavy ground ball pitcher. Probably

(17:20):
number four ups started with some upside. I did miss
some time with a back injury. Needs to continue to
develop that third pitch and that change up, otherwise he's
gonna have to move to the bullpen. But yeah, I
mean a guy that's just he's a typical Braves pitcher
where decent stuff, not huge impact, But the guy that

(17:41):
will be a major leaguer and you could see him
sometime this upcoming season. Number nine and ten is John Giel,
who I wrote about a lot good defender starting to
hit the ball a little bit, harder, good runner. I've
added him a couple of leagues. I kind of like
the player a lot, but I think there's upside. Is

(18:02):
a middle endfielder, but I think there is a ceiling
middle endfielder with some upside. Wasn't a huge sign by
the Braves one hundred and ten thousand dollars out of
Columbia in twenty twenty twenty three, Right, Yeah, So I
think there's something here. And again I have personally added
him to a couple of dynasty leagues. I want to
see what happens. He did make it up to double

(18:25):
A at the end of the season. Again, good speed,
good defender at short and if he could just continue
to hit the ball harder, there could be something there. Speed.
Sir Patrick Clohesi outfielder again, another guy wrote about a
lot in our Daily Notes. Not a big guy, doesn't
have much power at all, but stole sixty bases and

(18:48):
seventy three attempts. So every organization has a Patrick Clohesi
in the ranks. I think Colohesi might be at the
Fall League this. I think that rings a bell. You
kind of comp these guys all to Jacob Marcy. Now right.
So Jacob Marcy was a speed guy, made pretty good
contact and then he got to the major leagues and

(19:09):
blew up. I don't know if it's going to stick
with Jacob Marcy. I hope it does. It's a good story,
but that's what you hope all these guys kind of
turn into that they have that they have that run
that Patrick. Excuse me that Jacob Marcy. I just wrote
about somebody in the Houston Astros system that kind of
comped to Jacob Marcy as maybe that would be the dream,

(19:30):
is that they add a little bit of depth and
strength and all of a sudden hit the ball harder
and kind of can turn into that a bit more
of a complete player. That is our top ten Again.
I encourage you if you want to get all twenty one,
I encourage you to join us at the Patreon site
Patrio n dot com. Forward Slash Prospect three sixty one.

(19:53):
Let me play us out here and I will come
back with our Patreon members and finish up the final
Levin take care of everyone. Mm hmm.