GM John Copollella’s protestations notwithstanding, pretty much everyone knows the Braves are not a good baseball team. All of those vets-for-prospects trades over the past two years and miscalculations on replacements have left the roster lacking.
It's also obvious that the Braves truly have restocked their farm system. Baseball America now ranks the Braves' system No. 3 in baseball after it was 29th in 2015 and 26th in 2014. ESPN's Keith Law ranks the Braves' system No. 1 after it was No. 6 in 2015 and No. 22 in 2014. Already you can see the potential with recent arrivals Mallex Smith, Matt Wisler, Mike Foltynewicz and Aaron Blair.
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Yet there are some reasons to view the hype with a bit of skepticism, and not just because most top prospects don't pan out . For one, there's a theme that Baseball America's analysts keep coming back to when talking about Braves prospects: risk.
During a chat Wednesday, Baseball America's Ben Badler answered a question about the bevy of Braves pitching prospects who are struggling with their control:
"For better or worse, that's been their approach: Collect a bunch of high-risk, high-reward arms and hope they can develop their weak points to have some of them break through and reach those ceilings, even if most of them won't work out. That's why I prefer an approach like the Cubs where you're building the farm through premium hitters who have high upside and less risk, but with the Braves, they at least have a high volume of those risky pitching prospects to give them more opportunities to hit on those players, even if a lot of them don't ever break through."
Badler’s allusion to the Cubs’ model brings me to another potential weakness of the Braves’ system: lack of power. Aside from Freddie Freeman, the big-league Braves don't have much power and there doesn’t seem to be much help on the way from the minors any time soon.
Current G-Brave Rio Ruiz is supposed to be that kind of player but he's not showing it so far. Other top Braves prospects projected to have big-league power are in the low minors: Austin Riley (Single-A Rome), Braxton Davidson (High-A Carolina), and Lucas Herbert (Rome). Law cites two other Braves power prospects who are just starting their careers, Christian Pache and Isranel Wilson, and Braves international signing target Kevin Maitan is said to have switch-hitting power .
The Braves’ system is overflowing in pitching prospects and part of their plan is to flip some of them for position players down the line if necessary. That’s one way to acquire power hitters. But the tricky thing with that is power hitters are nearly as valuable as good starting pitchers. So even if those risky prospects pan out and the Braves’ system turns out a lot of good big-league pitchers, they'll have to give up a lot to get proven home-run hitters.
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