The Braves have started to build out depth in the system, with multiple top 30 honorable mentions with helium heading into 2025
The long offseason is finally drawing to its close, with football fans outside of Kansas City and Pennsylvania begging for better days to look forward to. Well, if you like the Atlanta Braves you should be in for a fun season very soon, and that feeling is starting to extend back into the farm system where the back end depth of the system has taken a drastic leap forward in the past couple of seasons. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Honorable Mentions for our upcoming top 30 prospects list here at Battery Power, where the past seasons’s fringe bench players have been replaced by players with talent to burn and potentially bright futures. Keep up with us over the next week as we’ll release our top 30 prospects ahead of spring training, and the following week where we’ll be extended our prospect coverage with some follow-up pieces.
Herick Hernandez
During Alex Anthopoulos’s tenure the Braves and their amateur scouting staff have made their money grabbing overlooked players on the second day of the draft. With current stars Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II along with top prospects Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez, the middle rounds have been a gold mine for injecting a weak system with no premium draft positions with high quality, and quickly impactful talent. The Braves hope Herick Hernandez can be the next to join that group, and if his professional debut is any indication he could be looking at a breakout campaign in 2025. Hernandez struggled at Miami, his command holding him back from putting up consistent outings, but he fit well into the Braves models and they scooped him up in the fourth round for an under slot bonus. The 20 year old only pitched 6 2⁄3 innings, but still managed to jump off of the page with 12 strikeouts and no walks. Hernandez’s command will need to be watched closely, but there are aspects of his game poised to fit well into the Braves development strategy. The Braves have targeted fastballs like Hernandez’s — where his low release and willingness to spot the pitch up in the zone with above average movement allows it to play above its low 90’s velocity and generate whiffs. Hernandez also mixes in a hard slider and a slower curveball, both of which he spins well, and has been working on implementing a changeup. The Braves have had success developing offspeed pitches in recent years — Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, and JR Ritchie being notable names to see significant improvement on their offspeed offerings — and if Hernandez can follow that path he could quickly go from a mid-round gamble to a must-watch prospect.
Isaiah Drake
One of the few prep hitters Anthopoulos & co. have invested significant money in, Isaiah Drake rode a whirlwind 2024 that gave both hope and concern to his future. Drake’s premium athleticism was the source of excitement when the Braves gave him a $750,000 signing bonus in the 2023 draft, and while he got off to a slow start in the Florida Complex League down the stretch he turned into the most reliable bat on the eventual FCL champion roster. This helped to land him a spot on the Braves spring breakout roster where he had an exciting triple before leaving with a cramp. The still 18-year-old Drake was put on a full season roster with Augusta, but it was unfortunately a disastrous start to the year. Through June 6th Drake was running a 47.6% strikeout rate and a 17 wRC+, numbers that had him among the worst hitters in all of affiliated ball. His swing, especially his tendency to bail his hips out early, was giving him fits and excitement in Drake fizzled. Still, Drake was able to put those struggles behind him and rebound nicely down the stretch. Drake had a massive two home run game on June 8th, then through the end of the season cut his strikeouts to 27.7% though his power output remained limited. Drake can produce above average top end exit velocities, but going back to his swing tends to open his hips up and slap at the ball, leading to very little impact contact. All of his traits showed out throughout the year. He has the speed and instincts to be an above average center fielder, the strike zone recognition to draw walks, and the raw strength to be a 20 home run bat, but his hit tool and batted ball approach still leave much to be desire. He is, however, only 19 years old and the issues with his hit tool were known when he was drafted. Drake is a huge gamble, but a worthwhile one as the payoff is a guy with all-star caliber physical traits.
Ian Mejia
Ian Mejia was the star of the first two months of the season, even in a system so based on pitching talent. In his nine Double-A starts through the end of May he allowed only eight runs across 49 2⁄3 innings, relying on his slider and ability to command his fastball to carve up Double-A hitters. His peak was a May 17th game, where he had his command working from the first inning and finished with an 11-strikeout no hitter. Everything seemed on the up for Mejia and he started to receive top 30 recognition, but the end of the season was a mess. Mejia’s command backed up a bit, and the Braves choice to focus on having him develop his split-finger fastball became a detriment to his performance. Over his final 15 games Mejia had a 4.82 ERA/4.49 FIP with a 19.4% strikeout rate to 11.4% walk rate. Back to the splitter comment, that seemed to be the real kryptonite for Mejia. His splitter was consistently below average, and while he had the occasional flash where you could see the direction the Braves were moving it simply wasn’t located well enough for him to get outs with. Mejia has an above-average slider, but for him to stick as a back-end starter that changeup will need to make rapid improvement. It’s the right choice for the Braves to force him into developing the pitch into a weapon, but in the short term it has exposed significant flaws in his overall game and cast the doubts of his ability to stick as a starter firmly into the spotlight. Even if Mejia cannot develop his splitter into a major league offering he still commands a low-90’s fastball at a high level along with an above average slider that has proven it can get swing-and-miss, and that combination does provide a middle-relief/swingman future.
Luis De Avila
In a similar vein to Mejia, the Braves knew that De Avila’s pitch mix and command wasn’t going to be good enough to take him to the next level, and decided to scrap much of what had made him successful in 2023. The Braves tweaked De Avila’s delivery, focused on working his slider and changeup into better locations, and mostly forced De Avila to locate his fastball better than he has in previous seasons. Though the middle of June that tinkering looked to be on a disastrous path, with De Avila regressing to a 16.3% strikeout rate to a 12.0% walk rate. Finally though, the changes took and De Avila put up the best stretch of his career. Over his final seven outings to close out July, De Avila struck out 21.3% of batters, walked only 6.7%, and his ability to work his sinker around the edges more consistently allowed him to force weak contact to the tune of a 1.47 ERA and 3.06 FIP. De Avila seemed to be turning the corner towards being a guy with legitimate major league aspirations, but his first start of August was a disastrous five walk, three strikeout outing and he hit the injured list soon after not to return. It was a disappointing close to the best stretch of play of his career, one that saw him trending towards a Triple-A rotation spot and a back end top 30 nod. De Avila will begin the season still only age 23, and while his ceiling is limited to a back-end starter/swing man type with no real swing-and-miss offerings and a low-90’s sinker, his improvements to his command have renewed hope in a guy who was the system’s most consistent inning-eater in 2023.
Mario Baez
Mario Baez, playing the entire season at age 16, was a standout in the Dominican Summer League in 2023, and it wasn’t just a matter of a guy who could make contact beating up on bad competition. Baez, despite being significantly undersized, showed legitimate potential for average power while posting a 121 wRC+. He created a ton of buzz and was one of the players we were excited to see when the FCL season started, but it was a disappointing 51 games for Baez. Baez hit no home runs, and despite a better-than-average strikeout rate was just not able to make hard contact consistently enough. He had a 48 wRC+ over 51 games, and went from one of our top breakout candidates to a player in danger of dropping out of top 30 contention altogether. However there are two main points in Baez’s favor. One, he was 17 for the entire season last year, younger than most high school draftees, and thus some temporary struggles in rookie ball are not a huge red flag. Two, the power environment in the FCL is brutal, and though that is something Baez will contend with in future levels it does give some reassurance to his dip in power production. Baez has some development to go with his swing and approach, as all 17/18-year-olds do, but there is still plenty to bet on in terms of athletic potential.
Robert Gonzalez
Robert Gonzalez is probably the single most-frustrating example of talent vs skill in the system right now, because the 20 year old has all of the tools to be a star but his approach has left much to be desired. Gonzalez is a center fielder through and through, a true 80+ grade runner who can go track down any fly ball, and despite his skinny 5’10” frame he produces consistent 110+ mph batted balls. This is a player with a 20 HR/40 SB potential ceiling, but watching him hit can leave one pulling their hair out. There are flashes of brilliance, especially when he is direct to the ball on the lower half of the strike zone, and he can produce consistent, hard line drive contact when he is selecting pitches well. Unfortunately Gonzalez chases basically everything, and his hit tool isn’t good enough to get away with that. Gonzalez had a 53 wRC+ and 35.7% strikeout rate to 5.4% walk rate before the Braves were able to get him moving in the right direction. Gonzalez lost playing time and was sent to the FCL, but still over his final two months in Augusta had a 111 wRC+, 21.8% walk rate, and .134 isolated power. The strikeout remained high, but the Braves seemed to be taking the approach of having him be ultra-selective, sacrificing some strikeouts to try to teach him what he can and cannot hit. It paid of, somewhat, with him hitting the ball harder, but he still will need to cut the strikeouts below 30% at some point. Gonzalez made drastic improvement and could be a breakout candidate this upcoming season, though he will need to work hard to not fall back into old habits.
Junior Garcia
Yet another very young hitter who had a bad end 2024 despite premium talent, Junior Garcia was a star for the FCL Braves. Garcia, helped by a .427 BABIP, posted a 144 wRC+ in 42 FCL games, and along with John Gil and Luis Guanipa got called up to make up the extremely talented Augusta lineup to end the season. All of them struggled, but Garcia was the worst. Garcia went 8-84 at the plate with only one extra base hit, adding up to a 31 wRC+. He couldn’t buy a hit, but there was some hope on the horizon. Over his final 13 games his batted ball luck flipped, and he had a 138 wRC+ to save the remainder of his season. Garcia is a strong 19 year old whose power production doesn’t yet reflect his potential. He still has room to add strength, but the main focus will be on consistently lifting the ball with authority as his ground balls and line drives tended to far out pace the impact he made on fly balls. My concern for Garcia is that he has below average bat speed and a long swing, but the Braves will certainly make efforts to mitigate the issues with his swing path where I think otherwise Garcia is an intelligent and capable hitter. Garcia has an advanced ability to recognize pitches and recognize the strike zone, chasing far less often than most players his age. This is represented by a 15.4% walk rate in High-A that was not just a matter of facing poor pitching. Garcia, despite his bad numbers to end the season, is a lot closer to being a good hitter than it might appear on the surface. Still, he will need to hit at a high level as his athleticism is going to limit him to a corner spot, but he has the potential to be a 20 home run outfielder with a high on base percentage.