Baseball America names three breakout Braves prospects for 2024

The heavily respected prospect outlet identifies two arms and a bat they expect to dominate the minor leagues next season

Lindsay Crosby | Jan 11, 2024

Sometimes, it's nice to get validation from others.

When Braves Today published our first ever prospect rankings last fall, we had a few players that we were higher on than the industry consensus.

And two of those players are getting preseason recognition as potential breakout candidates.

Baseball America, one of the most respected prospect evaluation sites across baseball, has named three Braves prospects as breakout candidates for 2024, two pitchers and a hitter.

The first is RHP Jhancarlos Lara, who they have ranked in preseason as Atlanta's #13 prospect. We originally had him at #14 when we published the list, and have moved him up to #10 in early iterations of the 2024 list.

They had lofty praise for his fastball/slider combo, although acknowledging his need to both get more movement on the fastball and better integrate the changeup to fully develop as a starter.

Outfielder Luis Guanipa on the list is exciting for a few reasons. The first is that it's a hitter, and Atlanta's system has been heavily weighted towards pitching in recent seasons. The top five of both our rankings and Baseball America's are dominated by pitching.

But Guanipa, who we have at #7 while BA has at 17, gets lauded for his upside, being proclaimed as having the highest ceiling of any individual prospect in the organization. While his 2023 Dominican Summer League performance wasn't mind-blowing from a statistical standpoint (.238/.361/.384 with four home runs and twenty stolen bases), BA likes the "inputs" that went into the stats - his exit velocities, contact rate, and swing decisions.

And the third is a guy that we've haven't written about yet but have discussed internally, RHP Garrett Baumann.

(Here's our Managing Editor Lindsay Crosby and writer Jake Mastroianni discussing Baumann as a potential 2024 breakout on Jake's podcast, Locked On Braves)

We admittedly don't have Baumann ranked high enough, partly because of a lack of live looks. We put him at #21 at the end of last season, while Baseball America has him at #18. BA admits he's more of a work in progress, with Baumann needing to both add velocity to his fastball and work on his slider, but he has the physical frame (6'8, 245) to become a workhorse with some development, as we know Atlanta does well when it comes to pitchers.

The full article with scouting reports is available for subscribers of Baseball America on their website.

Which prospect do you think could "pop" in 2024? Let us know!