Braves place two young studs on Baseball America Top 100 prospects list

The Atlanta Braves have two high-ceiling pitching prospects in their organization

The Atlanta Braves, it turns out, may have made the right decision to decline a trade for either Tampa Bay Rays starter Tyler Glasnow (now a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers) or Chicago White Sox starter Dylan Cease. 

Because the cost wouldn't have been worth it. 

Baseball America released their Top 100 Prospects list this morning, and two of the expected "trade chips" out of Atlanta's farm system are on it in right-handed pitchers AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep. 

It's always a fun exercise to compare and contrast where the different prospect evaluation outlets have the two stars, with Baseball Prospectus releasing their list yesterday.  

Baseball America is lower on Hurston Waldrep than Baseball Prospectus, with the 2023 1st rounder out of Florida coming in at 49 on BA's list and 30 on BP's. 

Here's what Baseball America said about Waldrep in their release: 

Waldrep showed some of the best pure stuff in the 2023 draft class, then turned in perhaps the most impressive pro pitching debut of the group by flying to Triple-A and striking out 49 batters in 29.1 total innings. His command could be improved, but his slider and split-change are both easy plus pitches.

Waldrep used that splitter and fastball combo to great effect after the draft, logging the most strikeouts of any 2023 draftee and finishing the season with a start for AAA Gwinnett. 

Smith-Shawver finished just ahead of Waldrep, at #49 on Baseball America's list, despite not being on the Baseball Prospectus Top 101 yesterday. 

Here's what they had to say about Smith-Shawver: 

Smith-Shawver was the first prep pitching prospect from the 2021 class to make the majors. His electric fastball and feel to spin multiple breaking balls give him mid-rotation upside if he can sharpen his command. And he could have the athleticism to make that happen.

Baseball America also released a "15 MLB prospects who just missed the 2024 Top 100" article and while no Braves prospect was one of the 15, two other arms did receive at least one vote from the BA prospect team, with both JR Ritchie and Owen Murphy mentioned at the bottom of the supplementary article. 

Not mentioned by Baseball America was infielder Ignacio Alvarez, who made the Baseball Prospectus list yesterday at #98. 

With spring training approaching soon, Braves Today will be updating our prospect rankings and releasing scouting reports for the farm system, so stay tuned! 

Baseball America highlights two 2023 Braves draftee arms with "standout" pro debuts

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