Who is Atlanta's #1 prospect, AJ Smith-Shawver or Hurston Waldrep?

The Atlanta Braves have two pitchers at the top of their farm system...but what's the right order to rank them?

The Atlanta Braves, facing potential rotation losses for the 2025 season with the pending free agencies of both Max Fried and Charlie Morton, potentially have the answers in their farm system for rotation stability in future seasons. 

But which prospect deserves the #1 spot? 

Both AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep have high ceilings as potential postseason starters. Despite being part of a Braves farm system that is flush with pitching, they're both the sole occupants of tier one, with both ceiling and proximity on their side, but what's the correct order for the pair? 

Let's talk about it: 

The case for AJ Smith-Shawver

David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

Arguments to place Smith-Shawver at #1 over Hurston Waldrep are easy to make - more of a proven professional track record, both in the minors and major leagues, as well as top-tier athleticism and physical tools. 

Having been a 2021 draft pick (7th round) out of high school, Smith-Shawver spent the entire 2022 season at Single-A Augusta before absolutely rocketing through the farm system last season, starting off in High-A Rome in mid-April and debuting in the major leagues just 49 days later, pitching 2.1 hitless, scoreless innings in relief against the Diamondbacks with three strikeouts and one walk. 

Smith-Shawver's not only a great athlete, he's the best athlete in Atlanta's farm system. A former high school quarterback at Colleyville High School in Texas, Smith-Shawver didn't begin pitching until the 2020 COVID pandemic canceled some football camps he had planned and so he focused more on baseball, surprising everyone, including himself, with his velocity on the mound. 

“He's probably one of the most athletic people I've been around,” said Braves reliever A.J. Minter, a fellow Texas native and offseason workout partner of Smith-Shawver's.

That velocity's built through his time as a pitcher, with Smith-Shawver sitting in the high-90s in a late season domination of the Chicago Cubs, pitching 3.2 hitless innings with one walk and two strikeouts, allowing only one run. 

(Frustrating sequence for that one run - leadoff walk to open the game, followed by a stolen base, a groundout to move the runner to 3rd, and that runner coming home on a fielder's choice.)

Smith-Shawver combined that deadly fastball with two breaking balls last season, a two plane-breaking slider in the mid-80s and a mostly vertical-breaking curveball in the upper-70s. He's got a changeup that's developing, also thrown in the mid-80s, that disguises well with the fastball from both an arm speed and tunneling perspective.  

Placing Smith-Shawver at #1 is a bet on his athleticism and the future development possible by a pitcher that's only been on the mound for a little over four years, and a full-time pitcher for even less than that. 

The case for Hurston Waldrep

Rome Braves

By contrast, Hurston Waldrep's an experienced pitcher, with three full seasons in college to hone his craft before rocketing through Atlanta's farm system last season, making his final start of the year at AAA Gwinnett and doing nothing to quiet the rumors he'd be chosen for the postseason roster. 

Between his first two collegiate seasons at Southern Mississippi and his final at the University of Florida, Waldrep showed an exceptional fastball/splitter combo that was the darling of his draft class, striking out over 13 batters per nine innings over the course of his 200+ college innings.

And Waldrep continued flashing the dominance of that pairing after the draft, making eight starts and striking out 41 batters in just 29.1 innings, good for a 13.8 K/9 and the highest strikeout total of any 2023 draftee. 

Waldrep's got the makings of a plus slider and curveball as well, with Braves assistant director of amateur scouting Ronit Shah very complimentary of the entire arsenal in post-draft comments to the media.  

“We got a really athletic college starter with power stuff,” Shah said of Waldrep. “He’s been 95 to 99 with two plus breaking balls and one of the best secondary pitches in the draft perhaps with his splitter. We think it’s an out pitch and has a chance to miss a lot of bats at the big league level.”

The individual polish of the two primary pitches and Waldrep's experience are the main arguments to make Waldrep the organization's #1 prospect - it's arguably good enough to not only survive, but thrive, at the major league level right now.  

With such a strong foundation to build off of and his ability to handle a professional workload - 131 innings combined between college and the minors last season - Waldrep's poised to make a legitimate impact at the major league level as soon as this season. 

Where the prospect apparatus has the two ranked:

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

There's differing opinions about the two pitchers, with some outlets being significantly higher or lower on one or the other. 

Baseball America and MLB Pipeline both have AJ Smith-Shawver as the organization's #1 prospect, with Hurston Waldrep as the #2 and both in the top 100. 

Baseball Prospectus has a somewhat contrary take, with Hurston Waldrep at #1 and Smith-Shawver down at #4 (and outside of their top 101). ESPN also has Waldrep at #1, with Smith-Shawver outside of the top 100 but presumably #2. 

(ESPN's Kiley McDaniel has not yet released individual prospect lists for each team, but judging off of his public comments, we're projecting AJSS would be #2.) 

Our own Jake Mastroianni, over on Locked On Braves, put Waldrep #1 and Smith-Shawver at #2 in his unique "90th percentile outcome" prospect ranking system.

Why we put Hurston Waldrep #1 over AJ Smith-Shawver

It's a controversial take to some, but we think it's the right call right now. 

From a proximity perspective, Smith-Shawver has an edge (as he's already debuted in the majors), but Waldrep's AAA start at the end of last season and status as a non-roster invitee for spring training makes it a smaller advantage than you'd expect. 

We believe both pitchers have a "frontline starter" ceiling, assuming that one or both would be starting postseason games for you in 2025 (Smith-Shawver was a candidate to start one in the NLDS, eventually being used in relief behind Bryce Elder.) Owing to Waldrep's individual polish of both the fastball and splitter, both potential 70-grade pitches, there's an argument to be made that he has a slightly higher ceiling than Smith-Shawver...but again, it's a slim advantage. 

So if the proximity and ceiling for both players is virtually the same, how did we break the tie? It came down to the development needed to reach that ceiling. Put simply, Waldrep's a more polished and experienced pitcher than Smith-Shawver right now. 

Is it entirely possible that Smith-Shawver ends up with four plus pitches? It is, yes. Waldrep could too, but Waldrep already has two 70-grade pitches in the fastball and splitter. Smith-Shawver has a ton of natural talent and athleticism, a very good fastball/slider combo and is rapidly improving both the changeup and curveball since incorporating them back into the arsenal last season. 

But given Smith-Shawer's relative inexperience as a pitcher as compared to Waldrep, there's just more development to be done. It's entirely likely that, at the end of the day, Smith-Shawver is a better pitcher than Waldrep is. But that journey's going to take longer for Smith-Shawver, with more questions and uncertainty than it will Waldrep. 

So that's why we ranked them in the order that we did.  

And really, it's quibbling over miniscule differences - both players are in a tier above the rest of the farm system. It's like asking which season that ended in a World Series championship is your favorite, 1995 or 2021. Each person may have a slightly different answer, both we can agree that those were the two best seasons of the last 30 years. 

Same thing here. These pitchers are our two World Series seasons in the farm system right now.  

And we're excited to watch them work towards getting Atlanta back there in 2024. 

Braves Today's prospect rankings for the Atlanta Braves

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