Baseball America mocks a prep shortstop to Atlanta in the 2024 MLB Draft

Baseball America sends Oxford, AL prep shortstop Carter Johnson to the Braves at pick 24

Now that the MLB Draft Lottery has commenced at the Winter Meetings, we now have the order of the first round for next summer's MLB Draft. 

And Baseball America has the Atlanta Braves going outside of their usual pattern and taking an infield defender in the first round. 

Carlos Collazo, doing a mock draft for the entire first round ($), sent Oxford, AL prep shortstop Carter Johnson to the Braves with the 24th pick. 

Here's what he said about the selection: 

Johnson is one of the more impressive pure hitters in the prep class, with a loose and easy lefthanded swing and an impressive ability to maneuver his barrel to all regions of the strike zone. While he doesn’t have the loudest toolset, he is a fine defender and should stick in the infield with a similar profile to sweet-swinging hitters like Colt Emerson or Kevin McGonigle from the 2023 class.

Emerson and McGonigle, both previously committed to Auburn University, went in last year's first round to the Seattle Mariners (pick #22) and Detroit Tigers (pick #37), respectively. Johnson, currently the #30 player on Baseball America's draft board, is committed to the University of Alabama.

Johnson helped lead Oxford to a Class 6A state baseball championship last season, finishing with a .407 average and leading the team with five home runs. He also racked up 37 RBIs and posted a .494 on-base percentage. Additionally, he spent time with USA Baseball's 18U team last summer, higher-level experience that is looked highly upon by MLB teams in their draft models.  

Were Johnson the pick, it'd be the first time Atlanta took a position player in the first round since 2019, where they took now Oakland Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers out of Baylor at pick #9. Atlanta also took a shortstop in the first round that draft, with pick #21 being used to select Texas A&M shortstop Braden Shewmake. 

(Shewmake was traded as part of the five player package going to the Chicago White Sox for Aaron Bummer a few weeks ago, while Langeliers was part of the deal with Oakland that brought Matt Olson to the team in the spring of 2022.)

The Braves haven't taken a prep shortstop in the first round since 2010, when they selected Matt Lipka out of McKinney, Texas with the 35th pick, signing him for an $800,000 bonus. Eventually converting to centerfield during his six years in Atlanta's farm system, he became a minor league free agent in 2016. He bounced around the minor leagues after that, spending time with the Rangers, Giants, Yankees, Diamondbacks, Brewers, & Nationals, with his last recorded season being 2022.

Shortstop is a position of need for Atlanta, with all three of the Braves infielders inside our top ten being non-shortstop infielders (3B Ignacio Alvarez, listed as a shortstop but destined for third base, OF Luis Guanipa, and C Drake Baldwin). The top shortstop prospects in Atlanta's system at the moment are 2023 draftee Sebin Ceballos out of Oregon, who we have at #22, and 20 year-old Ambioris Tavarez, an international signee in December 2021 who batted .216/.319/.337 in 108 games for Single-A Augusta last season, who is unranked in our listings. 

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