Braves Pitching Prospects Pushing for Promotions

The Atlanta Braves have seen some impressive prospect performances during the first month of the minor league schedule.

Atlata Braves prospect Spencer Schwellenbach represented the organization in last year's Futures Game, held in Seattle during the All-Star Break. / Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

The Atlanta Braves have a farm system that’s heavily focused on pitching. 

It’s deliberate on the organization’s part - the Braves have invested a higher percentage of MLB Draft bonus money into pitching prospects, at over 60%, than any other organization in all of baseball. For the second year in a row, four of Atlanta’s first five picks last year were pitchers. 

And several of those pitchers have excelled so far in the 2024 season. 

AA Mississippi

In a somewhat surprising decision, one of Atlanta’s top pitching prospects started off in AA Mississippi instead of AAA Gwinnett, but that’s not stopping Hurston Waldrep from excelling. It was a bumpy first two starts for the righthander out of the University of Florida, with ten runs in his first seven innings, but after some time to acclimate, we’ve seen much better results in his last two times out. 

Waldrep has pitched six full innings in the last two games, holding Birmingham (Chicago White Sox affiliate) and Montgomery (Tampa Bay Rays affiliate) to one run each, striking out ten. He walked a total of five across the two games, with four of them coming last Friday in Montgomery’s Riverwalk Stadium, but allowed only two extra-base hits across both outings. 

The control was always going to be the question with Waldrep - his college walk rate was 4.2 BB/9 and he’s currently at a 4.8 BB/9 through his first twelve professional starts. But against Birmingham, he threw 67% strikes and looked dominant. 

Hurston Waldrep pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball while striking out 5 and walking just 1.
Box score here is not what’s important. Waldrep threw strikes at a 67% clip which was awesome to see. Strike throwing and command will be big sticking points.
pic.twitter.com/CAqJATvhZs

— Chris Clegg (@RotoClegg) April 21, 2024

And now that Atlanta’s promoted Bryce Elder to the major league level and look prepared to leave him there for a while, a spot should open up in Gwinnett soon if the Braves want to get Waldrep into the highest level of the minors (and give us a chance to get Statcast data on him.)

High-A Rome

The Emperors’ rotation may be one of the more stacked ones in the entire South Atlantic League. The duo of Spencer Schwellenbach and Owen Murphy have excelled so far in 2024, combining for only eight earned runs in 46.1 innings while striking out 58 and walking just ten. 

For Schwellenbach, Atlanta’s Futures Game representative from last season, his offseason growth has manifested in an increase in strikeouts. Getting his control back before his swing-and-miss stuff after Tommy John surgery sidelined him until the 2023 season, he’s gone from 7.6 K/9 last season to 8.5 while also reducing his walks (2.2 to 1.6). His four-game ERa in High-A (2.01 ERA) almost mirrors what he did at the end of last season with the Emperors, when he had a 1.98 in three starts (totaling 13.2 innings). 

The most impressive thing for me so far in my limited looks has been his comfort in facing a lefty-heavy lineup. His changeup (mid-80s) and cutter/slider (mid-to-upper-80s) have complimented the fastball (93-95, T97) well and he’s able to manipulate the size and shape of the breaking ball as needed, an underrated trait. When he’s on, he’s good, and his command and execution are around more often than they’re not, an improvement in consistency over last season.  

For Murphy, it was already an impressive three-game statline but he took it to the next level in his last start, coming against Winston-Salem (White Sox affiliate): seven innings of one-hit ball, striking out ten with no runs or walks allowed. It lowered his 2024 ERA down to 1.13 with a career-high 13.9 K/9 through his first 24 innings (37 strikeouts). 

Sheer dominance from Owen Murphy 💪

The @Braves' No. 5 prospect takes a perfect game into the 7th and finishes with double-digit K's for the second straight start for @GoEmperors: pic.twitter.com/Gl1dQWR4rW

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 26, 2024

While Murphy’s fastball still sits in the low-90s, his combination of a low release point (just 5.5 foot off the ground) and Vertical Approach Angle give him an absurd twenty inches of induced vertical break, an elite number that results in a lot of swings and misses when he elevates the fastball. (Think Chicago Cubs free-agent signee Shota Imanaga or Houston Astros hurler Christian Javier). He’s done a lot of work to make his arsenal take advantage of that outlier IVB, with his gyro slider and curveball both working north-south and landing them in the zone enough (~65%) to get both called strikes and whiffs on the trio of pitches. 

Single-A Augusta

While Cade Kuehler is acclimating to professional baseball well (2.25 ERA after three starts) and it’s been really promising starts for both Dider Fuentes (2.77 ERA) and Riley Frey (2.20 ERA), I’m here to talk about Garrett Baumann. 

Atlanta’s 4th rounder out of Oveido High School in Florida last year (the same one as Vaughn Grissom), Baumann’s made four starts and allowed only three earned runs, striking out eighteen in 21.2 innings. Standing at 6’8 & 245 pounds, he threw in the low-90s last season and has ticked up slightly now, touching 96 on the heater. 

There’s some biomechanical work to be done here, and it looks like Atlanta’s working on it. Despite his size, Baumann throws from a low slot and it looked like more of a sinker than a four-seam fastball, but he did a better job elevating the pitch in his recent starts and using it at the top of the zone. The changeup is still ahead of the breaking ball, but it’s a promising three-pitch mix and some additional velocity on the slider to help differentiate it from the changeup will do wonders for the profile. 

Garrett Baumann was the Braves 4th round pick last year out of Florida. He set a career high in IP last night.
6IP 3H 0R 2BB 7K
FB, CH, SL https://t.co/cVoZmwlKXR pic.twitter.com/y3kuVTehUZ

— Gaurav (@gvedak) April 20, 2024

Despite the title of the article, I don’t actually think Baumann needs to be promoted anytime soon - as a prep draftee in his first year of professional ball, leaving him in Single-A for most of the season is the way to go here - although a late-season move to Rome after the complex league (which starts today) wraps up wouldn’t be completely out of line.