It was a fun week on the Atlanta Braves farm system as the top three levels all went 5-1 and Augusta had some interesting pitching performances. Across the system the pitching made the difference, with Drue Hackenberg, Blake Burkhalter, Ian Anderson, JR Ritchie, and Garrett Baumann standing out from the crowd.
Gwinnett Stripers
Record: 58-62, 23-22 2nd half, 5th in IL West (6.5 GB)
Drake Baldwin just keeps on hitting, and it seems if anything he is only getting hotter at the plate. Baldwin went 10-21 last week, hit a home run on Sunday, and drove in an International League-leading 14 runs. Baldwin hasn’t quite been putting up the elite exit velocities of late, with fewer of those 105+ mph missiles and overall a dip in average exit velocity. Still though, he’s sitting around a 90 mph average while also showcasing a significant dip in whiff rates over the past few weeks. There are a handful of factors influencing these numbers, and it’s mostly due to opposing pitcher approaches. Baldwin is seeing more fastballs and sinkers, especially up and on the inner half and he doesn’t hit those pitches as well as pitches down and/or away from him. The Braves are still in the process of tweaking his approach to have him hitting the ball harder on the pull side but he’s in a bit of a transitional phase where he still isn’t lighting up fastballs as much as you would hope. He is making more contact on them (hence your dip in whiff rates) but generally speaking he needs to get his bat head ahead of fastballs more often than he does.
Gwinnett as a whole has been playing well lately (though admittedly with a bit of batted ball luck sprinkled in) and no one represents that more than International League player of the week Alejo López. López hit .542 for the Stripers last week out of the leadoff spot while filling in for Nacho Alvarez, who we found out yesterday has been out of the lineup due to pneumonia. López hasn’t hit the ball particularly hard, but he has found all of the holes in the defense and consistently set the table for Baldwin, Yuli Gurriel, and Chadwick Tromp to bring him in for big innings. López is among the short list of guys who have the potential to replace Austin Riley in Atlanta, though I personally think he is quite far down on that list.
The pitching side of things for Gwinnett had its highs and lows, but mostly the rotation and bullpen did extremely well. Unfortunately, AJ Smith-Shawver only pitched an inning and a handful of pitches before a storm forced him out of his start and Hurston Waldrep was…something I guess. Waldrep had a dominant start if you look at runs and hits as he allowed neither of those, but those six walks stick out like a sore thumb. Unsurprisingly, Waldrep’s splitter has translated well at every level he has played at but his slider and fastball have met with more mixed results and his command isn’t good enough to allow him to utilize his splitter quite enough. He throws it and his fastball out of the zone so often that it’s at times best for hitters to just take pitches and wait for Waldrep to get himself in bad counts — resulting in hitters pretty much doing just that. They’ve also cut their frequency of swings at pitches both in and out of the zone against Waldrep significantly since he was first called to Triple-A. Hopefully a lot of this is just him still looking for his footing after missing time with the elbow injury but he looks fairly far away from being able to contribute to a major league roster at the moment.
The two players who really look like they are on their way to pitching in Atlanta in the relatively near future (including early 2025) are Ian Anderson and Domingo Gonzalez. Gonzalez should be a lock to get added to the 40 man roster this season and he has been one of Triple-A’s best relievers since being called up. With two above-average major league offerings he could fit in most major league bullpens, though the strength of Atlanta’s bullpen has made it so he hasn’t been needed up there at all. Still they won’t want to lose him in the Rule 5 draft — even if his command is still on the edge of questionable. Ian Anderson shows flashes of good form and it’s somewhat encouraging that Atlanta has enough confidence in where he is in his recovery to already be tinkering with him. The command comes and goes but when he is locating his pitches his fastball and changeup are just as good as they used to look and he has been dominant at his best.
The Braves don’t seem content with the pitcher Anderson used to be though, as they’ve dropped his arm slot a bit to get more horizontal movement on all of his pitches. The slider they’ve added shows a new shape pretty much every start, as its clear they really want to find what works best for that particular pitch. His last outing was the best he’s done at actually throwing a slider with a notably different shape than his curveball. Neither of his breaking balls have had enough consistency to really draw conclusions on, though his changeup seems to be finding more consistency each start. I’m not really qualified to say if swapping Anderson from a strictly north-south approach to a hybrid pitching style is a good move or not, so it’s just something that we’ll have to wait and see on. However, Thursday was the best Anderson has looked this year and probably the best form he’s been in since 2021.
Mississippi Braves
Record: 54-59, 23-22 2nd half, 4th in SL South (2.5 GB)
Mississippi is getting hot at the right time and the Southern League South division race is looking pretty interesting. Mississippi is in last place but they’re only 2.5 games back of first place and all four teams are over .500. This is such a strong pitching rotation and Darius Vines being in Double-A is kind of comical. The Braves have to get guys innings where they can, I guess. For Vines, that means running through Double-A lineups on a weekly basis. He pitched twice last week against the Shuckers and struck out 17 total batters across 11 innings with one run allowed.
The rest of the starting rotation hasn’t been as consistently unfair as Vines but Drue Hackenberg is really coming into his own for Mississippi. He has located his fastball much better over his past few starts, and he’s getting back to being a player you can project into the back end of a rotation. He was sitting in the mid-90’s with his four seam fastball in his last outing and he is the one that is the hardest to project because I’m not sure where exactly the Braves are going to settle with his pitch mix. It’s still primarily fastball/slider and his cutter has made progress this year, but I haven’t pinpointed what they’re going to use as an offspeed pitch. He threw a traditional changeup last week that is a decent pitch but not particularly exciting, then he threw one that sat around 5 mph slower than his fastball with a similar fade profile to his changeup. The Braves have taught some guys splinkers (which are hybrid splitter-sinkers) so it could be that or it could just be the changeups that he threw too hard. The line there is kind of blurred and his changeup has been inconsistent all season. If he’s doing it on purpose then I do think it’s a useful addition as a fourth/fifth pitch in an arsenal, and he located it fairly well arm side and down — though I don’t think it takes the place of a traditional changeup.
Jhancarlos Lara looked pretty awful in his first game, though I don’t think it was universal across his pitch mix. He really struggled to land his four seam fastball anywhere near the zone and because of that he coughed up eight walks in only 2 1⁄3 innings. His velocity was also down significantly, though what I’ve heard is that he felt fine and there isn’t anything to be concerned about. Lara did a better job of locating his slider than his fastball and tended to lean heavily on it, and though the results weren’t great I do like when pitchers show a willingness to come away from their typical approach when something just isn’t right. Lara also has been doing a much better job of throwing a consistent cutter — one that actually has significant shape and velocity deviation from his slider, and the pitch looked like a solid 50 for him when he located it. He also threw a handful of changeups that didn’t look very good and he’s tinkered with a splinker so now there is more of a path to him starting than I had projected going into the year, given the Braves efforts to add more pitches.
This Mississippi offense still isn’t the most exciting, but they’ve been getting the job done and David McCabe is quickly getting back into solid form. McCabe is showing a better feel for his approach and contact over the past week, though the results and the contact quality haven’t followed suit. Given McCabe’s history and his raw power I think it’s going to ultimately be more a question of if he gets to contact rather than if that contact will be good. The power and the consistent hard hit balls should come, and seeing him take a better approach on breaking balls and hitting good velocity is the first step and there has been pretty quick progress in that regard. He’s returned from being a player who was overwhelmed in the first couple of weeks at the plate to going back to being the comfortable hitter who was one of the system’s best two or three, along with Alvarez and Baldwin in the second half last season.
Two guys hit their first Double-A home runs last week, though one had been waiting on it a lot longer. Ethan Workinger had a few bad games when he first came up but seems to have adapted quickly and was overall Mississippi’s best hitter last week. Workinger crushed his first Double-A home run, hit over .300 for the week and made consistent contact without chasing. Keshawn Ogans has had a difficult year, as even though he has done better in recent weeks at making contact consistently and not swinging at garbage, he isn’t hitting the ball well and has mostly hit a lot of weak fly balls and ground balls. He finally got into one on Sunday afternoon as he turned on a breaking ball that hung on the inner half and sent it way out of the yard for a home run. I still like Ogans a lot, as I think he is one of the utility types the Braves have that actually has enough raw power to get to a consistent major league role and I’m glad we’re finally seeing some of that again.
Rome Emperors
Record: 56-54, 20-26 2nd half, 5th in SAL South (10.5 GB)
The Emperors are getting hot at the right time, putting behind a tough July to start August off 10-5. This lineup is finally starting to show the life they had when they won the division in the first half, with guys through the lineup contributing despite there not being a huge power output. Drew Compton continues to be an on-base machine and reached nine times in six games last week. The hottest hitter in the lineup is Jace Grady, and Grady is doing all of it despite only having a .244 BABIP over his past couple of series. Dating back to the Bowling Green series Grady had nine walks to only five strikeouts in his past 57 plate appearances, with a couple of home runs and a .368 on base percentage. Grady has consistently put the bat on the ball for Rome since being promoted but he hasn’t had consistent power production or hard hit balls. Grady’s power may not be enough to ever get him to a fourth outfielder role in the big leagues, but he has shown an ability to hit and draw walks that makes him interesting. Two big names in the lineup also had big weeks, with EJ Exposito and Kevin Kilpatrick both having solid weeks. Both still aren’t making contact as consistently as you would hope to see but Exposito had six hits last week and Kilpatrick seven as both contributed significantly to Rome’s success.
The injuries to and promotions from Rome’s roster have significantly impacted the starting pitching depth, and it doesn’t help when Mitch Farris gets chased from the game after one inning due to a suspension of that game. They’ve been getting contributions all throughout the staff though, such as Adam Maier throwing five scoreless innings last week. Maier hasn’t been as fine with his pitches since coming back from the injured list and he isn’t missing as many bats as he needs to, but he has a way of missing the barrel and preventing hard contact. It’s not a skill that will transfer well to the upper levels I fear, and he has to locate more consistently and hopefully get back some of the velocity he showed in college. However, both his slider and splitter move a ton and are going to be tough to hit.
Blake Burkhalter had the best start of the week for the Emperors, despite his three runs allowed. Burkhalter struck out seven batters and totaled 21 swing-and-misses over his five innings of work. The big key for Burkhalter was his command in this game, as it was the best location we’ve seen on all of his pitches and most importantly on the slider that has been mostly missing for him this season. Burkhalter’s four-seam and cutter combo have been deadly at times, but his command of all of his pitches has been inconsistent and he’s been overly reliant on extreme whiff rates from that cutter to be effective. He finally mixed in his slider well, putting multiple hitters away with the pitch, and if he can operate with all three of those pitches moving forward it would make him immediately far too advanced for High-A hitters. There were already times when he was overwhelming with just two pitches, and adding a third would make it a tough battle for any player at this level. We still aren’t seeing a consistent changeup from him and I need that from him in order to really see him as a starter long term. With that being said, he has flashed the pitch in the past and right now it’s just about staying healthy and showing incremental improvement, which this slider certainly provides for him.
Augusta GreenJackets
Record: 40-70, 13-32 2nd Half, 6th in CAR South (15.5 GB)
Augusta has a trio of exciting pitchers going for them on a weekly basis, with the new addition being 18 year old right hander Luis Arestigueta. Arestigueta started the year off on a hot streak for the FCL Braves before struggling down the stretch but the Braves called him up regardless of that and it was an intriguing first game for him. Arestigueta’s low 90’s fastball isn’t particularly good at the moment with below average shape and command but Arestigueta has a lot of room to add strength to his frame and a clean delivery that should be conducive to growth in his command. Arestigueta already has two secondaries that flash major league quality with his slider and changeup. All of his pitches operate with an east-west shape and he approaches pitching like that — showing a good feel for his identity and a pitch mix that could fit into the back half of a major league rotation.
Garrett Baumann spent most of the season struggling to get swing and miss but in the second half has come into his own and turned into the most consistent pitcher in this rotation. He was sitting 93-94 in this past start and has started dotting his fastball at the top of the zone. His ability to miss bats in that location with his fastball and feed in above-average changeups has given Single-A batters fits and his command at his age and his size is impressive. He struck out ten batters in his past start and it was mostly feeding fastballs in the upper half of the zone and blowing hitters away.
JR Ritchie continues to dominate in August and at this rate he could be on his way to earning a call to Rome. His velocity is not nearly back to his pre-surgery level as he was sitting 91-92 with an occasional 93 in this past game but every other trait is well ahead of the curve right now. Both his slider and changeup are flashing plus and he is commanding his fastball far better than you would expect from a guy 15 months post Tommy John. It’s not a guarantee that his velocity will get back to where it was before but if it does then he clearly possesses a top-100 arm that the Braves could have in Double-A sometime next season.
The struggles for the young players continue down in Augusta, with the outfield trio of Junior García, Luis Guanipa, and Isaiah Drake all striking out at far too high of a rate. Guanipa had a couple of flashes of brilliance last week — liking turning on a fastball up and in for a double into the left field corner — but too often he is chasing bad pitches early in the count and hitting lazy fly balls or ground balls. Drake and García are just striking out too much and the one player that is really doing anything is John Gil. Gil does a lot of things well, like making consistent contact in all parts of the zone but his approach and tendency to chop pitches straight into the ground have been problematic for him. Gil’s natural ability to make contact has allowed him to avoid striking out at a high rate like the other guys but only on a few occasions has he really gotten into pitches and hit them hard. Still, he is by far the best performer of the young guys and has gotten around on pitches more often of late without simply rolling over them.
DSL Braves
Record: 15-36, 8th in DSL West (24 GB)
We only have a single DSL game left on the schedule, as they start play about an hour after this is going to post for the season finale. The team was pretty awful this season and it doesn’t help that it seems like Jose Perdomo is going to finish with only 20 at bats. Perdomo’s return to play was an exciting but short-lived storyline, and the team largely wasn’t impactful outside of the interest surrounding him. Juan Mateo was the one player who put up consistently decent numbers, although finishing with an 88 wRC+ isn’t exactly fantastic. Still though, the 17 year-old Mateo currently has a 9.8 percent strikeout rate (which is falling seemingly every week) and if he maintains that mark through the final game he would be the only 17 year old to post a sub-10% strikeout rate for the DSL Braves since 2006 (which is the cutoff for FanGraphs leaderboards). He’s also walking more than he is striking out and finally last week he hit his first professional home run. On the pitching side Yander Pinero had a solid start last week with four strikeouts over four scoreless innings. The 17 year-old Pinero has had walk issues this year (like most of the DSL team) but is already utilizing three pitches in game, sitting in the low-90’s, and could project to add more velocity. He’s definitely one of the guys from this DSL team to watch, though like all pitchers at that age he is a major project.
