Capping off a busy prospect week for MLB Pipeline on Saturday morning they released a list of their rankings for all 30 MLB farm systems. As expected, the Atlanta Braves were not seen favorably, garnering just the 26th spot on the list. This represents a one spot jump from 27th on the midseason list and dead last this time last year, but Atlanta is still not producing major excitement from the national media.
Despite the lack of top end prospects and positivity from the media, even during the down years for the system they’ve managed to produce both major trades using minor league assets and a handful of good major leaguers. Most notably, AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep have looked fantastic this spring and after both made rises in rankings last season we could see more of that this season. The emergence of Nacho Alvarez and the signing fo Jose Perdomo have also bolstered rankings just a bit, and there is the expectation that Waldrep, Smith-Shawver, and Alvarez, along with lower-ranked prospects like Drake Baldwin could continue to provide reinforcements to what is arguably the best roster in baseball already.
