With the Atlanta Braves’ draft position locked in last week, it’s now time to take a look at some of the potential targets for the team in the 2026 MLB Draft. This series looks at 10 players who have some chance of being available for the team with the ninth pick. We’ll skip the four guys who have no chance of falling that far at this point, the top three shortstops (Roch Cholowsky, Grady Emerson, Justin Lebron) and the top pitcher (Liam Peterson).
We’ll continue our run with the second of the big bats in the Braves level, with exciting sophomore Sawyer Strosnider following AJ Gracia. This group of players is based on what things look like for the spring, as players could see their stocks or even their play change significantly over the next eight months.
Sawyer Strosnider is a second-year outfielder at TCU who is coming off a huge freshman season to put him in the conversation for the Top 10. He is a 6’2′, 200-pound talent who both hits and throws left-handed. In his freshman year, he hit .350/.420/.650 with 13 doubles, 10 triples, 11 home runs and 10 steals in 14 opportunities. He also walked 20 times against 47 strikeouts in his 251 plate appearances.
Strosnider is an exciting combo athlete with power and speed. He brings plus power as well as speed numbers, which translated into double figures in doubles, triples, home runs and steals as a true freshman last spring. His hitting tool is more average, as he tends to chase pitches and could do a better job drawing walks, but he played very well last year. Defensively, he has a real chance to stay in center with his plus speed and arm, although he’ll have to convert there as a pro after playing mostly right field in college out of respect for another high-end player. Either way, he has the ability to be a strong defender in either of those positions.
Strosnider might just be reaching his potential. He is a former three-sport athlete in high school and was also once a two-way prospect as a pitcher, so there could be more upside for him if he continues to focus on hitting 100% of the time. He may be the most exciting prospect in this draft, especially among the college prospects, as he is always a threat to do something in every phase of the game.
It’s worth noting that as of now we’ve covered six players in this series (Strosnider, Gracia, Tyler Spangler, Jacob Lombard, Eric Becker, and Tyler Bell). That means if the aforementioned Top 3 and the best pitcher in the draft (Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron and Peterson) are all drafted ahead of the Braves, they’ll have their pick of at least two of the guys we’ve covered so far with the #9 selection – with four more profiles of prospects in this bracket still to come.
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