Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Atlanta Braves’ farm system. Scouting reports were compiled based on information gathered from industry sources and my own observations. This is the sixth year we’ve defined two expected relief roles, the abbreviations of which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year in which a player must be added to the 40-man roster in order to avoid Rule 5 draft eligibility. Manual adjustments are made where appropriate, but we use this as a rule of thumb.
A brief overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. There is a much deeper overview to be found here.
All prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource that provides the site with sortable scouting information for each organization. It provides more detail (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates each team’s list so readers can compare prospects between company systems. It can be found here.
Other notable prospects
Grouped by type and ranked in order of preference within each category.
DSL crew
Dayner MatosRHP
Yoelvis Betancourtc
Michael MartinezBY
Juan MateoINF
Mario BaezSS
The Braves have spent a lot of money on their top international contractors in recent years, leaving them scarce at the complexes even though they only have one DSL team. Matos was already 21 when he made his debut and pitched far out of the rotation in the DSL. He is a good athlete, up to 96 years old, and can spin a breaking ball. Betancourt makes a lot of contact and, at least on the grainy videos available to me, posts pop times in the low 1.90s. He is on the small side for the position. Martinez has projectable power and left the DSL complex for Florida last year. Mateo has the ceiling of a good infielder, but questions about everything from his fit at shortstop and his arm strength projection to his ability to cover the outside half of the plate leave too many things up in the air for the main body of the list. Baez performed in the DSL in 2023 and remains an interesting athlete, but after flirting with the Mendoza Line again, he will need a junior year in the FCL.
Relieving battery
Carlo de GrandpreRHP
Jhancarlos LaraRHP
Jeremy ReyesRHP
Elison JosephRHP
Anderson PilarRHP
Austin PopeRHP
Blane AbeytaRHP
Rayven AntonioRHP
De Grandpre missed all of 2024 as he recovered from Tommy John surgery and was erratic in his return. He has average arm strength or a touch more, but the fastball plays less due to his shape. He flashes a plus slider and chances are everything clicks in relief for him. Lara has a heat above 90 and a slider that flashes above average, but he is also very spread out and prone to leaving both offerings above the heart of the board. A shift to emergency aid did not help. The arm strength will always give him a latent advantage, but the pitchability is currently 20. Reyes had a good year in Augusta’s rotation. He has a low slot and a mid-90s fastball, but he’s not a great athlete or striker and doesn’t yet have an average breaking ball.
Joseph is a stiff athlete with a mid-90s fastball and a slider that flashes plus. Last year in Double-A, he walked more than one batter per inning and is in danger of hitting the bull at any time. Pilar is a closer for Gigantes del Cibao in the Dominican Winter League and is a sinker/cutter/slider reliever with average command and all. The Braves must like him because they’re back to the well after a failed Rule 5 attempt last year. Pope made his debut with Arizona last September and signed a minor league deal. He has some average offers and is projected for an up-down role here. Abeyta is a top-level reliever with a good slider/cutter; his fastball has worked in the middle minors, but it looks flimsy. Not only did Antonio have the coolest name in the system, but he also added three runs to his fastball in 2025 and saw his strikeout rate nearly double year over year. All of his secondary students are below average and need work; the splitter seems to be the most promising of the group.
Good control, light stuff
Davis PoloRHP
Luis ArestiguetaRHP
Ian MejiaRHP
Polo is a projectable judge with a starter frame and command, and projectable secondaries. He has talent for the main section, but he strained his rotator cuff in August 2024 and hasn’t appeared in a game since, so we’ll slide him here until we see how everything looks on the field. Arestigueta has a starter performance and nice stuff, but he desperately needs to get stronger. Mejia has more control over a mostly fringy pitch mix and projects as a depth-length arm. In my eyes, his slider is at the 45/50 line, but he has been playing well for years and will be a key player if he exceeds this prediction.
Bank bats
Dixon WilliamsINF
Cody MillerINF
David McCabeINF
Patrick ClohisyBY
Kevin Kilpatrick Jr.BY
Adam Zebrowskic
Jim JarvisSS
Luke WaddellINF
Williams signed last year for just under $500,000. He has more speed, a good approach and a bit of versatility in the infield, but there isn’t much power, and his lack of contact, especially on spin, in his Low-A debut was a bit concerning. If that improves, or if he can become even more versatile defensively, you’ll see a potential selection. Miller, Atlanta’s third rounder last year, is a plus runner who has played shortstop and third base so far. He hit a lot of power as a junior at East Tennessee State, but probably won’t do that as a pro. In my opinion, he’s had more of a bat-wrap in his at-bats this spring, and the extra length doesn’t play well with his bat speed.
McCabe is a tweener, a corner infielder with the bat of a third baseman and the defensive abilities of a first baseman. Clohisy is a burner who stole 100 bases last year if you include his AFL stint. In the era of the five-man bench, he would have an easier fit on the roster. Kilpatrick is a speedy center fielder who has long profiled as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but the way he has struggled at the plate in recent seasons suggests a fifth or sixth outfielder would be a better fit. Zebrowski has more power and is an undersized, if playable, defensive catcher. Jarvis is a fundamentally sound shortstop defenseman with a light bat. Waddell gets the bat everywhere (his 87% contact rate was the system), but he is a singles hitter and stretched at shortstop.
Tool, shaky feeling to strike
Isaiah DrakeC.F
Ambioris TavarezSS
Nick Montgomeryc
Drake has shortened his once unfeasible swing and is now making plenty of contact. It’s still an odd swing, though, and I worry about both the chippy path of the bat and its tendency to get off balance. He has the ceiling of a fourth outfielder, but I’m a little skeptical he’ll hit enough. Tavarez’s ability to play short helped him stay on scouts’ radar even when he was having unstoppable strikeouts as a teenager. He still does, and this may not work even in an up-down capacity. Montgomery entered 2025 as a potential breakout candidate with projectable power and soft hands behind the plate, but he looked overwhelmed at the dish and struggled behind it. If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt in a rough debut season, it’s a big-frame, seven-figure high school catcher who skipped the complex despite his limited showcase experience as an amateur; Hopefully he can get back on track in 2026.
System overview
Last week we highlighted the Tigers as the most hitter-heavy system in the game; Atlanta is the opposite. There is no safe bat in the entire system, and the higher levels in particular are almost completely devoid of prospects. We saw the consequences last summer, when a series of injuries, underperformance and Jurickson ProfessorThe organization’s suspension highlighted the lack of depth at the highest level and pushed glove-only backups into starting roles. The seven-figure signings of Tate Southisene, Alex Lodise and Conor Essenburg, as well as positive years for John Gil, Owen Carey and Eric Hartman, indicate that help is on the way, if not imminent.
A few factors explain why this is such a sparse system. The Braves tend to promote guys quickly, they’re always late with their drafts, they only have one DSL team, and they tend to cram most of their international bonus pool into one or two guys, all of which limits the club’s ability to increase minor league depth. And while injuries and pitching underperformance hit every farm, they perhaps bit Atlanta’s a little harder than most last year. Several arms at the bottom of the main body are lower than they were a season ago, which had a further deflationary effect.
The good news is that there are a lot of up arrow throwers at the top of the group. Didier Fuentes shot to the big leagues, Owen Murphy is healthy again and JR Ritchie and Garrett Baumann rode velo breakouts to increases in their FV numbers. It’s an important development as Atlanta’s big-league rotation depth will be tested early.
One final thought: hurray for the amateur group who found some relatively inexpensive projectable cold weather prep bats. Carey and Hartman both fit the bill, and at a time when it’s harder than ever to get high school players to sign for less than seven figures, Atlanta went against the grain to draft a pair of prospects.
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