Braves news: ESPN’s top 100 prospects, former Brave arms on waiver wire change and more

With a major winter storm blanketing much of the continental United States this past weekend, we find ourselves in a bit of a lull, at least until all the posts on the social media trucks start their trickle-turning-flood at short notice. That same storm is still having “does my house have power” implications for people across the country, which is why I’m doing News and Links this morning (well, actually last night). Hello.

Anyway, on to Braves news. In that silence yesterday, we released ESPN’s list of top prospects, compiled by former Braves employee Kiley McDaniel. That list included Cam Caminiti and JR Ritchie, both of whom appeared on other publishing lists but also gave some love to Didier Fuentes. I have no real role in the prospect rankings game, but I found it interesting in retrospect that FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen generally ranked Fuentes higher than other publications, and that continued to prove itself as Fuentes hasn’t appeared on these various offseason Top 100 lists, but Caminiti has.

More Braves-related news:

Without much actual Braves stuff going on, I thought it was funny that there were some short, if any, Braves arms flying on the waiver wire.

Separately, San Diego Studio revealed the cover art for the next MLB: The Show game, with Aaron Judge (again). I won’t mince words: this might be the worst box art I’ve ever seen. Not necessarily from an aesthetic point of view, but yes, that too. It’s more that the design and content are repulsive, to say the least. Not only does it look like it was cut together, like it was made in the PowerPoint that came with Microsoft Office 95, but when you actually look at the cover, it doesn’t make any sense. “Team USA” and “WBC” are both “functions” somehow, along with “high school” and “college,” which inflates the idea of ​​progress. And then you see the progression from left to right at the top, but the middle “row” contains “MVP” before “MLB.” I don’t think anyone cares about covers anymore these days because of the digital delivery of games, but yeah.

All World Baseball Classic participants on MLB 40-man rosters are assessed by an insurer agreed to by MLB and the players’ union. Like the Los Angeles Times noted in 2023If the insurer determines that a player is uninsurable due to his/her injury history, the player’s contract will not be guaranteed for missed time due to injuries sustained during the WBC unless a team specifically agrees.

Hey kids, get excited about your favorite players representing their home country in a baseball tournament that’s more fun than Spring Training… but wait, not you, fans of [insert player here] that an insurer has deemed ‘uninsurable’. Double yes. How difficult would it be for MLB to simply guarantee the contracts? Does MLB even want the WBC to be a thing? (Also, if you haven’t read the article, a big part of the delay in roster announcements is players waiting for insurer approval that they are indeed insurable and good to play. So. A lot. Nice.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed me complaining to you for several paragraphs at 8:30 am ET. I won’t do it again unless someone else’s power goes out.