As the 2025 MLB Draft quickly approaches, the Prospects Live team wants to make your life as easy as possible. In this series of articles, I'll be providing team-by-team analysis of their recent draft trends, their available draft capital for 2025, any areas of the draft they've heavily targeted, as well as a few names in this year's class that might fit into their historically preferred archetype.
Max Ellingsen
This analysis isn't sourced for the upcoming year, nor is it a guarantee the organization won't pivot from what they've done in the past. Simply put, this article aims to provide an in-depth look at teams and their recent draft classes to try and decipher trends that could help uncover players your favorite team might be targeting. It's far from a perfect science, but I've done my job if it makes things easier to follow on draft day.
Atlanta Braves
- 2025 Bonus Pool Value - $9,081,100 (23rd)
- Top 100 selections - 22, 60, 96
The Braves find themselves with a standard three picks in the first hundred picks, however with a lackluster first round selection they’re well into the bottom half of the bonus pool ranks. The Braves have had success locking down their young core of hitters to long term contracts in years past and have done relatively well with their draft process as a whole. We’ll see if they’re able to add the next big piece to their organization despite limited draft resources and a rather mundane back half of the first round.
2024 Draft Overview
With their first choice in last year’s draft, the Braves went for young prep lefty Cam Caminiti (slot), betting on his projectable frame and promising, if unrefined arsenal. Next came Vanderbilt’s Carter Holton ($40,000 underslot), Indiana’s Luke Sinnard (slot), and Miami’s Herick Hernandez ($75,000 underslot), a trio of college pitchers that bring a nice blend of floor and ceiling from rather unique frames. Closing out their major spending with two preps in Nick Montgomery ($600,000 overslot) and Ethan Bagwell ($510,000 overslot) put them in a spot where they had to play catch up on their bonus pool, though they were able to snag Canadian high schooler Eric Hartman ($190,000 overslot) in the 20th round to give another lottery ticket in this one. It was a pitching heavy class for the Braves with a mix of both prep and college arms, though that general philosophy, as we’ll come to see, is nothing new for Atlanta.
2023 Draft Overview
Atlanta scooped up Florida right hander Hurston Waldrep ($270,000 underslot) with their first rounder in 2023, though all those savings and then some were swallowed up by second round sophomore sign Drue Hackenberg ($630,000 overslot) out of Virginia Tech. Campbell’s Cade Kuehler (slot) followed while Sabin Ceballos ($115,000 underslot) became the first hitter taken in their class. Garrett Baumann ($225,000 overslot) and Isaiah Drake ($380,000 overslot) were two high school talents taken out of Florida and Georgia, respectively, though Cal State Northridge’s Lucas Braun ($60,000 overslot) got himself a nice pay day in the sixth as well. Early returns on this class were outstanding with nearly all of their top picks performing well, however those results have slowed a bit for various reasons, leaving the class less clear than it once was.
2022 Draft Overview
The Braves led off their 2022 class with a trio of high octane prep hurlers, ultimately landing Owen Murphy ($850,000 underslot), JR Ritchie ($200,000 overslot), and Cole Phillips ($190,000 overslot) in the top two rounds. Auburn pitcher Blake Burkhalter ($210,000 underslot) rounded out their top two rounds and Drake Baldwin (slot) out of Missouri State has become an absolute steal. After David McCabe (slot) was locked down, the Braves swung for both Nacho Alvarez Jr. ($140,000 overslot) and prep pitcher Seth Keller ($425,000 overslot), however their biggest splurge of the entire class came with Oregon hurler Adam Maier ($1,185,000 overslot) in the seventh. Their spending habits understandably forced them to tank their remaining bonus pool into senior signs, however they did splurge ever so slightly on Cedric De Grandpre ($90,000 overslot) as a JuCo bat. Though there've been some ups and downs from some of the top signees in this class, with the remaining upside left in the prep arms and the success of both Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez, this class has to be considered a win.
Early Round Demographics
It’s all about pitching in the ATL, with the Braves using the largest portion of their top draft capital on arms of anyone we’ve covered thus far in this series. They invest heavily into both the prep side and the college ranks and will do so repeatedly in the hope of building a flush stable of starters at the major league level. Their hit rates have been lower than you’d like to hope for considering the capital they’ve sunk into many of these arms, however with how young many of these arms still are, there’s reason to believe they’ll have some hits coming in down the road.
Late Round Demographics
The pitching trend continues to a certain extent, however Atlanta seems to draft somewhat “backward” compared to the rest of the league. The Braves sink a healthy amount of their later picks into position players and the majority of their early to mid round picks on pitchers, a philosophy most other clubs do not abide by. It’s an interesting tactic that I would love to hear the reasoning behind, however it’s a fairly distinct pattern we’ve seen over the past few years that seems likely to hold into 2025.
Names to Know
Gage Wood, Arkansas RHP - Though I would be floored if he was still on the board at 22, Atlanta would jump at the chance to select a pitcher of Wood’s caliber. With a truly electric fastball-slider combination, this would be a slam dunk pick for Atlanta.
Aaron Watson, High School RHP - Watson would likely save the Braves a bit of cash at this spot and carries a highly projectable build with budding stuff from the right side. I think Watson makes a ton of sense here and fits what they want to do perfectly.
Patrick Forbes, Louisville RHP - Forbes is another college pitcher that brings massive stuff on the mound, though he’s more likely to be available for Atlanta than Wood is. I think he’s another arm that just might save some cash and could bring a “stuff over polish” profile into a Braves system that’s done well with that profile in the past.
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