Baseball America highlights two 2023 Braves draftee arms with "standout" pro debuts
Two Atlanta Braves 2023 draftee arms are amongst the ten pitchers in the 2023 MLB Draft class that had "standout debuts", according to Baseball America.
In their write-up ($), BA highlighted the pair of Hurston Waldrep and Lucas Braun, highlighting Atlanta's willingness to "push" their pitchers rapidly through the minors to figure out the appropriate level where they'd be challenged to improve as pitchers.
For Waldrep, who went to Atlanta at pick #24 in the first round out of the University of Florida, BA specifically noted his 41 strikeouts in 29.1 innings, both tops among pitchers drafted in 2023.
Waldrep debuted with Single-A Augusta and finished his season with AAA Gwinnett, making eight starts with a 1.53 ERA. When you combine his 29.1 pro innings with his 101.2 collegiate innings, Waldrep's 2023 innings total is the fourth-highest for any minor league pitcher 21 or younger.
Said BA writer Carlos Collazo of Waldrep's pitching arsenal:
Waldrep continued to show the loud stuff that made him one of the highest upside arms in the draft class. He averaged 96 mph and generated miss rates north of 50% with both his upper-80s slider and upper-80s split-change, which had a loud 65% miss rate despite the fact that he threw it for strikes less than half the time.
Coming in third on the list was Atlanta's 6th round pick, RHP Lucas Braun. Coming to the Braves out of Cal State Northridge, Braun was second to Waldrep in innings (27) and strikeouts (32) amongst this year's draft class.
Despite pitching in only Single-A and High-A Rome, Braun's combined inning count for the entirety of 2023 reached 118.1 innings after he made 15 starts in college (spanning 91.1 innings) with 100 strikeouts.
Collazo wasn't as blown away with Braun's "stuff" as Waldrep's but had positive things to say about the arsenal as a whole.
Braun has just average life on a 91-94 mph fastball, but he threw the pitch for strikes at a 69% clip and does a nice job mixing in a mid-80s slider, upper-70s curveball and mid-80s changeup. Both breaking balls were solid swing-and-miss offerings for him, and the slider has short, tight tilting action with the curveball offering more depth and horizontal movement.
With a chance for plus control and command, Braun has a chance to make the most of a solid-average four-pitch mix.
(For context: "life" on a fastball isn't a colloquial term - it refers to the vertical break, or rather lack thereof, that a fastball has. The backspin of the pitch allows it to better resist gravity during the flight, allowing a fastball thrown up in the zone to end up higher than the batter's expecting it.)
Baseball America's prospect rankings have Waldrep in Atlanta's Top 30 prospects, coming in at #2, while Braun is not on the list.
MLB Pipeline has both pitchers in Atlanta's Top 30 prospects, with Waldrep at #2 and Braun at #29.
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