What to Look For From Atlanta's 'Spring Breakout' Prospect Game Today
The Atlanta Braves are playing two today!
But instead of a traditional doubleheader, one of the two games is part of MLB's "Spring Breakout" initiative, where prospect squads from two organizations face off in a seven-inning exhibition. (You can watch the Braves prospects take on the Boston Red Sox prospects right here, for free, on Braves Today!)
So with Atlanta's prospects taking on Boston's today, what should you be looking for? Here's our list of what we're are interested in seeing from Atlanta's roster for the exhibition.
Spencer Schwellenbach vs Boston's Big Three
While lineups haven't yet been announced as of press time, expect Spencer Schwellenbach to be one of Atlanta's first pitchers on the mound for this one. The righthander, who represented the Braves in last season's Futures Game, was our pick for 2024's breakout prospect during our 'Prospect Week' earlier this offseason.
Assistant general manager and de-facto director of player development Ben Sestanovich seemingly agrees, telling MLB Pipeline's Jim Callis that Spencer would be on "a similar path to AJ (Smith-Shawver)" in 2024.
And today's a great test - Boston's Spring Breakout squad is led by three MLB Pipeline Top 50 prospects in SS Marcelo Mayer (#15), OF Roman Anthony (#24), and C Kyle Teel (#40). How well Schwellenbach can handle the dangerous trio should give us at least an educated guess of his ability to rapidly climb through the farm system in 2024 for a potential 2025 debut.
(Fellow top pitching prospect Owen Murphy should probably be one of the first pitchers out after Schwellenbach, entering the game early enough to face those same three before Boston begins substituting.)
The left side of Atlanta's infield
While the Braves have a farm system that skews heavily towards pitching, there's some intriguing hitters in this system and one position to watch, in particular, is shortstop.
Nacho Alvarez and Sabin Ceballos are both on the roster for today - Alvarez has been playing shortstop last year and this spring, while Ceballos was a college third baseman from last year's draft who's reportedly going to be spending more time at shortstop this year.
With Orlando Arcia "only" locked in for a few more seasons, relatively short compared to the rest of the major league roster, the ability of both players to play shortstop at a major league level could be relevant down the road.
The potential of this outfield
The Braves have only four official outfielders on the roster, so there figures to be extended run for the young duo of Luis Guanipa and Isaiah Drake.
Guanipa, signing for $2.5M as an international free agent in the 2023 class, is fresh off of a Dominican Summer League stint that was...fine? He batted .238/.361/.384 in 46 games, stealing 20 bags while providing good defense in centerfield. He was MLB Pipeline's choice as the organization's breakout prospect for this season. This is Guanipa's first official game action since coming stateside, although he's reportedly been playing in some backfield matchups at camp.
Joining Guanipa in the outfield for a majority of the game will be Drake, a 5th-rounder by the team in last season's MLB Draft out of North Atlanta HS. One of the fastest players in the organization, he's still incredibly raw to professional baseball, getting into only 19 games of rookie ball last summer and getting exactly two at-bats in Grapefruit League action as a temporary addition to the roster.
How Does Hayden Harris Do It?
One of the unexpectedly satisfying parts of my trip to North Port for part of spring training was a discussion outside the clubhouse with several members of the beat about the lefty reliever Harris, who was an undrafted free agent after the 2022 season out of nearby Georgia Southern.
The big takeaway was that Harris's success doesn't seem obvious when looking at "stuff" - he's throwing his fastball in the low-90s, but hitters just don't seem to pick up the ball well out of his hand. He got a well above-average 39% swing-and-miss rate on the pitch during his 59.1 minor league innings last season.
The conclusion we reached is that there's some measure of deception that we're not currently able to measure (we're assuming the teams have proprietary ways to capture that info), and even though it's not a Statcast game, there's still going to be probably the best quality looks we've been able to get on his performance today to help and figure out why he's as good as he is when, from the outside, the pure 'stuff' doesn't explain it.
How to Watch the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox 'Spring Breakout' Game
First pitch from JetBlue Park in Ft. Myers is scheduled for 1:05 PM ET, and the game can be streamed right here, for free, on Braves Today!