Top 10 Prospects for 2022 - 美國職棒

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September 26, 2021
Atlanta Braves Top 10 Prospects for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

Atlanta is finishing a painful but impressive season, bottoming out at one
point after losing Mike Soroka and Ronald Acuña Jr. for the year on top of
missing Ian Anderson–not to mention the Marcel Ozuna saga.

They could’ve done the cool kid thing and stopped trying. Instead, they
traded for a whole new outfield of misfit toys–Jorge Soler, Joc Pederson,
Eddie Rosario, and Adam Duval–that selling teams no longer wanted on the
payroll, sacrificing next to nothing from their farm in the process and
putting together another potentially division-winning club, their fourth in a
row if they can hold off the Phillies, who are just one game back as I type
this on Saturday night.

If Atlanta can power through, they’ll have benefited from being in baseball’
s wonkiest division, but a win is a win, and who knows, perhaps this team
that figures to win about 85 games will outperform much better regular season
squads in the postseason, and even if they fall short, their minor league
system looks better to me than it has since Acuña graduated.

Format: Position Player | Age on 4/1/2022 | Highest level played | ETA

1. SS Vaughn Grissom | 21 | A+ | 2023

“Atlanta SS Vaughn Grissom is leveling up in more than one sense. He was
promoted to High-A a couple weeks ago, and the 20-year-old has been
unstoppable there, slashing .378/.519/.595 across 12 games, walking (21.2%)
more than twice as often as he’s striking out (9.6%). He carried strong
rates in 75 games at A ball as well: 10.4 BB%, 14.9 K%. Grissom is 6’3”
with plus speed and present power who could grow into a top 50 prospect very
soon.”

That’s me quoting me being very excited about Vaughn Grissom, who was still
available in my 15-team dynasty at the time. We’ve hooked up since. Feels
like a ready-to-launch moment for Grissom, who slashed .311/.402/.446 across
75 games at A ball prior to his High-A heater, which was a continuation of a
long steamy stretch that started in Low A.

2. OF Michael Harris II | 21 | A+ | 2023

Speed and contact skills are the calling cards for Harris, but his plate
discipline took a pretty nice leap in the second half this year as well. He’
s posted a 12.9/17.9 K/BB percentage since August 1, slashing .288/.400/.432
with 2 HR and 9 SB over the 35 game stretch. He’ll open next year at AA and
could push for some big league looks later in the season.

3. OF Cristian Pache | 23 | MLB | 2020

If you can separate hype and history from the game on the field, Pache had a
good year as a 22-year-old at AAA, slashing .268/.336/.418 with 10 HR and 9
SB across 83 games, good for a 104 wRC+. He’s on track to be an everyday
centerfielder thanks to double-plus defense. There’s fantasy value in the
playing time and speed with a decent stick. Manny Margot stuff would be a
pretty good outcome. Pache retains topside beyond that, but Cedric Mullins he
’s not. That was fun to write. Sure, he might not pay back the investors who
’ve been all in on him for three years, but he’s a good prospect.


4. C Shea Langeliers | 24 | AA | 2022

William Contreras was not great as a rookie (.210/.294/.382), but catchers
rarely are. He’s still ahead of Langeliers on timeline, but I think the
latter will establish himself as the club’s long-term catcher sometime soon.
Langeliers showed he could get very hot on the home run front at times in
2021, making him an intriguing option in the final rounds of draft and hold
leagues heading into 2022, when he’ll open the season at AAA after posting
22 bombs and a 128 wRC+ across 92 games at AA this season.

5. RHP Spencer Strider | 23 | AA | 2022

The six-foot Strider popped this season after being a 4th round of pick out
in the 2020 draft then spending much of that year in the pitching lab working
on his mechanics and repertoire, specifically on the axis and spin of his
4-seam fastball, which he locates well atop the zone even as it comes in
around 100 mph. He can hold that velocity throughout his starts, which alone
gives him a shot to remain on the rotation path. His curveball pairs well
with the heater, and his changeup has good shape and potential if he can
command it. One fun stat about Strider, he had five starts (among 21 total)
with ten or more strikeouts this year. We will be very happy fantasy players
if he brings us something like eight outings with double digit strikeouts.


6. LHP Kyle Muller | 24 | MLB | 2021

A giant at 6’6” 235 lbs, Muller enjoyed a command boost this year that
carried him to the big leagues, where he was effective despite walking 4.91
batters per nine innings (12.9%). His success came with a low hit rate (.255
BABIP), but Muller has always suppressed home runs and allowed only two in
his 36.2 major league innings. If that holds and Muller can find the zone
enough, his nasty fastball and four-pitch mix should find a home in the
rotation sometime next season.

7. LHP Tucker Davidson | 26 | MLB | 2021

Tough guy to rank as he reportedly avoided Tommy John surgery but didn’t
pitch after leaving his June 15 start with forearm tightness. I’ve long
pined for the full Tucker Davidson experience but been mostly puzzled by his
place in the Atlanta pecking order. He got his fastball up in the 100 range
at Driveline in 2020 but pitched in the 92-94 range before getting shut down,
meaning there’s a non-zero chance he settles in above that when fully
healthy and firing on all cylinders at the highest level. Like many
pitchability lefties with diverse repertoires and lots of experience, Davidson
’s outcomes have always outpaced his scouting reports. He might wind up
needing a Cole Irvin like change of scenery to hit his top-end potential.


8. RHP Freddy Tarnok | 23 | AA | 2022

Tarnok the hunter slipped under my radar for much of the season. Typical
stealth of the trade. The lithe young beanpole is no longer looking like
Sticks McKenzie but still figures to add muscle, and perhaps velocity, with
more time in the pros–not that he’ll need any extra velo. The 6’3” righty
struck out 40.7 percent of the hitters he saw in A+ then K’d 33.7 percent at
AA, where he was even better overall, finishing the season with a 1.11 WHIP
and 2.60 ERA at the level. He took nine turns at AA and made it through six
innings twice with just one bad night allowing four runs in four innings. It’
s a little bit of a Touki Toussaint look with dynamic off-speed and middling
but improving fastball, and Tarnok found better command this year than Touki
has typically enjoyed, giving reason to hope the once-relievery prospect can
make it as a rotation piece.

9. RHP Ryan Cusick | 22 | A | 2023

Atlanta cast Cusick for the role of 24th overall pick of the 2021 draft,
their second straight first-round pitcher from Wake Forest after selecting
LHP Jared Shuster in 2020. Cusick brings slightly similar traits in that he
had a velocity boost in his draft season, but while Shuster’s velocity
backed off the following year, I think Cusick’s will hold. The 6’6” 235
pounder throws his four-seamer between 97 and 100 mph, sprinkling in a plus
curve and developing changeup. He found little resistance in A ball, striking
out 50.7 percent of his opponents in six outings spanning 16.1 innings. Feels
a bit like the Strider approach: short outings early to let his fastball eat
and build up his confidence in the pitch. Would’ve been nice to see a bit
more of him, but six dominant turns in his draft year is nothing to scoff at.
Might look pretty low on this list by June of 2022. If it doesn’t work out
for him as a starter, Cusick is a good bet to become a lights out back end
reliever.


10. OF Drew Waters | 23 | AAA | 2022

I got so close to putting Shuster or OF Jesse Franklin V here thanks to his
24 HR, 19 SB debut across 101 games. That all happened at High-A though, and
Waters is in AAA at the same age, so even as he’s in a long dry spell, it
would scare me a little to leave him off the list entirely because he was so
good in AA as a 21 year old (.319/.366/.481 across 108 games), and he seems
to be running a lot more (28 SB in 36 attempts this year) to compensate for
struggles at the plate. He’ll need to stop striking out so much but cut
about five percent off his K rate this year compared to his 26 AAA games in
2019.

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