Sean Murphy does not get cheated when he swings. No matter the count, he is going to put up his A swing in hopes of barreling up the baseball. His profile is one of my favorites to watch. Although this type of hitter can be more prone to strikeouts than most, Murphy has managed to maintain a respectable strikeout rate in the last few seasons due to solid bat-to-ball skills and above-average plate discipline. Add solid raw strength on top of that, and you have yourself a career 116 wRC+ hitter. But this year, he has blown that mark away with a 182 wRC+ through 119 plate appearances. That’s an incredible jump that warrants some investigative work.

If I were a hitter looking to improve, I would focus on two things. The first is tweaking my mechanics to make myself less prone to exploitation. In other words, I’d make sure my bat path could cover different heights and depths of the zone so that I can be adjustable to different speeds and locations. The other approach would be to learn with what pitches and in which zones I’m already good at making flush contact and adjust my swing decisions to cater to those tendencies better. These two things are often intertwined, but depending on where a hitter is at in their career, they may focus on one more than the other or have an equal split.

For Murphy, it seems the focus has been more on matching his swing decisions to his strengths, and that has worked very well thus far. Below is a table with his swing rates by pitch type in the last few seasons:

This year, Murphy is swinging at fewer fastballs and breaking balls than he typically has, leading to an overall Swing% decrease. In 2021 and ’22, he swung at fastballs and breaking balls 47.6% and 49.3% of the time, respectively. This year, that number is down to 43.0%, the lowest since his best offensive year in the shortened 2020 season, where his Swing% was 41.3%.

The bulk of that change comes from not chasing as often. Murphy’s chase rate on fastballs and breakers have both seen notable drops. For somebody who had a chase contact rate of 61.1% in 2022, this is a big improvement. Most hitters aren’t good at finding the barrel outside of the zone, and Murphy is no different. If you chase less frequently, you take away opportunities for more whiffs and barrel suppression.

As a hitter, if you get better at targeting locations where you know you have more room for error in terms of getting your barrel to the ball, then you can move your batted ball profile towards its optimal form. And that is exactly what Murphy has seen happen so far this season. For the first time since his cup of coffee debut in 2019, he is pulling half of his batted balls (50.7%). In the previous two full seasons, he pulled the ball 39.7–41.5% of the time. Pulling the ball isn’t always the right prescription for every hitter; for some, it risks too much top spin that can drag down your batted balls in the air, or it can mean not making contact when your bat path is in an upward trajectory (rolling over). But Murphy’s best contact has always come when he pulls the ball. Below is a table of all of Murphy’s batted balls greater than or equal to 95 mph and between an 8–32 degree launch angle; the former is Statcast’s definition of hard hit, and the latter is its definition of the sweet spot:

The most ideal way to display this data would be bucketing by spray angle, rather than using Statcast’s directional definitions, but that data is not publicly available. If this were separated by spray angle, it’d be easier to see that batted balls to the left side of the field are most ideal for Murphy. Either way, the percentages clearly show that he doesn’t have the kind of opposite field power that would justify trying to make that a main part of his game. His best chances of hitting the ball hard in the air is by hitting it to the left side. The following spray chart shows you what this group of batted balls looks like on the field. (The venue chosen for the dimensions is Truist Park.)

If you couldn’t see it on the table, you can definitely see it here: Murphy’s home run power is from the pull side gap to the left field foul pole. Unfortunately for him, this wasn’t ideal for a right-handed hitter in Oakland. According to Statcast’s park factors, Oakland Coliseum has been the third-least hitter-friendly park for right-handed hitters in the last three seasons in terms of wOBACON, whereas Truist ranks seventh. And while home/road splits analysis doesn’t always tell the entire story of a hitter, Murphy’s 106 wRC+ at Oakland compared to 126 elsewhere during his tenure there is notable. Perhaps he feels more comfortable with this approach in his new home, but no matter what, it’s clear this is something that should be a permanent change.

Typically, this is the point in a piece where I introduce mechanical changes as a complement to the swing decision and batted ball analysis. But when I was watching Murphy’s tapes from this year and last year, he didn’t look all that different. See for yourself: The first three swings are from his final month in Oakland last year, and the other three are from his first month in Atlanta, all on fastballs in the heart of the plate:

2022 Swing 1

2022 Swing 2

2022 Swing 3

2023 Swing 1

2023 Swing 2

2023 Swing 3

The setup and finish are both very similar, the leg kick hasn’t undergone any significant changes, and the stride direction is almost identical. All I can say is that things look smoother and more connected. There might be slightly different timing mechanisms going on with the leg kick that has led to a more connected swing between the upper and lower body, but again, there haven’t ben any significant changes. That tells me that the change in swing decision is the leading factor in this early hot streak.

As hitters get older, they often better understand who they are and what their swing can do. There are multiple variables at play with Murphy, but it seems as if he has gotten to the point where he understands the exact approach he needs to have to be the best version of himself. We’ve seen this happen with hitters in Atlanta before, and he is most likely another example. Will pitchers adjust to his changed approach? Probably; that’s just life in the big leagues. But from his perspective, it can take years to get to this point where you know your recipe for success. Even when he sees his inevitable regression from his exorbitant .340 ISO, he will still know what his blueprint is to optimize his profile, and that is huge for himself and his team.

Let’s dive right into a few incremental changes to the Top 100 prospects list, as well as a couple of non-Top 100 additions.

Cardinals lefty Matthew Liberatore has had a velo spike — he’s frequently reaching back for 96 and 97 when he wants, and his fastball is averaging 94.5 mph. That’s up about a tick and a half from his average in 2022, when he ran an ERA well north of 5.00 across about 150 combined innings split mostly between Triple-A and seven big league starts. Libby has had frequent enough velocity fluctuations during his time as a prospect to anticipate it will be a thing he deals with throughout his career, but his repertoire depth and the long-haul projection for his command will enable him to compete even when he doesn’t have his peak stuff. That’s largely why he was kept on the Top 100 this past offseason even though he had a poor 2022.

His FV isn’t changing in light of the spike (again, it’s fair to bet Liberatore’s peak velo will continue to yo-yo), but his report has been updated and he’s sliding up about 20 spots, from the very back of the list (where he sat with other bounce-back candidates) into the part of it that includes the other major league ready fourth starters. He’s probably better than Jake Woodford is right now, but St. Louis would be burning Woodford’s last option to swap them one-for-one. Woodford was effective in relief last year and could shift into that role again while a current ‘pen occupant is sent down instead, but the Cardinals don’t have an obvious candidate for that, as their big league relievers are largely either pitching well or are out of options. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Billy Wagner was the club’s closer when Craig Kimbrel joined the Atlanta Braves in 2010. Thirty-nine years old by season’s end, Wagner logged the last 37 of his 422 career saves, and he was as dominant as ever while doing so. Over 69-and-a-third innings, the left-hander fanned 104 batters while allowing just 38 hits.

Kimbrel, who was just 21 years old when he debuted that May, was every bit as overpowering. In 21 appearances comprising 20-and-two-thirds innings, the rookie right-hander fanned 40 batters while allowing just nine hits. Along the way, he recorded the first of what is now 395 saves.

I’ve had a Hall of Fame vote for three years, and in each of them I’ve put a checkmark next to Wagner’s name. This coming winter, I plan to do so again in what will be his penultimate year on the ballot (assuming he doesn’t get voted in; Wagner received 68% of support in his last go-round).

Kimbrel will soon celebrate his 35th birthday, and while the end of his career is fast approaching, he’s still pitching. Will he likewise be getting my vote once his name appears on the ballot? And what about Kenley Jansen? Still going strong at age 35, he’s also got 395 saves, tying him with Kimbrel for seventh on the all-time list, directly behind Wagner.

Let’s compare some of their numbers:

Wagner: 422 saves, WPA 28.40, 187 ERA+, 2.73 FIP, 6.0 H/9, 11.9 K/9.
Kimbrel: 395 saves, WPA 22.99, 174 ERA+, 2.38 FIP, 5.2 H/9, 14.3 K/9.
Jansen: 395 saves, WPA 24.72, 161 ERA+, 2.44 FIP, 5.8 H/9. 13.0 K/9. Read the rest of this entry »

Orlando Arcia getting the nod for the starting shortstop job in Atlanta raised some eyebrows this spring. After all, he had looked more like a utility infielder in recent years than a viable starting shortstop, and it felt a bit like that ship had long since sailed. The present and future was Vaughn Grissom, our top Braves prospect last year after the graduations of Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II. Grissom didn’t exactly struggle in his debut last fall, whomping pitchers to the tune of a .293/.353/.440 line, a triple-slash that would be viable for a first baseman, let alone a guy who can handle short. Yet it was Arcia who ended up with the job in the spring. It didn’t even seem like the typical service time shenanigans, such as the Cubs swearing that Kris Bryant needed a couple weeks to learn to be a better player than Mike Olt; Grissom already had nearly a third of a year of service time, which would have made it a bit arduous to maintain that façade.

Arcia didn’t disappoint in early play: In 13 games, he hit .330/.400/.511 and looked fairly comfortable playing short regularly for the first time in a few years. Unfortunately, a Hunter Greene fastball had other plans for the position; his upper-90s heat hit Arcia’s wrist during an at-bat, knocking him out of Wednesday’s game against Cincinnati, replaced by Ehire Adrianza. Initial x-rays didn’t reveal a fracture, but an MRI and CT scan on Thursday showed a microfracture, sending him to the injured list. This appears to be a minor injury, and it appears as if Arcia will only miss a couple weeks of play. Cookies don’t crumble in identical ways, but Nick Castellanos suffered this injury in 2021 and only missed a couple of weeks.

If there were service time issues involved, the Braves could have very easily plugged in Adrianza or Braden Shewmake for a couple of weeks and continued to let Grissom work on his defense in the minors (he was so-so at best in the majors last year with the glove). But finding time at short for Grissom, who by all reports took his demotion with humility, was still the upside play. Just as Arcia didn’t disappoint early on, he performed very well for Triple-A Gwinnett, with a 1.044 OPS in 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Braves won the World Series in 2021, Ronald Acuña Jr. was a bystander, as a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee knocked him out for the second half of the season and the entire postseason. He returned to action near the end of April last year, but while he was the Braves’ second-most valuable outfielder — which wasn’t saying much due to the slumps and calamities that befell the team’s other fly chasers — his performance was far short of the high standard he’d set since debuting in 2018. With a strong start to his 2023 season, Acuña is showing signs of recovering his pre-injury form, though his performance in a couple of areas does raise concerns.

After hitting a sizzling .283/.394/.596 (157 wRC+) in 82 games before tearing his ACL in 2021, Acuna dipped to .266/.351/.413 (114 wRC+) in 119 games last year. It wasn’t a bad performance; his wRC+ ranked among the top 30 of all outfielders, and his 2.1 WAR prorates to about 2.6 per 650 PA. On a team where all of the other outfielders besides rookie Michael Harris II — namely Travis Demeritte, Adam Duvall, Robbie Grossman, Guillermo Heredia, and Eddie Rosario — netted -1.1 WAR, Acuña’s contribution wasn’t an unwelcome one, helping the team win 101 games. Yet his season was well shy of the elite level that he set for himself pre-injury, with a 140 career wRC+ and 6.0 WAR per 650 PA. After all, this is a player whom Dan Szymborski had once projected as the most likely to supplant Mike Trout as the game’s best in terms of WAR.

Acuña missed his chance for that, but he’s still just 25 years old, and through the first two weeks of the season, he’s hitting .370/.452/.537 through 62 plate appearances. Already he has three three-hit games and four two-hit games under his belt, and he’s helped the Braves jump out to a 9-4 record even while dealing with numerous injuries to their rotation and lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

On Opening Day, when the Braves took the field after batting in the top of the first inning, everyone you’d expect ran out to their usual positions. Well, almost everyone. Taking his position as the starting shortstop was Orlando Arcia, the recipient of a three-year contract extension announced earlier that day. The deal is worth $7.3 million with a club option for a fourth year that includes a $1 million buyout and replaces the previous two-year contract extension he had signed after the 2021 season.

If you hadn’t followed the Braves’ shortstop saga over the offseason, seeing Arcia in the Opening Day lineup might have been a surprise. So let’s recap: Dansby Swanson, the everyday shortstop since his debut in August 2016, played out his final year under team control last year and entered free agency. Atlanta didn’t show much interest in re-signing him once he hit the open market, and he wound up inking a massive seven-year deal with the Cubs.

The heir apparent to Swanson was Vaughn Grissom, who had been called up midseason to fill in for an injured Ozzie Albies even though he hadn’t played above Double-A yet. He impressed with a 165 wRC+ through his first 100 plate appearances in the big leagues, but that mark slid to just 35 over his final 50 trips to the plate. His late swoon was so bad that the Braves ended up benching him in three of their four postseason games. Still, entering spring training, the expectation was that Grissom would get every opportunity to win the job for good.

For his part, Arcia had appeared in just 104 games for the Braves after they acquired him from the Brewers in April 2021. He played four different positions in the infield and outfield, essentially acting as a utility man for Atlanta — a pretty significant step backwards after beginning his career as Milwaukee’s starting shortstop. Through his first five seasons, he put up a .244/.295/.366 slash line (a 71 wRC+) and accumulated 1.9 WAR, and after joining the Braves, he spent a lot of time riding the shuttle between Triple-A and the majors. Still, he did show some improvement at the plate in Gwinnett, posting a 129 wRC+ in 322 PA with his best-ever ISO at .233.

Those improvements at the plate carried over to the next year, where Arcia spent nearly all of his time in the big leagues as the Braves’ utility man. In limited action, he posted a 104 wRC+, a career-high for him. The biggest difference for him was a jump in batted ball quality:

His hard-hit rate improved by more than four points, up to 42.5%, and his barrel rate reached 7.5%, both career highs. He also cut his popup rate to 5.6% and simultaneously increased his fly ball rate. By elevating his higher quality contact but avoiding mis-hits, he was able to generate much more productive results on his balls in play, with average exit velocities on his fly ball and line drive contact that were particularly notable. Instead of a light-hitting, defense-first shortstop, Arcia’s batted ball contact started looking a lot more dangerous.

His plate discipline also took a big step forward. With the Brewers, Arcia had developed a very aggressive approach at the plate which didn’t go well with his middling bat-to-ball skills. Last year, he reduced his swing rate to 44.7%, a drop of nearly eight points over the year prior, and easily a career low. His contact rate didn’t budge, but simply taking more pitches allowed him to run a 9.0% walk rate and maintain his decent strikeout rate.

Despite those improvements at the plate, it still came as a surprise to see Arcia win the Opening Day gig. Grissom had an excellent spring, and a surprise contender emerged in Braden Shewmake.

There’s only so much stock you can put into spring numbers, though there is some evidence that exit velocity improvements can be a little sticky into the regular season. Unfortunately, based on the limited number of Statcast tracked batted balls, Grissom struggled with the same issues that undercut his seemingly impressive debut last year. In 15 tracked batted balls, his average exit velocity was just 86.5 mph — slightly better than the 84.6 mph he put up in the big leagues last year, but still well below league average. (Arcia only had eight tracked batted balls this spring, but their average exit velocity was 94.2 mph.) The lack of high quality hard contact last year was a major red flag for Grissom, who only managed a 34.3% hard-hit rate and put nearly half of his batted balls on the ground. A lot of his success was BABIP-driven, which is why he crashed so hard in September when balls stopped finding gaps in the defense.

Then there’s the problem of Grissom’s defense. He wasn’t great at second base while filling in for Arcia, costing the Braves five outs and three runs per OAA and RAA. At the more challenging defensive position, it’s likely those numbers would only get worse. Grissom worked out with Ron Washingon, who helped turn Marcus Semien’s defense into a strength, for three separate weeks during the offseason. But while there was some improvement, it wasn’t enough to warrant handing him the job out of the gate.

Shewmake’s emergence may have complicated the picture a little, but he wound up getting sent back to Triple-A for more development time. A decent defender already, the thing holding him back has been his lack of production at the plate. He has a good feel for putting the bat on the ball but no power whatsoever and limited on-base skills. His improvements this spring had coaches buzzing, but ultimately, he needs to prove it in the minors before getting a shot in the big leagues, and his ceiling may be that of a utility infielder anyway. After both Grissom and Shewmake were sent down to the minors, it’s telling that the former lined up at shortstop for Gwinnett, with the latter shifting over to second base.

Despite all this drama surrounding the position this offseason, Grissom could end up being the Braves’ shortstop of the future anyway. The extension Arcia signed doesn’t preclude the Braves from calling up him or Shewmake if they break out in the minors this year. But Arcia is only 28 years old, and it’s possible he’s in the middle of a mid-career breakout after his change of scenery. The improvements he’s made at the plate are a move in the right direction, and his defense is another positive at a premium position. If Grissom does get called up at some point to take the starting role, having Arcia as a utility man isn’t the worst outcome for the Braves.

The ribbon has been cut on the 2023 season and I wanted to push a few prospect updates live to The Board, including a few tweaks to the Top 100 list. This update also includes publication of scouting reports such that every rookie currently on an active roster now has a current record on The Board, and a few additions the farm systems I’ve already audited during this cycle based on things I saw during spring training.

Let’s start with injury-related updates to the Top 100. Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter has a partially torn UCL and is approaching the end of his four-week shutdown period. Rule of thumb: Among a similarly talented group of players, you’d most want to have the healthy guys. Painter slides from fifth overall to 12th, right behind newly minted big leaguers Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker, who are comparably talented, healthy, and making a big league impact right now. This is just a cosmetic change to the list; Painter’s evaluation hasn’t changed. If it turns out he needs Tommy John, whether or not I slide him any further will depend on its timing. If rest doesn’t work and his surgery is timed such that he also misses all of 2024, that’s the worst case scenario for Painter and the Phillies. We know for sure that Nationals pitching prospect Cade Cavalli needs Tommy John, so in a similar fashion he falls within the 50 FV player tier, sliding from 63rd overall to 99th, right next to Mason Miller of the A’s, with whom he now shares injury-related relief risk.

Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe, the third overall pick in 2021, is going to miss three to six months due to lumbar spine inflammation. This injury is more novel than a TJ, and Jobe isn’t exactly coming off a great 2022. Unfortunately, this situation merits a more meaningful shift, but I still want to reflect the upside of a healthy Jobe, so he downshifts to the 45+ FV tier, where the most talented of the young high-variance prospects reside. Assuming he comes back late this season, he’ll be one of the higher-priority evaluations in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Verlander wasn’t scheduled to start on Thursday, but he couldn’t even make it to the first pitch of his first Opening Day as a Met unscathed. The 40-year-old righty officially opened the season on the injured list due to a low-grade strain of his teres major, and while his absence isn’t expected to be a lengthy one, it comes at the tail end of a spring in which the Mets already lost starter José Quintana for about half the season and closer Edwin Diaz for most if not all of it.

Unfortunately, Verlander isn’t the only frontline starter to be sidelined by a teres major strain this week, as the Guardians’ Triston McKenzie recently suffered a more serious strain of the same muscle. Likewise, Verlander isn’t the only big-name hurler for a New York team who was sidelined this week (the Yankees’ Luis Severino is out again), nor is he the only NL East starter to turn up lame on Thursday (the Braves’ Max Fried took an early exit), or the only over-40 star whose plans took a turn (the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright missed his Opening Day assignment). If it’s not a party until something gets broken, it’s not a new baseball season until a star pitcher goes down. Perhaps the only consolation to be had in this round-up is that all of these injuries are muscle strains of some sort rather than ligaments or tendons. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about prospects who have (Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe) and haven’t (Grayson Rodriguez, Brett Baty) made Opening Day rosters and MLB’s player-centric PSAs about the new rules, then complete their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Atlanta Braves (15:07) with Grant McAuley of 92.9 The Game, and the Colorado Rockies (53:50) with Danielle Allentuck of The Denver Gazette, plus a Past Blast from 1986 (1:26:07), trivia answers (1:30:00), a Stat Blast (1:31:34) about the biggest WAR gaps between Opening Day starters, the worst pitchers ever to start on Opening Day, and the best pitchers and hitters never to start on Opening Day, and a postscript (1:41:09).

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