The Rome Braves have had a stacked team this season, with some of the bigger prospects in the organization playing a big part in their turnaround. The pitching staff has been phenomenal with names like Mike Soroka, Kolby Allard, Max Fried, Touki Toussaint and the recently promoted Patrick Weigel coming of age and showing that the talent seen in them may be more than potential. Austin Riley is maturing into the best third base prospect in the system while being arguably the biggest bat on the pipeline behind a huge second half.
Having taken in quite a few Rome Braves games this season, primarily to see the names above, a couple other prospects — though much lesser known — have shown steady improvement seemingly each and every time I visited State Mutual Field.
ROME, GA — Bryan Reynolds knows a lot about winning. As a member of the National Champion Vanderbilt roster that has seen a bevy of players make the successful jump to the pros like Dansby Swanson, Tyler Beede, Carson Fulmer, Walker Buehler, Vincente Conde and Jordan Sheffield, Reynolds was poised to add his name as the next great Commodore.
He has done just that in his brief professional career.
A.J. Puckett certainly paved an interesting road to the pros, one that may not have been heading into his junior season in high school. Since the Kansas City Royals drafted Puckett in the second round of the MLB Draft this past June, he is showing that he is well worth the investment, and the Royals were lucky he slipped to them.
This season has seen some strong debuts thus far come out of the second round. The Atlanta Braves’ Kyle Muller and the Chicago White Sox’s Alec Hansen have been nothing short of sensational on the mound. The New York Yankees have a second baseman making some noise in the NYPL as Nick Solak is getting it done at the plate.
The Boston Red Sox have a significant history of drafting right-handed pitchers in the first round this millennium. Eleven times since 2000, the Red Sox have invested their first-round pick (one of them, at least) on a young righty, and if you count Casey Kelly — who was drafted as an infielder and converted to a pitcher — you have a rounded dozen. The problem is none of them have really panned out as expected.
Michael Kopech is looking to change that trend, putting together an outstanding season in Salem.
John Sadak has a fun job. He is the voice of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, amongst many other announcing gigs. He has been on hand for an amazing transformation in the Yankees farm system, and has seen some of today’s stars at the big league level develop from question marks to the reigning AL Player of the Week.
He’s never been shy to talk Yankees prospects, as he brings an aspect to prospect talk little others can. He sees these prospects play every day, watching them grow in each at bat, or unfortunately sometimes never meet the lofty expectations that are placed upon them. This year, he saw a lot of positives.
This past week, 2015 first overall draft pick Dansby Swanson made his big league debut. Roughly a month earlier, Alex Bregman, the 2015 second overall pick, made his big league debut. Swanson has been a hit since day one, while Bregman — after a well-documented slow start — has been on a tear the past 10 games.
Also on fire of late, as if to say “hey guys, don’t forget about me,” is Colorado Rockies 20-year-old shortstop Brendan Rodgers, the third overall pick in 2015.
As we continue our look back at the first-round Almost Mock Draft picks, we focus at another top ten talent that slipped all the way to the back end of the 2016 MLB Draft. While the first player to slip fell because of questionable mechanics and where he fits in as a reliever or starter, the second slipped because of his own doing, getting caught in the evil baseball underworld of PEDs just days before the draft.
Somehow, the St. Louis Cardinals were able to get both.
Yesterday, we took a look at Dakota Hudson, who was projected to go tenth in the Today’s Knuckleball Almost Mock Draft. Hudson, of course, wound up going 34th overall to the St. Louis Cardinals while the Chicago White Sox — owners of the tenth pick — went a completely different direction.
Skipping over pitching, the White Sox swooped in and took the best catching prospect in this year’s crop.
![New York Yankees second round steal Nick Solak [Interview]](https://waynecavadi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/yankeeschampion.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
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