Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos has earned a reputation as one of the top executives in the game with a string of smart trades and deals to secure young talent for the long term with team-friendly rates.
It would seem he’s not bad at overseeing drafts, too. Given the long runway players often need to travel from draft day to the majors, baseball drafts can take years to evaluate properly. But, in the wake of the 2024 draft that concluded Tuesday, enough time has passed to take a fair look at Anthopoulos’ first three with the Braves, the 2018-20 selections. Braves fans have seen the results on the field.
Anthopoulos’ first draft, conducted less than a year after his hire, was a bust. With the eighth overall pick, the club took high-school pitching prospect Carter Stewart but ended up not signing him after the post-draft discovery of a wrist injury complicated negotiations. (Stewart ultimately went to Japan to play professionally and as of Wednesday, held a 2.34 ERA for the SoftBank Hawks of Fukuoka.) It proved the final draft for scouting director Brian Bridges, who was dismissed by Anthopoulos in January 2019 and now holds a similar role in Kansas City.
A WAR score of 2.0 is roughly what an average full-time starter accumulates in one season. The total career WAR for the Braves’ 2018 class (per Baseball Reference) is 1.4.
However, while a complete reckoning of the next two years is not yet possible, Anthopoulos’ oversight of the 2019 and 2020 drafts (with former Braves vice president of scouting Dana Brown, now the Houston Astros GM) has taken excellent form. (The drafts following those are still too recent to assess.)
Ten players drafted by the Braves in those years have made the major leagues, either with the Braves or another team. That’s tied for third most in the game, according to data compiled from Baseball Reference.
Two of the selections, center fielder Michael Harris II and pitcher Spencer Strider, are integral pieces (although Harris is out with a hamstring injury and Strider is out for the season after surgery to repair a damaged ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow) who were major contributors to the Braves’ past two National League East titles. A third pick, pitcher Bryce Elder, earned an All-Star selection last year, although he has shuttled between Truist Park and Triple-A Gwinnett this season.
Three more – shortstop Vaughn Grissom, catcher Shea Langeliers and pitcher Joey Estes – developed enough as prospects to be trade pieces that brought first baseman Matt Olson (Langeliers and Estes) and pitcher Chris Sale (Grissom) to the Braves.
Another way of quantifying the Braves’ 2019-20 draft haul: There have been 10 players out of the 1,377 selected who already have achieved a career WAR of 7.0 or better. In Harris, picked 98th in 2019, and Strider, selected 126th in 2020, the Braves have two of them. Strider’s 7.0 career WAR is the highest of any player taken in his draft. (Elder’s 3.5 actually is tied for fifth.)
The Braves also have four players from those two drafts who have totaled a career WAR of 2.0 or better. That’s tied for most in the majors.
So far, the 2021 draft has yielded pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach, a second-round pick who in a short time appears to have assumed the fifth spot in the starting rotation. Pitcher A.J. Smith-Shawver, a seventh-rounder, has shown promise in limited opportunities. Sixth-round pick Justyn-Henry Malloy was part of a deal with Detroit that brought the Braves a reliable reliever in Joe Jiménez.
There have been teams that have drafted better during Anthopoulos’ regime, but not many. The runaway leader would appear to be Baltimore, which cleaned up in the 2019 and 2020 drafts, the first under the direction of general manager Mike Elias.
Those two years netted a haul highlighted by Orioles 2023 American League Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson (also a Silver Slugger Award winner) and a two-time All-Star in catcher Adley Rutschman. Both taken in the 2019 draft (Rutschman was the first overall pick), they have the two highest career WAR totals of anyone in that year’s selection.
There’s one more All-Star in infielder Jordan Westburg. Another draftee, infielder Joey Ortiz, was a key piece in a February trade that sent Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to the Orioles from the Brewers.
At the other end are teams that might not surprise you. From the 2018-20 drafts, the New York Mets and Oakland A’s did not select a single player who has a 2.0 career WAR.
Regardless, the evaluation and development success with Anthopoulos in charge of the Braves’ baseball operations bodes well for the club’s 20-pick class for 2024, headlined by first-round pick Cam Caminiti, a left-handed high-school pitching prospect who is a cousin of the late NL MVP (and former Brave) Ken Caminiti.
It was the first with Ronit Shah in place as Anthopoulos’ director of amateur scouting following Brown’s departure for Houston. Previously the assistant director of amateur scouting, Shah said that Caminiti wowed scouts by firing fastballs at 96-97 mph in the sixth innings of high-school games.
“I think the part that stands out most to me, though, with him, is how easily he does it, especially from the left side,” Shah said.
Caminiti actually is 17 years old, having reclassified to be a part of the 2024 draft. It follows a pattern of the Braves being willing to be unconventional. Schwellenbach had pitched only a year in college before the Braves made him their second-round pick in 2021, and the club also knew he would need Tommy John surgery before beginning his professional career.
In 2020, when the draft was limited to five rounds because of the pandemic, the Braves spent one of their picks on Strider, despite the fact that he had not pitched in 2019 as he recovered from Tommy John surgery and then threw only 12 innings in 2020 before COVID-19 canceled the rest of the college season. Harris was drafted higher than many projected, and most teams viewed him as a pitcher as opposed to an outfielder.
The wait begins for the members of the Braves’ draft class to prove who they are. In Caminiti’s case, it could take a few years. But if one or more of them emerges as an above-average contributor, don’t be surprised.
2024 Braves draft picks
Round 1, No. 24: Cam Caminiti, LHP, Saguaro HS (Ariz.)
Round 2, No. 62: Carter Holton, LHP, Vanderbilt
Round 3, No. 99: Luke Sinnard, RHP, Indiana University
Round 4, No. 129: Herick Hernandez, LHP, University of Miami
Round 5, No. 161: Nicholas Montgomery Jr., C, Cypress HS (Calif.)
Round 6, No. 191: Ethan Bagwell, RHP, Collinsville HS (Ill.)
Round 7, No. 221: Brett Sears, RHP, Nebraska
Round 8, No. 251: Logan Samuels, RHP, Montevallo
Round 9, No. 281: Owen Hackman, RHP, Loyola Marymount
Round 10, No. 311: Jacob Kroger, LHP, Maryville University
Round 11, No. 341: Patrick Clohisy, OF, Saint Louis University
Round 12, No. 371: Cayman Goode, RHP, Douglas S. Freeman HS (Va.)
Round 13, No. 401: Colby Jones, SS, Northwest Florida State College
Round 14, No. 431: Mason Guerra, 1B, Oregon State
Round 15, No. 461: Owen Carey, OF, Londonderry HS (N.H.)
Round 16, No. 491: Titus Dumitru, OF, New Mexico State
Round 17, No. 521: Jacob Shafer, RHP, North Carolina-Wilmington
Round 18, No. 551: Jake Steels, OF, Cal Poly
Round 19: No. 581: Dalton McIntyre, OF, Southern Mississippi
Round 20, No. 611: Eric Hartman, OF, Holy Trinity Academy HS (Canada)
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