We're all aware that the Atlanta Braves farm system is incredibly slanted towards pitching.
And if you think about it, that makes sense. The position on the field with the least team control is shortstop, where Atlanta "only" has three contractual years of Orlando Arcia.
But despite the obvious need to focus on pitching prospects, the Braves have also selectively invested in position players where they think they can find difference makers, and MLB Pipeline thinks one of those investments could come to fruition in 2024.
Writing their "prospects primed to break out" in the 2024 season article, Jim Callis and Sam Dykstra name Luis Guanipa as Atlanta's breakout performer. Here's what they said about the young outfielder:
Atlanta’s top international signing from the 2023 class, Guanipa is an absolute burner on the basepaths with 65-grade speed that helped him steal 20 bags in 46 DSL games last summer. He has the good bat speed that helps him project as a potential above-average hitter, so while his .238 average didn’t look great in 2023, expect better things moving forward, especially as he turns catchable flyballs (a 48.8 percent flyball rate) into more stung line drives with age.
Guanipa, who signed for $2.5M in January of 2023, is exactly the type of high-risk, high-reward choice that a team like Atlanta should be making. With all three outfielder in Ronald Acuña Jr, Michael Harris II, and Jarred Kelenic locked up for at least five years (Kelenic), it'd take an amazing talent to break into that position player group and wrest playtime away from one of the three.
And Guanipa, should he continue to develop as expected, could be that guy.
Scouting reports from his signing talk about his elite bat speed, and despite the stats not immediately translating upon his first professional competition in the Dominican Summer League, he's still expected to come stateside this summer for Florida Complex League action and have an opportunity to show improved contact and a more-consistent, line-drive oriented swing.
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