Braves farm system is experiencing an incredible rise

For several years, the Braves farm system has been ranked among the worst in baseball — which is admittedly pretty ironic, considering they’ve continued to produce highly productive young players at an alarming rate. The overall depth, particularly at the lower levels, just wasn’t there.

That’s no longer the case.

Eric Hartman has taken the entire prospect world by storm. A relatively unknown commodity coming into the season, he’s now the 25th-ranked prospect in the sport according to Baseball America after hitting 20 homers and stealing 31 bases over the first half.

Tate Southisene has joined him in the Top 100, and Alex Lodise could be next after a breakout month that’s seen him club 10 homers with nine multi-hit games. Soon, the Braves will also welcome an entirely new draft class — one that includes two first-round selections.

Things have improved so much that Baseball America now ranks the Braves farm system inside the top 15.

“Eric Hartman. Turning a last-round draft pick into one of the best prospects in baseball is the kind of win that organizations dream of having,” the Baseball America staff wrote. “Hartman still has some questions about how his swing will play in the upper-levels of the minors, but there are few higher-ceiling prospects out there. He could serve as the cornerstone of a major trade, if the Braves were willing to move him. The rest of the Braves’ Top 10 is solid, as well, which is a big improvement from a year or two ago. The Braves have also been able to rely on their Triple-A pitching depth to plug multiple injury issues.”

Even when things looked bleak for the farm system, the Braves have always been able to produce high-level starting pitching. Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, and Didier Fuentes are just some of the names who’ve debuted over the last several years and found success — even if keeping them healthy has been an entirely different issue.

The position player side has been a different story, with Drake Baldwin the lone outlier. There hasn’t been much to get excited about there, and while the arrow is pointing up, they’re still a ways from the elite farm systems when it comes to offensive upside.

“Position Prospects. Yes, the development of Hartman and the improvements of Tate Southisene, John Gil and Conor Essenburg have significantly improved the Braves’ position player prospect depth, but it still needs reinforcements after years of drafts that focused almost entirely on pitchers.”

We’ll see how the Braves approach this year’s draft, which begins on Saturday. In 2025, they flipped the script on their traditional strategy, selecting three athletic shortstops with their first three picks. So far the return has been encouraging — which might convince them to run it back with a similar approach.