These two Braves shortstop prospects won’t stop raking

The early returns on the Braves’ 2025 top draft selections have been extremely encouraging, especially given the position they play. Shortstop has been a black hole in Atlanta for several years now, and while Jim Jarvis has sparked some confidence that he could be next in line, the future of the position is likely further down on the farm.

Atlanta’s first-round selection, Tate Southisene, was a high school product that almost every “prospect guru” called a reach at the time. Nobody’s talking that way anymore, with some prospect outlets already ranking him as the Braves’ #1 prospect in the organization.

The 19-year-old tore the cover off the ball in Low-A Augusta, hitting a hair under .300 with eight homers and a league-leading 36 stolen bases. That led to a quick promotion to High-A Rome, where he hit an initial bump in the road — but that’s proven to be short-lived. Southisene has now hit safely in 17 of his last 22 games for the Emperors, with five multi-hit performances, including two three-hit games.

His OPS in Rome is now well over .800, and combined between the two levels, he has 12 home runs and 44 stolen bases. For someone who was still in high school a little over a year ago, it’s been an incredible display of power and speed from the Braves’ first-round pick.

But even more impressive than the surface-level numbers is that Southisene is having success against every kind of pitch.