Position players from Braves' 2025 Draft class taking center stage this spring

NORTH PORT, Fla. -- There is a general inclination, when thinking about Braves player development successes, to focus on the mound. Just two years ago, for instance, 10 of the Braves’ top 15 prospects were pitchers. Last year, 21 of the Top 30 were hurlers.

In some ways, not much has changed. The top three of this year’s Top 30 are pitchers and again so are 10 of the top 15, even if the overall number has dropped to 17. But the 2025 Draft class is doing its best to balance the scales somewhat. The Braves had six picks in the top five rounds and used five of them to take position players, starting with a run of three shortstops right off the top: high schooler Tate Southisene in the first round, with Alex Lodise and Cody Miller coming from the college ranks in Rounds 2 and 3. College second baseman Dixon Williams and high school outfielder Conor Essenburg round out that quintet.

“We’ve taken a bunch of pitchers here recently, but last Draft was more position players,” Braves assistant general manager for player development Ben Sestanovich said. “Certainly, our hitting coaches and all of our position-player folks are very excited with the injection of good athletes on the position-player side from last year’s Draft.

“Ultimately, we want to have good players on the field, whether that’s on the mound, on the dirt or out in the outfield. We don’t get picky. But yes, having some athletes behind our pitchers is pretty exciting, and certainly with last year’s Draft, we have more of that.”

The excitement was only heightened by how the group has looked in camp so far, from Lodise getting a taste of big league camp on down to action on the back fields. Part of that stems from the decision to make sure the top four all got their professional feet wet last summer after signing. They got at-bats with Single-A Augusta or High-A Rome, with how they performed not the primary objective.

“I think it was a great experience for them coming into this year,” Sestanovich said. “It gave them a better sense of what to focus on in the offseason. It looks like all of them went home and attacked some areas and came back in a better place.

“Some of it is being prepared for the longest season they’ve ever played. And then I think another component is just that the game gives great feedback. It’s ultimately the best teacher, and I think challenging these guys out of the Draft is only helpful for them.”

Sending Southisene to Augusta was the most aggressive assignment, and the teenager hit .219/.242/.297 with a lot of swing-and-miss, albeit in just 66 plate appearances. The early returns of sending him out to take some early lumps have been solid.

“We were confident just knowing his makeup and work ethic that no matter what happened there, it would be a positive for him,” Sestanovich said. “I think he’d admit that going there and seeing better pitching than he’d ever seen was pretty instrumental for him in terms of going home in the offseason, getting after it in the cages and making some adjustments, and he looks to be in a really good spot.”

Camp standouts: Non-roster pitchers in big league camp

They’re all at different stages of development and proximity to the big leagues. JR Ritchie (The club's No. 2 prospect) got to Triple-A last year and is very loudly knocking on the big league door. Owen Murphy (No. 6) is roughly a year behind Ritchie on the Tommy John surgery recovery timeline. Garrett Baumann (No. 12), like Murphy, has yet to pitch above A-ball. All three are 22 or younger, and all three acquitted themselves quite well when given the opportunity to pitch in big league Grapefruit League games.

Ritchie is still in camp and showing the big league coaching staff he’s ready if and when the phone rings, with a 2.25 ERA and 14 strikeouts over 12 innings. Murphy gave up just one run over four innings and Baumann struck out five in his four innings of work. In fact, when you look at all the pitching prospects in the team’s Top 30, including guys on the 40-man roster, they've combined to pitch to a 1.82 ERA in 34 2/3 innings, allowing seven earned runs, 11 hits, 11 walks and recording 54 strikeouts.

“The way our young pitchers that were in big league camp handled themselves and the way they pitched in big league games, that group has stood out maybe more so than any individual player,” Sestanovich said, specifically about the Ritchie-Murphy-Baumann trifecta. “It’s always great when young guys go over and carry themselves and perform well at the same time.”

Breakout candidate: Isaiah Drake

When the Braves took Drake in the fifth round of the 2023 Draft, they knew it might take some time for him to figure things out. And he struggled mightily in his first full season of pro ball, hitting just .163 with a 35.5 percent strikeout rate in 69 games with Single-A Augusta. But things started to click in 2025 as he played across two levels of A-ball and cut that K rate down to 21.3 percent. His on-base numbers shot up, allowing him to use his close to top of the scale speed to swipe 46 bags in 2025. The Braves think he might be just scratching the surface of his ceiling.

“We think there are signs that it’s trending in the right direction,” Sestanovich said. “Whenever a guy makes a big step from one year to the next at a young age with a lot of talent, you feel good that there’s potentially more in the tank.

“He has all the talent, but maybe just needed to get through a season, make mistakes, learn from them, face some adversity. I think we’re pretty excited to see what year three has in store for him.”

Something new: Murphy’s splitter

There’s hope that Murphy can follow Ritchie’s trajectory and follow up his return to the competitive mound in 2025 with a breakout 2026, much like Ritchie did last year. One of the things that might have been an obstacle was a lack of a reliable offspeed offering. There’s hope his fastball will keep ticking back up to pre-TJ levels and he can spin two distinct breaking balls. But he had struggled to find something softer that killed spin that worked for him … until now. Murphy’s early use of a splitter in camp has been very encouraging.

“It’s been pretty interesting,” Sestanovich said. “He threw [Sunday] in Bradenton and punched out the last guy he faced in the fourth on a split. So it was a nice end to his outing.”

Something to prove: Jose Perdomo

Perdomo got $5 million to sign with the Braves at the start of the 2024 international signing period and was well-regarded by the industry overall, ranked in the top five of MLB Pipeline’s Top 50 international prospects list. Since then, though, he’s only been able to play in 62 combined games with hamstring issues keeping him off the field more often than not. He’s slipped down to No. 25 on the Braves’ Top 30 prospects list, but he’s only 19 years old. Healthy this spring, the Braves are cautiously optimistic that he can stay on the field so they can really see what he’s about.

“He came into camp in great shape,” Sestanovich said. “He’s clearly put in the work, I think, finally, with a healthy offseason under his belt, we’re excited to see what he [can be]. He’s an extremely talented player, and I think being healthy and having a normal build-up to a season is huge for him.”