Area scouts in the Pacific Northwest often also have western Canada to cover, and that’s a huge amount of miles to traverse to see everyone. So if there’s, say, a kid in Alberta with a strong commitment to the University of Michigan, you might see him early, but not get back there because he seems unsignable.
Thankfully for the Braves, their scout in the area, Cody Martin, didn’t give up on Eric Hartman in 2024, thanks to a little help from some colleagues and a huge assist from an older sibling. Drafted and signed in the 20th round of that summer’s Draft, Hartman is one of the biggest breakout prospects in all of the Minors. Now woefully under-ranked at No. 19 on the Braves’ Top 30, the still only 19-year old outfielder (he turns 20 on June 16) is tearing up the High-A South Atlantic League to the tune of a .296/.373/.581 line to go along with 13 homers and 18 steals. His 147 wRC+ is second in the organization.
“We’re super excited,” Martin said. “A lot of those don’t work out. It’s been really cool. What he’s done is kind of unbelievable.”
And it came very close to never coming to pass. Martin, who made his big league debut as a right-handed pitcher with the Braves back in 2015, had seen Hartman early on and came away with an opinion: “This is a good player. He’s going to Michigan. He’s probably not signable.”
This is when the first helping hand came in. Hartman went with Team Canada to play in Florida, against pro competition, and performed well. So well that Braves amateur scouting video manager Alex Burritt, who was on hand to capture some of the Team Canada action, reached out to Martin to ask about him, talking about his ability to run and his good swings against good velocity. Martin also got a call from scouting director Ronit Shah, and in both cases, the answer was:
“He’s a good player, but he’s going to school.”
But because Burritt filed a glowing report on Hartman and reached out to Martin, the area scout left his son’s Little League game at 8 p.m. in Vancouver, Wash., and drove six hours to the Langley Blaze Invitational, a small tournament in British Columbia, where he was the only scout in attendance. He recalls Hartman picking up about six hits that day and, in seeing him up close, saw that he had the chance to get stronger. Still, he left thinking:
“I wish I could have this guy, but I don’t think he’s signable.”
This is where the brotherly advice comes into play. Martin wasn’t ready to entirely give up, and through an associate scout who worked at the academy where Hartman played, he was put in touch with Hartman to have a final discussion about signability. The conversation went something like this:
Hartman: Hello, Mr. Martin. I heard you wanted to know if I wanted to play pro baseball?
Martin: I think you can go out to pro ball and play.
Hartman: Well, I just sat down with my dad and my brother (Hartman’s older brother, Max, is a senior outfielder at Washington State). My brother asked me: “Do we play to be college players or professional players? We want to be pro players. If you have the opportunity to get some money out of this and fulfill your dream to be a pro, then you should do it.”
With their final pick in the 2024 Draft, No. 611 overall, the Braves took Hartman and signed him for $337,500, nearly $190K over slot. If it hadn’t been for Burritt seeing him in Florida and Max Hartman’s urging, Eric Hartman would be a sophomore at Michigan right now.
“It lined up perfectly for me, and was a reminder that you have to stick with it,” Martin said. “Sometimes the stars really align.”
In his report, Martin described Hartman as a wiry-framed outfielder who could put on 15 pounds of muscle really fast. And that’s exactly what he did during his first offseason. He was a plus runner who needed to add physicality when he signed and during his first full season, he started showing double-plus run times and hints of the raw power that was in there. He handled an aggressive assignment, given his age and experience, to Single-A Augusta, posting a very respectable .718 OPS with 44 steals in 83 games.
“We’re always excited as a player development group when guys show up with present tools,” Braves assistant general manager for player development Ben Sestanovich said. “It gives you a great place to start and a bunch of ceiling. Then it’s a matter of how hard kids want to work and how much they’re going to develop. I think I can speak for our whole group from that first minicamp there was excitement about Hartman, for sure.
“He’s always been a talented player. He can really run. Last year we saw glimpses of the power, this year, you’re just seeing the consistency. This is mostly the case of a young kid who had a bunch of tools, and we’re starting to see the tools translate into performance. This isn’t some eureka moment.”