Designing the Ideal Spring Breakout Prospect Squad for Atlanta
If the Atlanta Braves want their prospects to take down the Detroit Tigers prospects on March 16th, here's a way they could build the roster.
This is a (rare) W by MLB.
The Spring Breakout series, started last season and continuing in 2025, matches up specially-designed prospect squads across MLB in a mostly-televised series of spring training matchups designed to introduce fans to the next generation of potential stars.1
While the Braves got absolutely waxed in last year’s matchup against the Boston Red Sox2, this year they match up with a Tigers squad that’s promoted several top prospects of late and looks to be a bit more evenly matched. Atlanta also gets to play at home versus their road trip to Ft. Myers’ JetBlue Park last season.
Let’s try and balance skill and realism in this list - not including 30-year-old minor league free agents in Gwinnett, but also not counting on meaningful contributions from 17-year-old former IFAs. Players on the 40-man or NRIs to spring training, with a few notable exceptions we’ll explain as they come up, aren’t likely to be on our projection.
Position Players
(Bold indicates starter, italics indicates a player from last season’s roster)
CF Luis Guanipa
RF Isaiah Drake
LF Kevin Kilpatrick Jr.
OF Cody Milligan
Considered but not selected: OF Douglas Glod, OF Jace Grady, OF Patrick Clohisy
Running it back from last season’s squad, Atlanta admittedly doesn’t have a ton of options here outside of the four they sent last season. While Guanipa went 0-3 in the game last season, Drake had an RBI triple and scored a run while Milligan doubled after replacing Drake in the 4th.
SS John Gil
CI David McCabe
2B Luke Waddell
CI Drew Compton
MI E.J. Exposito
MI Ambioris Tavarez
3B Keshawn Ogans
UTIL Kobe Kato
Lots of turnover here, but there’s some reasons for that. Gil broke out last season and looks to be the highest-rated non-Nacho Alvarez SS in the system (and Alvarez should still be in major league camp, battling with incumbent Orlando Arcia for the starting MLB job), whole McCabe was out due to injury last season and Kato wasn’t in the organization this time last year.
C Drake Baldwin
C Nick Montgomery
While there are lots of catchers that could be selected for this squad, I’ve been told that MLB does ask teams to try and get some of their top prospects in the field, even if they’re in MLB camp. Baldwin fits that description.
I replaced Tyler Tolve with last year’s 5th round pick in Montgomery, although his youth (only 19) and relative inexperience (he didn’t appear in an official minor league game after the draft) means he could be omitted in favor of a known quantity like Tolve or Will King.
Starting pitching is where this team could shine
Atlanta sent eight pitchers last season and used just half of them, with top prospects Owen Murphy and Spencer Schwellenbach bookending the game with three innings each.
SPOILER ALERT: Schwellenbach won’t be back in the Spring Breakout this season.
To find this year’s eight, I broke it down between two starters (bold) and eight relievers.
RHP JR Ritchie
RHP Blake Burkhalter
RHP Patrick Halligan
RHP Landon Harper
LHP Samuel Strickland
RHP Cory Wall
RHP Jorge Juan
RHP Isaac Gallegos
If we’re being truthful here, there’s no way to know what relievers the team will send and I’ll be lucky to get one of these six right. But the starters, I think, can tell us something.
Last season’s two starters were a top prospect from the prep ranks (Murphy) and a potential fast riser (Schwellenbach) who was as former college reliever that had Tommy John soon after being drafted.
Ritchie was, famously, selected from the prep ranks right along with Murphy and came back from Tommy John around the same time Murphy went down with his own elbow injury. Burkhalter is another college reliever turned starter who had Tommy John soon after signing and is expected to move quickly through the system this year.
Does this roster beat a hypothetical Tigers squad? Let me know your thoughts.
The one downside is that these are just seven innings instead of nine, but that seems to be a recurring theme for MLB. Even the Futures Game (which I was lucky enough to attend in Arlington last year) is only seven innings!
A large part of the Prospect Apparatus™ has the Red Sox farm system as one of the best in the game, so it’s kinda like being eliminated from the postseason by the eventual World Series champion I guess?