Jordan Schafer, The #1 Atlanta Braves Prospect

by faketeams on Nov 15, 2007 2:51 PM EST in Baseball

Baseball America posted the first of its thirty Top 10 Prospect lists a couple weeks ago. Unlike Baseball Prospectus, the BA guys have begun in the National League. Starting in the NL East, the Atlanta Braves are firsrt.

This year's top Braves prospect, Jordan Schafer, entered 2007 as the 27th ranked player in the Braves minor league system. Here is what BA wrote in its Baseball America Prospect Handbook 2007:

Schafer's production to this point has been lackluster...He also needs to improve his plate discipline and pitch recognition...he needs to start making some positive strides at the plate.

Here are the positive strides he made that propelled him from the bottom of the Braves Top 30 to the King of the Hill. 30 total extra base hits in Low A to 34 doubles in High A would do that. Nevermind he spent time in Low A and the Arizona Fall leage. All told, he had 50 doubles, 11 triples and 16 HRs. That would do it.

Year	Team	Lg	Age	Level	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	CR
2005	GCL	GCL	18	Rk	49	182	18	37	12	3	3	19	13	6	13	49	0.203	0.256	0.352	73.1%
2006	Rome	SAL	19	A	114	388	49	93	15	7	8	60	15	9	28	94	0.24	0.293	0.376	75.8%
2007	Rome	SAL	20	A	30	129	16	48	15	2	5	20	4	4	16	31	0.372	0.441	0.636	76.0%
2007	Myrtle	Caro	20	A+	106	436	70	128	34	8	10	43	19	11	40	95	0.294	0.354	0.477	78.2%
2007	Peoria	AFL	20		24	96	19	31	6	1	1	14	10	2	12	23	0.323	.400	0.438	76.0%

More surprising than last draft's 1st round pick, Jason Heyward, having ascended to the #2 slot is the inclusion of the one of the prospects obtained in the Edgar Renteria trade - SP Jair Jurrjens. He was shut down at the end of last season with shoulder issues. Apparently, that was not held against him.

From a fantasy persepctive, I don't see anything wrong with five of the top six players. All are hitters. Two are likely to get major league time next year (Brandon Jones and Brent Lillibridge), and the other three will be listed amongst the top minor league draftees.

RK	PLAYER	POS
1	Jordan Schafer	of
2	Jason Heyward	of
3	Jair Jurrjens	rhp
4	Brandon Jones	of
5	Gorkys Hernandez	of
6	Brent Lillibridge	ss
7	Cole Rohrbough	lhp
8	Jeff Locke	lhp
9	Tommy Hanson	rhp
10	Julio Teheran	rhp

There is more information about the Braves system if you click through. See who BA has judged the best "X" in the organization. There is also a link to 2007's Top 10 list.

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Comments

Where do you get

the minor league and AFL stats from?

raygu

by Ray Guilfoyle on Nov 15, 2007 3:58 PM EST reply actions

MiLB

I get the career stats from www.baseballcube.com and the AFL ones are on www.milb.com.

by faketeams on Nov 15, 2007 4:10 PM EST reply actions

overall ranking

where do you think he ranks in the BA top 100? in the top 30-40?

raygu

by Ray Guilfoyle on Nov 15, 2007 11:09 PM EST reply actions

Guess?

Top 25. He is reported to have excellent defensive CF skills. Combined with his offensive explosion this season is hostile hitting environs, I think that is fair.

by faketeams on Nov 16, 2007 9:50 AM EST up reply actions