The Braves’ draft strategy in recent years has settled into a pretty consistent pattern: draft a couple of college guys that they like and think that could move quickly on Day One and then target interesting overslot prep players on Day Two without totally blowing their bonus pool. One such prep player from the 2021 draft, AJ Smith-Shawver, has us and the Braves quite excited to see what he could turn in to.
Midseason Report Card: On our midseason top 30 prospects list, we slotted AJ Smith-Shawver at #23 which was our best guess right after the draft.