Antonio entered the season an underhyped prospect, but has been arguably the MVP of the talented Augusta GreenJackets
You would be forgiven if before this season, even before today, you only knew Rayven Antonio for his terrific name. Antonio entered professional baseball with much less hype than concurrent signees like Luis Guanipa, and for his first couple of years of rookie ball put up some fairly ordinary numbers. When the Augusta GreenJackets announced their opening day roster you would also be forgiven for skipping over his name and focusing on the deep offensive unit and recent draftees. Yet here we are in the second half of the season, and I would contend that no one has been better than Rayven Antonio on this GreenJackets roster. The 19 year old is second on the team in innings pitched, and a 2.72 ERA and 3.63 FIP, and has been one of the Atlanta Braves biggest breakout prospects.
After signing out of Colombia in 2023 Antonio spent his first season in the Dominican Summer League, where he pitched well, setting the tone for his career to this point. While Antonio’s strikeout numbers were well-below average he produced a ton of ground ball outs, threw strikes, and had just a 1.16 ERA, and 2024 saw him repeat much of that pattern in the complex league. His ERA jumped to 4.33, but his peripherals remained similar and he was rewarded with five games in Single-A to finish out the season. Antonio had more trouble with his control in those games and his overall numbers were poor, but in four of the five games he allowed one run or fewer. However he failed to attract much attention, and much of that goes back to Antonio’s poor strikeout numbers. His 18.3% strikeout rate in the DSL was by far his best between the three levels, and in 2024 his strikeout rate was only 15.1% while he walked 9.3% of batters faced. These numbers are concerning and serve as good reason to be hesitant on any player, but they didn’t tell the full story and that has become apparent as he has had a great season so far in 2025.
Despite what it looks like at the moment, the 2025 season wasn’t such smooth sailing for Antonio. In his first inning of the season he faced off against the Hickory Crawdads and allowed three runs in the time it took to record two outs, while his command faltered and he was hit hard. That inning ending up being as bad as it would get all season for Antonio. Antonio’s big progression this season has been a massive jump in strikeouts to 25.5%, but he’s managed to do that without really changing his arsenal. Sure his fastball velocity has ticked up slightly and his slider is a bit better, but fundamentally he is the same pitcher yet he’s coming away with significantly better results. Ultimately, a major problem for Antonio was that he simply underperformed his whiff numbers in 2024. His contact rates allowed, called strike rates, and overall strike rate is nearly identical to last season, yet he has seen a 65% increase in strikeouts likely mostly due to the small sample in 2024 not truly representing Antonio’s talent level. He numbers are finally sitting at his true talent level, and his breakout is less a product of progression than Antonio finally getting his flowers from the baseball gods.
Antonio is listed at 6’1 and 190 lbs, but he is a good bit bigger than that. He has a strong lower body and is maxed out physically, and while not all of his weight is good weight he is still a good athlete who moves well, fields his position well, and is remarkably good at repeating his delivery. Antonio’s walk rates this season aren’t ideal, but he commands the ball a good bit better than those numbers might indicate and his command is his best trait as a pitcher. He has a sweeping leg drive that will occasionally give him problems landing firm, with that typically leading to stretches where he will miss significantly east-to-west. This tends to inflate his walk numbers, but overall he does a great job repeating his release point and commanding his fastballs and slider and he’s a player who should continue to throw strikes as he gets older and gets more reps.
Antonio works with a four pitch mix at the moment, and one of the major focuses for Atlanta is pushing his velocity and defining how he is going to use it. Antonio’s velocity on his four seam fastball peaks at around 97 mph, and that hasn’t made much improvement between last season and this season. Rather, the Braves have him sitting at higher velocity more consistently and where he was tending to sit between 92-94 he now lives in the 94-95 range and utilizes the four seam fastball at a higher rate. His sinker has seen a similar jump in velocity and sits a couple of miles per hour below his four seam fastball, and the Braves have backed off of using the pitch a bit throughout this season. Some of this is their developmental strategy. At this Single-A level the ability to command the top of the strike zone with a four seam fastball is something they focus in on, and they’ve had Antonio making significant progress in that regard to where now his ability to move his pitches vertically is a major strength of his. He is able to run it up now without just laying the ball in the strike zone, hitting the top of the zone and letting his average velocity and movement play up a bit. His sinker has more movement and has been a major part in the high ground ball rates he’s shown at every level, as he is quite good at burying that pitch at the bottom of the zone and getting it to run in on the hands of right-handed batters.
More evidence of Antonio’s velocity progress can be seen in his slider, which the Braves have toyed with to give it a better finishing quality out of the zone. Last season his slider sat in the low 80’s, but he’s now throwing it typically between 85-87 and that power gives it much more potential to be an above average major league offering. Antonio is still struggling to land the pitch below the zone more than he did last season, so reigning in command is a point of emphasis for him to hit that next level of development, but throughout the season he has seen a steady incline in his ability to land the pitch in tight windows and he’s starting to rely more-and-more on the pitch throughout at bats. Antonio’s major weakness right now is with his changeup. He has a decent feel for an upper-80’s changeup but he doesn’t use it often at this stage and his command of the pitch is spotty at best.
Ultimately, Antonio is one of those pitchers that could easily find himself making a quick trip through the Braves system as his polish is impressive for a 19 year old. Antonio lacks elite spin or velocity traits and in his current form seems limited to a back-end starter role, but for a player at this age and level he has a relatively high floor. The focus for Antonio moving forward is going to be refining his secondary pitches, and in particular his changeup if he wants to stick as a starter. He doesn’t have an elite slider or fastball that would allow him to survive with a below average changeup like some pitchers can, and thus he really needs to round out his arsenal to reach his potential. If not, his command profile, top end velocity, and ability to throw a hard slider could fit in a bullpen role and he could find himself as a reliable late-inning arm within a few years. That projection would likely come further down the road after the Braves play out his full development to see if he sticks as a starter, but is a viable fall back option that also contributes to his high floor. Antonio, at least until he starts succeeding at higher levels, doesn’t really have the ceiling projection to be seen as a top 10-15 arm in this system, but he is nonetheless a guy with a major league future as long as he can stay healthy and his performance this season is no fluke.