Owen Carey and Eric Hartman have been the leaders of what the Braves hope is their next line of position players
In the thick of their rebuilding years the Atlanta Braves were blessed to find themselves with major position player capital. They retained Freddie Freeman through the dark years, with him going on to be by far the best player over the long term from the 2013 division title team, and with a combination of high draft picks and good luck in the international market they built a powerhouse lineup that in 2023 ranked as one of the greatest, statistically, to ever grace the diamond.
Since the team has improved, and been handcuffed by international sanctions, the churn of position players has slowed down drastically. Somewhat due to a lack of need and the Braves trading away many of their top prospects, since 2021 only Michael Harris II has debuted and stuck on the team long term, with Drake Baldwin appearing to be right on his heels in carving out a everyday role. Beyond those two development has been shaky. Shea Langeliers has found success in Oakland, though the trade to acquire Matt Olson still heavily favors Atlanta, Wiliam Contreras has lived up to his hype in Milwaukee, and the jury is still out after a rough debut from Nacho Alvarez, but the Braves sit with a notably weak farm system on the position player side.
Many of the international prospects they have invested in have faced significant hardship in establishing themselves in any way whatsoever, and if it weren’t for the terrific work to grab Baldwin and Alvarez in the third and fifth rounds, respectively, of the 2022 draft the Braves would be looking at a gap of nearly six years since acquiring a top 100 hitter. Somewhat due to approach, somewhat due to opportunity, and somewhat due to bad luck, the Braves have simply not produced hitters at anywhere near the consistency they have pitchers. Yet the tides could be shifting, with the lower levels of the Braves farm system seeing their biggest pool of talent in years.
Yet with all the players the Braves have sunk money into, from $5 million on Jose Perdomo in international free agency to $750,000 on Isaiah Drake in the 2023 draft, the two players who have been most impressive are a couple of late-round, cold-weather prep players from the 2024 draft. Eric Hartman and Owen Carey have, as a duo, played so far above their expectations that they are performing on a level only matched by a handful of Braves prospects in recent memory, many of whom have gone on to be top-ranked prospects and franchise cornerstones.
Before a breakdown of each individual, let’s just look at the comparisons with some other teenage prospects in the rebuild era. Among position players 19 or younger since 2013, only eight have had a wRC+ higher than 100. Carey and Hartman are the newest members of that group. The Braves haven’t had such a prospect since Drew Waters in 2018. The other six on that list are Waters (2018), Ronald Acuna Jr. (2016), Austin Riley (2016), Braxton Davidson (2015), Ozzie Albies (2015), and Jose Peraza (2013).
Five of those six were top 40 prospects and three were significant contributors to the Braves World Series team in 2021. It’s a very, very impressive group to be amongst, and neither player have red flags on the level of Braxton Davidson who was the only one of the group not to make the big leagues or a top 100 list. These two are not necessarily obliterating the world at this point in time, but where they are relative to their age is still impressive, especially given that neither come from a typical baseball hotbed.
Eric Hartman
To define Hartman and Carey solely by their draft status does leave out important context. Namely, that on pure talent both were day two players and Hartman received a $350,000 signing bonus despite being drafted in the 20th round. Both were known commodities and players we were well aware we should keep an eye on, yet even with context both remain expectation-wreckers.
A minor injury has kept Hartman from racking up the playing time that Carey has, but he has been arguably the team’s most complete hitter when he is on the field. Just a few weeks past his 19th birthday Hartman sits as one of only two Carolina League hitters with an isolated power above .160, a strikeout rate below 25%, and a walk rate above 10%. The other — the Brewers Filippo Di Turi — is an international signee in his third full professional season who is repeating Single-A.
If the Braves were getting this sort of production out of him as a first-round pick they would be more than happy with it. They got Hartman in the 20th round. Hartman is a patient hitter who has shown the maturity to wait out the wildness of Single-A pitching, and when he does swing he is looking to do damage. Hartman is strong and he swings with that in mind, looking to open his hips and drive pitches to the pull side where he has the potential for above-average power.
There are some limitations to this — he hits too many ground balls and can be too aggressive on secondaries below the zone — but the approach to hit for power and the ability to hit for power is there. This will be important as his arm strength is likely to limit him to a left field/second base role, but he also has above average speed and the versatility to stay on the infield will serve him well in his value.
The biggest concern for Hartman is his below-average contact rates, but he’s been cleaning that up since the start of the season. His contact percentage is sitting at 70.7% this season, which while not good is not the blaring alarm that the Braves have seen from guys like Davidson or Ambioris Tavarez who quickly ran into hit tool concerns at the lower levels. His contact is in the range of a player like Austin Riley or Shea Langeliers, the type of player who if the approach and power are sufficient they can overcome that to still be productive hitters.
Hartman has the strength for sure, and while the approach has been hard to gauge as pitchers really have not been throwing Hartman many strikes this season (37.2% first pitch strikes, 58.9% strikes overall) he does have a good feel for the strike zone and a relatively good sense of spin for his age.
Hartman has struggled against left-handed pitchers this season in very limited action, with significantly higher strikeout rates and lower walk rates, giving him some platoon risk, but given his age and the sample size of only 45 plate appearances against lefties it’s worth waiting at least a couple of years before definitely saying he’s going to fit better as a platoon player.
Owen Carey
Carey is about a month younger than Hartman, still yet to turn 19, and while his overall numbers have not been as good there seems to be even more room for him to grow into a starting-caliber outfielder. Carey has yet to bring his home run power into games, showing just occasional flashes of solid average power, but his hit tool is so far ahead of what anyone expected.
Carey ranks third on that group of eight Braves prospects in his Single-A contact rates (79.7%), and the two he ranks behind are Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr. Fair to say those are two guys any prospect would love to be lumped in with. Carey’s walk rates this season (7.3%) aren’t exactly what you would hope for a player who is expected to be on-base focused as a hitter, but that number doesn’t fully reflect Carey as a player. Carey doesn’t chase out of the zone often early in counts and works the best at bats of any player on the Augusta roster, but does tend to chase contact late in at bats to avoid strikeouts.
A bit more maturity and selectivity in late counts would help him improve his walk rates and contact quality, and though it would come with more strikeouts his hitting ability is good enough that he is likely to see plenty of benefit while minimizing the drawbacks. Carey can play all three outfield positions, and while his speed is fringe for center field and he probably fits best in a corner, his instincts and routes are good enough that he plays a better outfield than his raw speed grade might indicate.
Carey’s big problem right now is that his power has not translated into games at all. Much of that is approach and swing-based, two things that the Braves feel they can teach players and have done successfully in the past. They’re already making efforts to have Carey lift the ball with more authority to his pull side, and Carey has shown an aptitude for learning even if he is struggling to hit fly balls hard at this stage in his career. Most of his solid contact is line drives and ground balls, but that’s a fairly common complaint with players at this level and I wouldn’t call it a concern unless the power production doesn’t see improvements in the next couple of seasons.
If the Braves can tap into that bit of power that Carey is leaving on the table he has the potential to be an all star outfielder, with an all-around game centered around an ability to make contact throughout the zone that is impossible to teach.
Final Thoughts
This season for the Atlanta Braves system hasn’t seen terribly many true breakout players just yet. Didier Fuentes has seemed to hit the next level as he has taken the express lane to Truist Park, but beyond that the Braves haven’t produced a guy who has gone from mid-tier to in top 100 contention.
There is more talent at the lower levels than in many years, with Carey, Hartman, John Gil, Nick Montgomery, Isaiah Drake, Luis Guanipa, and Diego Tornes all young players who have given us plenty of reason for hope. Yet, they are just shy of being players that anyone can comfortably factor into the Braves future plans. As much as the Braves have spent in international free agency, or dipped over slot to guys like Montgomery and Drake, Carey and Hartman have managed to put their names right in the mix with all of these talents.
The Braves have had a strong approach to drafting hitters in the late rounds and even getting two players like Harris and Baldwin in the third round and later is a win, but the Braves big league roster is starting to show the need for some reinforcements. Even if it’s just as trade capital, a handful of these players taking leaps would add massively to the system’s value.
Hartman and Carey could very well be the next breakout players and both are ones that if you talk to the rest of the Battery Power crew we have all been massively impressed with. Both compete at a high level and are advanced beyond their years, and they have arguably been the two biggest risers on the offensive end this season with their play. Here’s to hoping the Braves can find magic like that in the late rounds of this year’s draft.