With the Atlanta Braves draft position being settled in as of last week, it is now time to start taking a look at some of the potential targets for the team in the 2026 MLB Draft. This series will take
a look at 10 players who will have some chance to be available for the team with the ninth pick. We will be skipping over the four guys who as of right now have no shot at falling that far, the top three shortstops (Roch Cholowsky, Grady Emerson, Justin Lebron) and the top pitcher (Liam Peterson).
We will continue our series with the second of the big bats in the Braves tier, with exciting sophomore Sawyer Strosnider following AJ Gracia. This group of players is based on how things look ahead of the spring, as players could see their stock or even game change significantly over the next eight months.
Sawyer Strosnider is a sophomore outfielder at TCU who had a huge freshman season to get him into the conversation for the Top 10. He’s a 6’2’, 200-pound prospect that both bats and throws left-handed. In his freshman year he hit .350/.420/.650 with 13 doubles, 10 triples, 11 homers, and 10 steals in 14 chances. He also walked 20 times against 47 strikeouts in his 251 plate appearances.
Strosnider is an exciting power and speed combo athlete. He brings both plus power and speed grades, which helped to translate into double digits in doubles, triples, homers, and steals as a true freshman last spring. His hit tool projects more as average as he is prone to chasing pitches and could do a better job at taking walks, but it did play very well last year. Defensively he has a real chance to stick in center with his plus speed and arm, though he will need to convert there as a pro after playing mostly right field in college in deference to another high end prospect. Either way he has the ability to be a strong defender at one of those positions.
Strosnider could just be starting to tap into his potential. He is a former three-sport athlete in high school who was also a two-way prospect at one time as a pitcher, so there could be further gains for him as he continues to focus on hitting 100% of the time. He may even be the most exciting prospect in this draft, especially among the college prospects, as he is always a threat to do something in every phase of the game.
It’s worth noting that as of now we have covered six players in this series (Strosnider, Gracia, Tyler Spangler, Jacob Lombard, Eric Becker, and Tyler Bell). That means if the previously mentioned Top 3 and the top pitcher in the draft (Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron, and Peterson) are all taken ahead of the Braves, they will have their choice of at least two of the guys we covered so far with the #9 selection – with four more profiles of prospects in this range yet to come.
