18. Ethan Bagwell – RHP
How he got to the Braves: 2024 6th round pick (#191 overall)
In a farm system full of intriguing young arms, Bagwell continues to fly under the radar despite putting up excellent numbers to begin his career.
Last season, Bagwell made a total of 10 starts with Augusta after dealing with an injury that sidelined him for a majority of the first half of the year. In those starts, he tossed 50 innings of 2.88 ERA ball while holding opponents to a .198 average. While the baseline numbers were solid, Bagwell’s
strikeout numbers left something to be desired as he only managed 30 strikeouts in those 50 frames.
In 2026, however, Bagwell has seen his strikeout rate jump while also keeping his impressive walk rate in check as well.
Bagwell made 13 starts for Augusta before being promoted to Rome, where he made his first high-A start on July 1 in which he tossed six scoreless innings, striking out six and walking one in the process.
In 17 starts between Augusta and Rome, Bagwell is currently sporting a 2.72 ERA to go along with an FIP of 3.45. His strikeout rate is up to 24.7 percent, while his walk rate has climbed but is still at a manageable 7.3% on the year.
Overall, Bagwell has had great success, primarily with his fastball which has solid late life to it and works well, especially up in the zone. Bagwell currently carries a chase rate of 34.71 percent — which places him in the 89th percentile amongst all minor league arms.
As for the rest of this season, Bagwell will likely remain with Rome to conclude the 2026 campaign. He will most likely open up 2027 with Columbus — assuming the rest of the season continues on the current trajectory — with his sights set on Gwinnett or even the big league club later on in the season.
17. Isaiah Drake – OF
How he got to the Braves: 2023 5th round pick (#162 overall)
Isaiah Drake has faced an up-and-down path to becoming one of the system’s top prospects, but has gained momentum with two successive seasons of offensive success thanks to his ability to adapt his game to the professional level. Coming in as a young-for-his-class prep pick in the 2023 MLB draft Drake was a highly-touted player, but one who came with immense risk and talent that was expected to tap into. Drake has the athletic prowess to be a player who can hit for average to above-average power, but came into professional ball as a slap hitter and has struggled at times to shed that moniker. Drake has spent the last three seasons overhauling his approach and his swing and it has led to improved results, including a career-high 12 home runs in only 68 games this season. Drake’s been limited due to injury and hasn’t played since late June, but was on the path to continue his upward trajectory thanks to the improvements in his power output. During his approach and swing transition Drake suffered through a stretch of awful baseball in which he still wasn’t hitting for power and was striking out 35% of the time in A-ball, but this did not last long. Still, these early troubles soured many on Drake and he has spent the last two seasons rebuilding the diminished hype. He cut his strikeouts down to 22% in 2025 while improving his power output, and even with his ballooning home runs totals has managed a 25.6% strikeout rate in High-A this season. He is still young for the level and hitting at an above average clip, and though his hit tool is still his biggest question Drake has shown the ability to impact the game at all levels and has displayed an aptitude for learning and adjusting.
Drake’s calling card on the field is his speed, and it leads to great results on both sides of the ball. He is a problem on the basepaths and stole 46 bases at a 78% clip in 2025. He is a clear center fielder with the potential to be above average at the position, though he has played all around the outfield and displayed great instincts and route running. His swing changes have made all of the difference for him on the offensive side of the ball. He shortened his path to the ball and is doing a better job of keeping his front side closed, and instead of shooting line drives and ground balls the other way he has improved his pull rates and his fly ball rates. He is a bit aggressive on breaking balls out of the zone and does chase and strikeout too often, though he is still working to improve what was a far more aggressive and detrimental approach a couple of seasons ago. Drake is not likely to reach a superstar ceiling, but as a pure athlete he is one of the best in the entire system and the sky is the limit for him. He is slowly but surely closing the holes in his game that have limited him in the past and seems to be on the path to getting to the big leagues at a normal pace. He has the chance to be a do-it-all outfielder who fits as a regular in a big league lineup, though there is a best case scenario that sees him as an all-star type player.
16. Owen Carey – OF
How he got to the Braves: 2024 15th round pick (#461 overall)
While Eric Hartman is garnering most of the attention among the loaded Rome outfield — and rightfully so, given how historic his season has been thus far — Carey has more than held his own in high-A.
Carey made his system debut in 2025, playing in 117 games with Augusta, posting a slash line of .258/.330/.345 to go along with four homers and 63 RBI. He also flashed his speed, swiping 17 bases in that span as well.
In 2026, Carey had a brief stint with the FCL squad before jumping straight up to high-A Rome, where he has spent the bulk of his season. Across 183 at-bats with the Emperors, Carey has continued to demonstrate an above-average feel for the strike zone, while also seeing his gap-to-gap power increase as well.
In 48 games, which admittedly is a smaller sample size comparatively speaking, Carey has posted a line of .268/.333/.459. He has also hit six homers and driven in 34 runs as well.
Carey will most likely never be more than a 10-15 homer type of guy, but his decision-making when it comes to balls and strikes could lend itself to a touch more power on occasion.
Currently, Carey is carrying a Z-swing % — which calculates how often a batter swings at pitches in the strike zone — of 77.48 percent, which places him in the elite 95th percentile in the MiLB. It’s that type of swing decisions and judgement at the plate that should allow Carey to develop into at least an average bat with the potential for a little bit of pop as well.
As for the rest of this season, it’s highly likely that Carey will remain with Rome to finish out the season with his sights set on Columbus for 2027. The Braves will likely take it slower with Carey to make sure he isn’t rushed and they don’t ruin his sense of discipline at the plate by pushing him along too quickly.
15. Luke Sinnard – RHP
How he got to the Braves: 2024 3rd round pick (#99 overall)
Standing at a mammoth 6’7” and weighing over 250 pounds, Luke Sinnard is every bit imposing on the mound as you can imagine. He was drafted as a surprisingly polished pitcher out of the University of Indiana with an intriguing pitch mix. He burst onto the scene in 2025 with seven overwhelming starts for the Augusta GreenJackets where he had a 0.92 ERA before he was promoted to Rome to finish out the season. Luke was then sent to the Arizona Fall League, seemingly to get more innings as he missed some time because of injury. All he did was have one of the lowest ERA’s amongst in the league and created a lot of buzz heading into the offseason.
2026 hasn’t treated Luke great as he has missed a lot of time due to injury abdominal strain during Spring Training, and then again in June. On the season he’s made a total of seven starts, including a rehab start, and has shoved – a 2.16 ERA, .193 batting average against, 0.92 WHIP, with a 11.88 K/9, and 2.16 BB/9 rate. He gets it done by leveraging a five pitch mix that he uses surprisingly equally. He has a four-seam fastball that sits between 93-95 MPH, a two-seam fastball that’s between 92-94, a very tight slider with -.4” horizontal break and 6” vertical break, curveball with very good depth, and a low spinning splitter. He’s capable of throwing all of them in the zone, which gives him considerable upside. The only question remains – can he withstand a full season? So far across two seasons he has compiled a total of 97.1 innings so with his recent return from the injured list hopefully he can finally put the injuries behind him.
14. Carter Beck – OF
How he got to the Braves: 2026 PPI pick (#26 overall)
To say Carter Beck was one of, if not the biggest, surprises of the first round of the MLB Draft earlier this month would not be an overreaction.
A centerfielder with the Indiana State Sycamores, Beck posted an OPS of 1.083 across 57 games for the Sycamores, which competes in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC). Beck tallied 16 homers, 17 doubles and drove in 59 runs while also swiping an even dozen bases in his final season for Indiana State.
Beck was taken as sort of an under slot type of guy in order for the Braves to have money left to sign some high-potential prep arms later in the draft.
However, that’s not to say Beck can’t live up to his high draft selection, as he possesses an incredibly tantalizing toolset that could catapult him up this list once he gets in some professional reps.
The biggest question mark for Beck is: how will he fare against professional pitching, which is a significant step above what he faced in the MVC? He has the tools to jump up our rankings, but until we see how he performs as a pro, there are too many question marks to rank him higher at the moment.
Defensively, Beck has the potential to stay in centerfield, as he has the athleticism to stick and is very gritty and not afraid to try and make the tough plays.
It will be interesting to see where Beck starts his pro career once he’s assigned. He will most likely begin with Augusta with a chance to fast-track to Rome given his age (21) and college experience, if all goes according to plan.
13. Luis Guanipa – OF
How he got to the Braves: 2023 International Free Agent
Luis Guanipa hits the mark in every way except one, and the glaring flaw in his profile is the one that has kept him for being one of the best prospects in all of baseball. After being the Braves biggest international signee in 2023 there was a ton of pressure on Guanipa to perform, and in his time with the DSL and the Complex League Braves he lived up to the billing. When he got to A-ball as a 19-year old it came with a fair amount of buzz, but things quickly fell off for him after that. Two issues arose. One — Guanipa couldn’t stay healthy. He played only 35 games in Augusta in 2025, and his performance was up-and-down at best with his power production not nearly meeting expectations. Then there was his approach, which has been a sore spot in his profile since that he hasn’t done a whole lot to address. 2026 has fortunately been a major resurgence for Guanipa. His power is through the roof and he is finally pulling the ball in the air, showing some of the elite traits that made him a borderline top 100 talent a couple of seasons ago. He has elite contact ability and can adjust to reach any pitch in the strike zone, and overall his OPS has jumped from 97 in 2025 to 117 this season.
Guanipa’s contact ability is impressive. He has elite bat speed and does a great job of adjusting to hit pitches throughout the zone, and it is rare for him to be beat anywhere in the strike zone. He can get to fastballs up and breaking balls away, and has shown the ability to take pitches out away from him and smoke them the opposite way for singles and doubles. If a pitcher makes a mistake and comes in on Guanipa he can get his bat around as well as anyone, and will turn and mash balls down the left field line for home runs. After having seven home runs in his previous three seasons Guanipa has 11 in 88 games, and there is even more raw power for him to tap into with him hitting 25 at his peak not being out of the question. Injuries previously limited his impact on the basepaths, but in 2026 he is an incredible 36-for-41 on stolen base attempts. In the field he has the potential to be a plus center fielder and always finds a way to get to balls in the gap. There are two offensive problems that limit Guanipa from being a sure-fire top prospect in this system. He has done a ton of work to his swing since joining the professional ranks, but his tendency to fly open and swing off balance limits his impact on pitches away from his body. It also makes him susceptible to swinging over pitches and hitting ground balls, though he has mitigated that in 2026. He still needs to be hitting the ball in the air more to make the most of his power, but the biggest issue is that he just can’t lay off of anything outside of the zone. Guanipa is an outlier free-swinger and it is noticeably negatively impacting his game. He is a good enough contact hitter to avoid ballooning his strikeout totals, but he is often making weak contact on bad pitches and does not draw enough walks to hold a high on base percentage. He has an extremely high swing rate on pitches in the strike zone and goes into few deep counts, with many of the bad chases in his profile coming in favorable spots or with a couple of strikes to spare. Guanipa has the ceiling to be an impact player, but the swing decisions he makes are hard to work around and will keep him from even being an MLB-quality starter if they don’t improve. Guanipa has top 100 pure talent and is certainly trending upwards, but without a major reset to his approach he is always going to leave some of that talent on the table.
