Braves Promote Two Top Pitching Prospects

The Atlanta Braves are looking to challenge some of their top pitching prospects with new assignments for the end of the 2024 season.

Because you never know what you'll need in 2025.

Facing the potential departures of multiple starters in free agency - Max Fried and Charlie Morton are both free agents, with Morton potentially retiring if he chooses not to come back to Atlanta - the Braves might need additional pitching reinforcements in their rotation at some point in 2025.

Knowing of that potential need, the team moved two of their top pitching prospects up a level this afternoon. Drue Hackenberg is joining the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers, while JR Ritchie moves from Single-A Augusta to High-A Rome.

Hackenberg, 22, is Atlanta's No. 9 prospect per MLB Pipeline. A 2nd rounder in the 2023 draft out of Virginia Tech, the righthander started the 2024 season in High-A Rome and quickly ascended through the system. After twelve starts with a 3-3 record and 3.64 ERA for the Emperors, allowing only two homers in his 59.1 innings with a 9.4 K/9, Hackenberg joined Double-A Mississippi and got even better. With the M-Braves, Hackenberg went 3-2 with a 3.13 ERA, not allowing a homer in 46 innings and upping his strikeout rate to 12.5 K/9.

(It's important to note that Trustmark Field, the home of the Mississippi Braves, is considered to be one of the hardest minor league fields in which to hit homers. On a scale normalized to 100 for league average, Trustmark comes in at a 54, the 2nd-lowest figure in the minors ahead of only the Angels High-A affiliate, the Tri-City Dust Devils.)

Gwinnett's rotation now includes top prospects AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep, the Tommy John-rehabbing Ian Anderson, MLB veteran Bryce Elder, Allan Winans, and Hackenberg.

Ritchie moves up as he returns from TJ

Continuing to climb through the system is JR Ritchie. Returning this season from Tommy John surgery, the 21-year-old Ritchie moves from Single-A Augusta to Rome after seven masterful appearances for the Emperors. Across 32.1 innings, Ritchie went 1-3 with a minuscule 1.95 ERA, striking out 40 while walking only 10.

MLB Pipeline's no. seven organizational prospect , the right-hander joined the organization in the Competitive Balance-A round of the 2022 MLB Draft, where Atlanta took two prep pitchers in Ritchie and Owen Murphy.

Ritchie was considered to be a year behind Murphy, owing to needing Tommy John after just four starts last May, but Murphy himself was shut down after only seven starts this season with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.

Ritchie's first full season in the organization will be 2025, and several have speculated that he could make a rapid rise through the organization in a similar fashion to AJ Smith-Shawver (2023) and Spencer Schwellenbach (2024), who both rose from the lower minors to the majors over the span of one season.