The beauty of the farm system is the many promotions that occur during any given season, and there has been plenty of that today, as the Braves made a flurry of moves on Tuesday. Here are the activations, promotions and demotions…
Gwinnett activated OF Drew Waters
RHP Tanner Gordon promoted to Mississippi
RHP Trey Riley demoted to Rome
Atlanta recalls RHP William Woods
OF Jacob Pearson demoted to Rome
OF Justin Dean demoted to Mississippi
RHP Royber Salinas promoted to Rome
What a busy day. Most of these moves aren’t very shocking. Both Tanner Gordon and Royber Salinas certainly deserve a promotion, as each have led their teams in their respective roles. Gordon hasn’t walked a single batter in four starts with High-A Rome this season; while Salinas… well… all he’s done is rack up 52 strikeouts in 23 2/3 innings, good for 19.7 K/9. It was really only a matter of time for each kid.
And the great news regarding Drew Waters – well that’s just simply a bonus for the Braves minor league system. Waters had been nursing an injured hamstring ever since Spring Training, and just recently wrapped up a rehab stint with Rome, in which he went 4 for 11 (.364 AVG) with a home run and a double in three games. I won’t spoil my recap for Wednesday morning, but I’ll just give you a hint by saying that Waters really returned with a bang in his first game back with Triple-A Gwinnett today.
For Woods – yeah sure it’s only because the Braves are playing a double-header today. But who cares, an MLB call-up is an MLB call-up – not matter how you slice it. And there’s a good chance the prospect righty gets in one of those games on Tuesday.
So congrats to the promoted players above, including Waters, who I know has to be raring to go after missing essentially the entire first month of the 2022 season. There will be plenty more of these types of moves throughout the year. (Even if I’m still holding out hope that prospect Michael Harris II lasts another month or so with Mississippi, so I can watch him in-person when the M-Braves come to Madison. It’s looking doubtful at this point…).
Braves Farm 