Baseball America has released their Top 50 International Prospects heading into next year and the Braves are expected to sign a high-ranking player on their list.

As we begin working through December, Baseball America has released their Top 50 International Prospects heading into the next international signing period.

The people at Baseball America expanded their rankings to FIFTY players, of which one is of particular interest for Atlanta Braves fans. That player is outfielder Diego Tornes who is expected to command a majority of the Braves international pool. Diego slides in at No. 6 amongst Baseball America’s Top 50 – giving the Braves yet another top 10 international player they’ve added since coming off of sanctions.

While the results are still very early, the Braves have shown a tendency to be aggressive with positional international players while acquiring pitchers in the draft. This strategy, which may be because of where the Braves select in the draft most of the time, has yet to pay dividends as the players they have signed have not had a ton of success (Perdomo struggling with injuries, Guanipa with breaking balls) their ceilings are amongst the highest in their cohort.

Diego is a potential switch-hitting center fielder with above average arm, above average bat speed, and matured approach for his age. Even if he is moved from center, there is a very good chance that Diego finds home in the outfield where he projects as a good defensive player with solid range and great arm. He will join a very quickly developing positional player pool within the organization with supreme upside.

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Braves continue clearance aisle shopping spree with latest bullpen signing

The Atlanta Braves have yet to make an impact move with a big free agent or trade. However, they have shown they want to build up their depth. Atlanta recently inked outfielder Bryan De La Cruz to a minor league contract to give them depth in the outfield.

Who could blame them? After what the Braves went through in 2024 with injuries, depth will be massively important in 2025.

Braves continue budget spending with addition of hard-throwing reliever Jordan Weems on a minor league contract

Atlanta continued that trend on Tuesday afternoon by signing former Nationals reliever Jordan Weems. According to Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors, Weems was signed to a minor-league deal and is expected to be a non-roster invitee to spring training.

The 32-year-old pitched for the A’s and Diamondbacks during the first two years of his career but spent the last three seasons with Washington. Over that time frame, he has a 5.03 ERA over 136 innings. He struck out 136 batters while allowing 64 walks. That is good enough for a strikeout percentage of around 23% and a walk percentage of around 11%.

Weems features a fastball that averages 96 mph, a slider, a splitter, and a curveball. His slider sits around 87 mph with a whiff/put away rate of 26.4% and 19.5% respectively in 2024.

His best MLB season came in 2023 with a 3.62 ERA but that was sandwiched between two years of an ERA of 5+. He throws hard and has a great breaking pitch to put batters away but he’ll need to work on consistency if he hopes to land on the MLB roster.