Talking Chop MiLB Roundtable: How Many Prospects will Debut in 2020

The Talking Chop crew are predicting a busy shuttle between Gwinnett’s training site and Atlanta this season, with many notable prospects making their major league debuts this season.

Four Top 30 prospects (Jackson, Contreras, Wright, Ynoa) have played in Atlanta this season. How many more do you think will play this season?

Wayne: At some point we have to see Patrick Weigel, right? Clearly, he is not the prospect we once thought he was or he’d be here by now, but Robbie Erlin got a chance to prove he can no longer pitch, so Weigel deserves that opportunity as well. The Braves bullpen is sick right now, and the starting rotation is hurting, but I don’t know that they start calling up prospects by the bus load. I think we see Weigel and Davidson on the bump and Pache in the field.

Gaurav: Pache, Davidson, maybe Weigel as an opener/piggyback. Muller/Anderson are my darkhorses but I don’t think either make the team unless of injury to an already depleted rotation.

Aaron: Probably just Patrick Weigel and Tucker Davidson. I would have said Philip Pfeifer for sure, but he’s injured. While Jasseel De La Cruz did get added to the 40 man, he didn’t pitch about AA, so he probably isn’t a candidate. Cristian Pache has a 50/50 shot, imo. Just depends on if Alex Anthopoulos cares about starting his clock or not.

Matt: We will see Pache. That’s a lock as he’s ready and helps us right now. We likely see Davidson. He’s on the 40 man, and even if he’s not ready to start he can help out of the pen. Maybe we see Weigel too? I’m not super hopeful because we did see the Braves add Jhoulys Chacin and Robbie Erlin over promoting Weigel- a sign that the team doesn’t believe he is the same guy he was before injury, as you promote the 26 year old guy on your 40 if you believe in him at all. Ian and Muller could get a chance, but with neither being on the 40 already, they need to earn it in Gwinnett to justify adding them.

Eric: I would not be shocked if we saw another 4-5 guys get time in the big leagues this season. The Braves have real problems in their rotation right now and that combined with the usual injuries that pop up, and the less than usual ones that may be happening because of the quick restart to the season, I could see guys like Weigel, Pache, de la Cruz, Davidson, and maybe Ian Anderson and/or Kyle Muller getting a look.

Garrett: The biggest we’ll definitely see, sooner rather than later I would guess, is Cristian Pache. Beyond that the different directions the Braves could go are anyone’s guess. Which exact pitchers we see isn’t clear, but their so desperate at this point we could see four to five different guys. Davidson and Weigel seem almost certain to come up at some point, especially with the way they’ve had to use bullpen arms. JDLC and Ian are not out of the equation.