Braves MiLB prospect recap: Vaughn Grissom

The Braves drafted Vaughn Grissom with their 11th round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft from a Florida high school. While he was a pretty solid prospect in his own right, he was overlooked by some due to being teammates with Tigers top prospect Riley Greene (a top five pick during Vaughn’s draft year).

2021 Stats

Low-A: 328 PA, .311/.402/.446, 15 2B, 4 3B, 5 HR, 13-16 SB, 34 BB, 49 K

High-A: 52 PA, .378/.519/.595, 2 2B, 2 HR, 3-3 SB, 11 BB, 5 K

Total: 380 PA, .319/.418/.464, 17 2B, 4 3B, 7 HR, 16-19 SB, 45 BB, 54 K

What we saw in 2021

Grissom is a well rounded and versatile player who can play everywhere in the infield (time at second, third, and short this year), has a strong feel for hitting, and really has a deep understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses.

At the time our lists were made Grissom was having a fine year, posting a .866 OPS through 50 games in Low-A, but in the second half of the season he just went nuts. Starting on July 28th he went on to post a .915 OPS over his next 28 games in Low-A before earning a promotion to finish out the year in High-A.

Once he got to High-A, Grissom was somehow even better than what we saw in Low-A while posting a 1.114 OPS over the 12 games he saw at the level while drawing twice as many walks than strikeouts. Obviously a small sample size warning here, but for a player with his skill set and underlying stats, there is reason to buy into the second half surge.

2022 Outlook

Grissom has firmly positioned himself to be in the Braves Top 10 prospects when the 2022 preseason list gets dropped after such a scorching end to his season. He likely starts the season back in High-A since he only saw 12 games there, but a promotion to Double-A is likely on the table for him and it could be pretty quick if he is able to perform anywhere near as well as he did in the second half of 2021.