3 standout storylines from Braves' 2024 Draft

2:52 AM UTC

The Braves wrapped up their 2024 Draft on Tuesday before the All-Star Game. Let's take a look at what they accomplished.

From headlining their class with a familiar name to following a tried-and-true formula to balancing out their picks across the three days, here's how the Braves approached their Draft this year.

1) The Braves got the best legacy player on the board
Every year, the MLB Draft is full of prospects with family ties to former Major League stars. Many of those players are now stars in the big leagues themselves -- Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Fernando Tatis Jr., Bobby Witt Jr. … the list goes on. And this year, the Braves got the top-rated Draft legacy available.

That's Cam Caminiti, the 17-year-old high school left-hander Atlanta grabbed with its first-round pick at No. 24 overall, who was ranked MLB Pipeline's No. 15 Draft prospect. He's the cousin of the late three-time All-Star and 1996 National League MVP Ken Caminiti, who played for Atlanta during the final season of his 15-year career in 2001.

"He was a great big league baseball player," Cam said of Ken on his Draft night. "He’s done a lot of incredible things for my family and Major League Baseball. I’ve met a lot of great people who knew him along the way."

Cam and Ken play opposite positions, of course -- Ken being a slugging third baseman, Cam a flamethrowing pitcher -- but baseball is still in Cam's DNA.

"I think it's part of the profile for each player," Braves scouting director Ronit Shah said. "It definitely helps just growing up around the game, having the bloodlines. Maybe there's some correlation there with skill level, but I think that's just more hearsay at times. But I think sometimes, in other cases, there's definitely something to it."

2) This team is committed to building its pitching pipeline
The Braves spent the top half of their Draft fortifying their young pitching core. Nine of their first 10 picks were pitchers -- including both of their Day 1 selections, Caminiti and Vanderbilt southpaw Carter Holton, and seven of their eight Day 2 picks.

Shah said that's "just how it unfolded," but it looked very similar to what the club did in the 2023 Draft, when Atlanta selected eight pitchers in the first 10 rounds, including each of its top three picks.

And when it comes to their top pick specifically, the Braves have been very consistently prioritizing pitching in recent years. They've taken a pitcher with their No. 1 pick in each of the past five Drafts: Caminiti in 2024, Hurston Waldrep in ‘23, Owen Murphy in ‘22, Ryan Cusick in ‘21 and Jared Shuster in ‘20.

There are plenty of interesting pitching prospects among the group Atlanta drafted this year, even beyond top picks Caminiti and Holton (MLB Pipeline's No. 69 Draft prospect):

  • The Braves snagged 6-foot-8 right-hander Luke Sinnard in the third round (No. 185 Draft prosect), who broke Indiana's single-season strikeout record with 114 K's in 2023.
  • They got another big right-hander in sixth-rounder Ethan Bagwell, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound Missouri commit who reached up to 96-97 mph as a high school senior.
  • They landed the Big 10 Pitcher of the Year, Nebraska right-hander Brett Sears (9-1, 2.16 ERA, 101 strikeouts in 17 games), in the seventh round.
  • They took a second 6-foot-8 arm in the 17th round, UNC Wilmington right-hander Jacob Shafer, giving them two of the tallest pitchers in the Draft.

Shah said of Sinnard that "it's very unique, I think, just how his stuff's going to play" with such a high release point. He lauded Bagwell as a "big, massive horse," and said Sears "can throw strikes blindfolded."

3) Atlanta got its bats late
The Braves still managed to balance their Draft class after going so pitcher-heavy in the top half. They filled out the Draft with position players on Day 3, taking eight with their final 10 picks -- six outfielders and two infielders.

That brought Atlanta’s 2024 Draft position breakdown to 11 pitchers and nine hitters, when you add in their one position player selection from Day 2: 6-foot-4, power-hitting high school catcher Nick Montgomery (MLB Pipeline's No. 196 Draft prospect).

The Braves started Day 3 by taking college outfielder Patrick Clohisy out of St. Louis University with their 11th-round pick -- an "absolute burner," as Shah called him, whom area scout JD French was "pounding the table" for the Braves to Draft all year -- and went from there.

Among the other hitters who highlighted the back half of the Draft for Atlanta:

• Mason Guerra (14th round) -- a slugging first baseman who starred at Oregon State over the past two seasons, hitting 23 home runs from 2023-24.

"He was a guy coming out of high school that we scouted really heavily," Shah said. "Our area scout, Cody Martin, he's been a big fan of his since high school. And then just seeing him available on Day 3 and knowing the pedigree there, seeing the big-time raw power that he has and his hands work on the dirt -- just a combination of all that together -- when he was still sitting on the board there, it was exciting to go grab him."

• Owen Carey (15th round) -- a 17-year-old high school outfielder from New Hampshire who was also an all-state hockey player in 2024 … and looks like he was a Braves fan already.

• Jake Steels (18th round) -- a college outfielder from Cal Poly whose father, James Steels, played three years in the Majors, making him the Braves' second bloodlines selection of the 2024 Draft after Caminiti.

"With him, it really stands out," Shah said of Steels' baseball DNA. "You can tell he really knows what he's doing on the baseball field when it comes to running the bases, playing defense. Very, very fundamentally sound."

• Eric Hartman (20th round) -- a Canadian left-handed-hitting high school outfielder who was the Braves' only international pick in this year's Draft

"I think with some of those Canadian players, you get to see them a lot more than you would think," Shah said, "because they play in the United States for a good amount of their tournaments and their big events."