This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

If Braves fans actually need another reason to love Vaughn Grissom, they should know what he was fearing as the 2019 MLB Draft approached.

“I thought I was going to be a Met, which would have been terrible,” Grissom said.

As the Braves battle the Mets for the National League East title, they may continue to benefit from their decision to select Grissom in the 11th round three seasons ago. The energetic rookie began this season at the High-A level, and he has spent the past couple weeks helping the defending champions make a charge toward another World Series title.

“The kid can just hit,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “There’s no panic in his at-bats. He’s a confident hitter just like Mike [Harris II].”

Think about the impact Braves vice president of scouting Dana Brown made when he took Shea Langeliers (first round), Harris (third round) and Grissom during the 2019 Draft.

Langeliers netted Matt Olson in a March trade with the A’s. As for Harris and Grissom, well, they’re the 21-year-old duo the Mets and every other team would like to have.

Grissom committed to Florida International University, but he really wasn’t interested in playing college ball. The Braves allowed him to avoid the scholastic route when they selected him and gave him a $345,700 signing bonus.

With COVID-19 erasing the 2020 Minor League season, it wasn’t clear what the Braves had in Grissom until he hit .356 with a .995 OPS over his final 49 games of the 2021 season. Just 12 of those games were played after he was promoted from Single-A Augusta to High-A Rome, so he started this season still at the High-A level.

Grissom’s meteoric rise has been quite impressive. Through his first 15 games with Atlanta, he has hit .382 with a 1.024 OPS. He has also shown the poise and baseball IQ you don’t expect to see from a player with that little experience above the high school ranks.

Safe to say, Grissom is not the only person thankful he wasn’t drafted by the Mets.