Like the 2 aforementioned Braves MiLB affiliates, the Rome Braves have not been a good baseball team in 2023. They started out 2-0, lost 4 straight, Won 2, Lost 3, and blah blah blah, they now sit at 6-10 after today’s loss. It’s hard to find sunshine or catch a ball when your hats pulled down so low and while there’s still high-end talent at all levels, it’s not as obvious…yet.

In today’s piece, we will discuss the Top 3 Performers of the Week (although the sample will be more than a week) for both hitters and pitchers. In case you missed it, here are our Week2 Gwinnett and Mississippi Top Performers.

Rome Braves Top Performers

Hitters

Alvarez is still the player to pay attention to when it comes to the High-A affiliate. However, word on the street is Zebrowski is seriously strong and could be moved up to AA midseason. He’s already 22 so that makes sense. Quintero is likely org filler at this point as he’s been in the system since 2017 and is just now finding success at High-A.

Pitchers

  • A.J. Smith-Shawver: 2 GS, 9IP, 5H, 3BB, 17K, 0.00 ERA
  • Rolddy Munoz: 3 G, 9IP, 8H, 3R, 5BB, 6K, 3.00 ERA
  • Patrick Halligan: 2G, 5.1 IP, 1H, 3BB, 5K 0.00 ERA

Like Alvarez above, Smith-Shawver is the eye-catcher for pitchers at Rome. He’s a stud and could be on a path to the bigs similar to Spencer Strider. His FB and SL are already grading out by many scouts as 70s and that’s extraordinary. He’s still only 20 years old and likely won’t get to AA until midseason at the earliest, but an MLB debut at 22 years of age seems probable. Munoz has big league stuff, but not sure it’s big league starter stuff. Halligan was in the Royals org, but was released and picked up by the Braves. There’s nothing to get excited about here, at least that I can see.