Its no secret that Kevin Maitan may be the most exciting player in the Braves’ farm system. After garnering significant interest from scouts when he was 14, attention on him began simply grow and grow until he was considered by most to be the best player on the international free agent market and debatably a generational talent and among the best international free agents to come out since Miguel Sano or even Miguel Cabrera.
Well, it appears that the Kevin Maitan hype train is just going to keep going as MLB Pipeline gets on board. With some players graduating from the prospect ranks, players are moved up and added to the end of their list and a certain someone just broke on to the list despite playing exactly zero pro games yet.
#Astros' Reed graduates from @MLB's Top 100 Prospects list; #Braves SS Kevin Maitan enters: https://t.co/Sh1SaOh5d7 pic.twitter.com/cWvjtXjvCN
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 21, 2016
Now, the first question is why is Pipeline insisting on using a picture of Maitan wearing San Diego Padres gear? I personally blame former Talking Chop writer and all-around awesome, yet despicable human Carlos Collazo. The second is that how often does it happen that a player this year with this little experience makes a list a prestigious as Pipeline’s?
Short answer: very seldomly, with the aforementioned Sano as the last player to come to mind as making the rankings early. However, as a power hitting player who should be able to stick on the left side of the infield with a strong arm and really strong hit and power tool grades at 16, its hard to fault them. We should learn more about Maitan’s development after instructionals as well as during the Spring, but overall the attention he is receiving is definitely encouraging for Braves fans.