Mississippi Braves

Last year was the inaugural season for Mississippi as the Braves AA affiliate and boy was it a memorable one. They finished under .500 at 64-68 but had such talent come through as Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Anthony Lerew, Chuck James, Roman Colon, Macay McBride, and Joey Devine. Every single one of these guys except for maybe Lerew and Colon (traded to DET) are expected to make a major contribution in Atlanta this year. Let's take a closer look at this year's roster. Of course, don't expect 5 or 6 of these guys to get the call this year.

• The top player on this team is without a doubt Jarrod Saltalamacchia. He is one of the top 20 overall prospects in baseball and easily the first or second best catching prospect. He looked special this spring and could make it to Atlanta this year.
• Yunel Escobar has made a quick rise through the system so far. Of course he is expected to rise quickly considering he didn't defect from Cuba until he was 24.
• Paul Bush has pitched extremely well so far in his minor league career and hopefully will take another step forward this year.
• Brady Endl is another pitcher that I really like. Plus, he is left handed.
• After hoping to land the closer job, Brad Baker is starting at AA. Not that surprising since he impressed nobody this spring.
• Esquivel and Prado are nice players but other than that I can't say much else about the offense.
• For some reason Josh Burrus has not been on any of the team's minor league rosters that have been released. I don't know why this is but I know he is with the team and I assume he will start at AA. He was promoted to AA last year and struggled a bit before a cup of coffee in AAA.