Which side of the fence are you on with Drew Waters? As a Royals fan I think he's a dawg, but saw a lot of Braves fans bagging on him on the day of the trade, and then once he got comfortable in KC, they all wanted to take credit for him. Thoughts?
Ive got a few thoughts on Waters…
I’ve got a weird connection to Drew Waters in the sense that I watched him through the minors and then when he got to the Royals organization one of my best friends’ dads got to be around him in Omaha as he was a coach in the royals organization for around 40-45 years.
As
@Dawgsauce put it, 2020 did hurt him. But what hurt him the most truly is a guy by the name of Michael Harris. All of a sudden in 2022 the Braves had no use for Pache or Waters who were at the time their top two position player prospects along with Grissom and of course Harris. Waters was a guy who needed to go somewhere that would let him play a lot in the show so he could take another step. With our timelines in Atlanta, that is simply not going to happen because we are trying to win a World Series and we don’t have time for a guy to go “figure it out.” So the best scenario for Drew, the Braves, and the Royals is for the trade that happened to happen.
Drew as a player is very talented and he’s always been talented. It will not surprise me if/when he becomes a very good everyday player for a big league team. I think his ceiling is a bit lower than we originally thought though and I don’t think he’ll be a 40 HR guy in the Show. But I wouldn’t be shocked at all if he OPS-es .800 next year.
As far as who gets the credit for Drew? My buddy’s dad who was with the Chasers told me that when he came over from Atlanta that he was extremely talented, but for some reason he was one of the most “raw” prospects they’d ever gotten from Atlanta and given the Braves reputation it was surprising to him.