There's an old scouting adage that say "You can't scout a stat line". That is true in two senses of the phrase. Firstly, a stat line is just a compilation of numbers, so flying half way across the country to see it probably won't help you much. That's why we have google. There is a lot of truth in the actual meaning of that statement, with many, many examples. A prime one comes straight out of the Southern League-Braves Prospect Mallex Smith hit .340/.418/.413/.831 for the Mississippi Braves, while Brewers prospect Orlando Arcia hit .307/.347/.453/.800. I don't think there is a right-minded evaluator out there that would tell you that Mallex Smith is a better prospect than Arcia (not a knock on Mallex, either), so that raises the clear point.

Yes, there is plenty of information you can gather from a stat line, including many things you couldn't even see if you scouted a player every single day of the season. That's just how it works. We balance out visual evidence with statistical evidence to come to some sort of happy medium as to

A) What is happening, and

B) Why it's happening

Then there's 2014 first rounder Braxton Davidson. He was the last of the Wren Era selections, and so far has done about as well as you would expect a Wren draftee. The only problem is, he's actually a really good prospect. Yes, he is buried pretty deep on many prospect lists, but with the depth of the organization that's not really a concern. Davidson has all the talent in the world, but his numbers wouldn't really peg him as a potential future middle of the lineup hitter. When you see a .242/.381/.374 slash line most people instantly think that guy is about 5'9 and fast. You wouldn't expect a 6'2" 210 ball player with as much raw power as any player in the system to be doing that. So..

What do the numbers tell us?

There are 4 key numbers to know for Davidson-27.3, 17.0, .132, and 48.6. 27.3 is the percentage of Braxton Davidson's plate appearances that end with strikeouts. In case you don't know, that is really bad. Dan Uggla bad. Then we move to his 17.0% walk rate, which is absolutely absurd. His .132 ISO would be really good for the previously stated role of 5'9 base stealer, but is quite a bit short of what was hoped of him out of high school. Lastly, we have that 48.6% ground ball rate. We'll come back to that in a bit.

Braxton Davidson strikes out a lot. That was the knock on him in high school, that's been the knock on him as a professional, and that will likely continue to be the knock on him as his career progresses. The 27.3% strikeout rate was the 11th highest in A ball, and that number clearly tells us that he is just not making enough contact. A player that can hit 20-25 home runs a year can get away with that, and a player with his batting eye can still maintain a high on base percentage even with those numbers, but he has to do a lot of things right to get to that point.

The good for Braxton is clearly that he has an advanced batting eye. That 17.0% walk rate led low A ball, and you had to go all the way down to a 12% rate before you found another player less than two years older than Braxton. That is not just impressive, that is incredible. This tells you that not only does Braxton Davidson wait for the pitch he wants, he knows what his pitch looks like. Once he gets up the ladder and starts getting into umpires who are a lot better at calling a zone that lower minor league umpires, you could see even better numbers from Braxton (though the improved pitching likely balances things out.)

Do I hate a player with a .132 isolated power? Of course not. For a player as young as Davidson who has advanced as quickly as he has (we'll get to that in a bit) it's not that bad. But Braxton Davidson? This guy was supposed to be the powerful slugger we've been missing. The bat to top all bats that can hit bombs off the roofs of building 4 states over. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we got caught up in the hype of a prospect who was so young and still hitting with aluminum bats. Maybe it's not a problem at all. Dan Uggla had a .076 ISO when he played in A ball. That turned out quite well. Maybe the problems lies just a bit deeper than numbers though...

A 48.6% ground ball rate is really not that high. But the 10 players with the highest Isolated Power numbers in the major leagues this year all had lower ground ball rates. This isn't really a surprise because less ground balls means more extra base hits. To take it even further, the lowest fly ball rate of that group was 32.8%. Braxton Davidson clocked in at 23.53%. The type of player the Braves need Davidson to be is the one that hits 30 home runs a year, not 300 ground balls. That is just not his game. This poses among others 3 possibilities. He either doesn't know what type of player he is, doesn't care, or doesn't have a swing that creates enough loft

There's one more number we need to focus one. Perhaps this is the most important. 183. That's how many days it is until Braxton Davidson is no longer a teenager. He was the 5th youngest player to start in the South Atlantic League this year, 2.5 year below the league average age. Is there even a point to passing judgment on a player this young? (The answer to that is "not really" but you're almost 1000 words in so you might as well keep reading)

So what does the scouting tell us?

I've gotten now 5 opportunities to see Davidson in person, and many others to watch online. From this, I can really take out 3 key points.

Braxton Davidson has the most advanced approach of any high school draftee that I've seen. There are certain players in A ball that go up to the plate and look like A ball players. Davidson brings a completely different attitude to the plate. He works deep into counts and waits for his pitches. He sees more pitches than anybody, and yes that will lead to a lot of 2 strike counts and strikeouts. It also leads to a lot of 7 and 8 pitch walks that will wear a starter down. Very rarely is there a player that you say is almost too patient at the plate, and Davidson is one of those.

He hits the ball hard. Sometimes he may struggle to make contact, but when he does you know it. The ball comes off of his bat screaming for it's life, getting through the infield before the infielders can even take 2 steps. He can put balls deeper in the trees than any player in the Braves farm system, and can take a pitch out to all parts of the park. It's not just his home runs either. He hits those types of ground balls that make you think "wow that would have gone a long way if he had hit it in the air" and can bank line drives off of the fence in right field. The power is real.

He's not afraid to use all fields. This is perhaps my favorite part about Davidson and the one that reminds me most of Joey Votto (along with that plate discipline). He can turn on a fastball, and he can hang with an outside curveball and line it to the left fielder just as easily. His spray chart is a thing of beauty, (which you can find here amongst other statistic gathered for this article. MLBFarm.com always comes in clutch) and seriously makes me wonder why he can't just put the ball in play more.

Gathered together this shows a pretty clear view of what we are seeing with Davidson. His approach, while amazing and beneficial, has a few downsides especially for someone who doesn't have the elite contact skills of someone like Votto. He is going to strike out, and he is going to strike out a lot and unless he makes some tweaks to his game he always will. At the same time, he is always going to be a high walk guy who will have an OBP approaching the mid or even upper three hundreds even when he isn't hitting all that well.

The biggest thing that shows out for Davidson now is that ISO. Of the 3 possibilities posed, I can completely dismiss 2 of those. Davidson is a very smart hitter. He knows what he's doing and he knows his game well enough to not think that he needs to be a line drive ground ball hitter. He certainly cares as well. He by all accounts works hard on his game and is willing to make necessary changes to be a better player. So right now it looks like his swing just might not be creating loft at this point. When you watch him this becomes even more apparent, as many of even his fly balls don't have a ton of back spin or carry to them. Again, he is just 19. There is the time and the means by which he can improve. The approach he has and the power to all fields leaves him so close to potentially being one of the top power hitting minor leaguers. If he can do that, the walks will continue to come even more with time as pitchers choose to pitch around him rather than give up 450 foot home runs

So what are these Joey Votto and Dan Uggla comparisons I've been throwing around. Despite the difference in handedness and position, I quite like the comparison between Uggla and Davidson.Both are high strike out, high walk guys who didn't show a ton of power in their early time in the minor leagues. Uggla's 3rd season was his break out, hitting .290 with 23 home runs so hopefully Davidson follows suit. If he were to follow the same path as Uggla, he would be debuting in 2019 as a 22 year old. Of course Uggla's story is well known. He hit 190 home runs in his first 6 years as a major leaguer prior to his precipitous decline. The good thing for Davidson is that he would be debuting a full 3 years later, perhaps delaying his decline and providing a much longer peak.

The Votto comparison is more of a pipe dream than anything, but in his first full season as a pro Votto hit .278/.406/..398, and much of that was at a lower level than Braxton played at. As for Votto's rate stats-27.0% K rate, 16.9% BB rate, and a .120 ISO. So maybe not as crazy as you thought. While expecting Davidson to be that good shouldn't happen, one of the biggest things that helped Votto was the Red's willingness to take their time and let him develop. He spent 5 years in the minor leagues before making his debut and was never rushed to a level that he wasn't ready for. There is an argument that maybe Davidson has been rushed, but there is no question Atlanta will give him every chance to develop as Votto did. So while Davidson may have his problem, here's a little something to dream on: A Joey Votto clone wearing a tomahawk across his chest.