The Florida Complex League is an interesting level to evaluate because, in a weird way, the best thing a player can do is not spend very much time there. The league acts as a natural bridge for international prospects making the jump from the Dominican Summer League to the United States, giving them time to get acclimated while receiving more advanced instruction at the Braves complex. It also gives young prep draftees and recent college selections a place to ramp up before being thrown into full-season baseball.
Naturally, that means there are fewer players who receive an extended look here, and that is a good thing. You want players to either get their feet wet after coming over from the DSL or play well enough to force Atlanta to send them up the road to Augusta.
Still, a handful of players spent enough time at the complex to make an impression before moving on. Some of them have already played their way into promotions within the organization, and those players deserve to be highlighted.
Let’s get into it.
The Bats That Stood Out
Manuel Campos (2025 | IFA | VEN | $147,500)
One name that routinely gets swept under the rug when discussing potential shortstops of the future for the Atlanta Braves is Manuel Campos, and that probably needs to change.
After signing for just under $150,000 in 2025, Campos led the Braves DSL team in both hits (52) and batting average (.291). As you would expect from a 17-year-old playing his first professional season, the power was not quite there yet - he slugged under .400 and finished with only 10 extra-base hits. Still, the overall performance was impressive enough for Atlanta to bring the young shortstop stateside to begin 2026.
Once he got to the complex, Campos did pretty much the same thing all over again. Across 49 games, he once again led the team with 52 hits, while his .310 batting average was the best among players with at least 100 plate appearances. He did not stop there, either. Campos also led that with a .408 OBP, .429 SLG, .837 OPS, and a 117 wRC+. More importantly, some of the power started to show up. Campos collected eight doubles, three triples and two home runs before earning his promotion.
The underlying approach might be even more encouraging than the stat line. Campos posted an 83.3% zone-contact rate with a 25.9% whiff rate. Neither number is going to make headlines on its own, but that is a pretty impressive combination for an 18-year-old who was playing in the DSL just one year earlier. It also backs up what we saw in 2025, when Campos struck out in only 14.2% of his plate appearances.
Atlanta rewarded him with a promotion to Single-A Augusta near the end of July, and this is where his season gets even more interesting. Campos initially struggled with the jump in competition, which is not exactly surprising for one of the younger players at the level. He finished his 25 games with Augusta slashing .262/.292/.402 with a .694 OPS, but that overall line does not tell the entire story.
Over the final three weeks of Augusta’s season, Campos slashed .316/.345/.481 with an .826 OPS while adding three doubles, two triples and two home runs. In other words, once he had a little time to adjust, the production started to really show up.
That is what makes Campos such an interesting name heading into 2027. He will be just 19 years old, and there is still plenty of physical development ahead for his 5’11, 150-pound frame. He should return to Augusta to begin next season, but if what we saw over those final few weeks carries over, I do not think it is unreasonable to believe he could play his way to High A Rome relatively quickly.
The Braves suddenly have several exciting young shortstops throughout the system, which makes it easy for someone like Campos to get lost in the shuffle. The bat continues to perform everywhere Atlanta sends him, the approach is advanced for his age and, in my opinion, he may already have the best glove of the bunch.
Caden Merritt (2025 | UDFA | Gainesville HS | $197,400)
One of the more underrated aspects of Atlanta’s scouting and player development operation is just how often the Braves seem to find legitimate talent outside the obvious places. Whether it is a relatively unheralded third-round pick like Drake Baldwin, a 20th-round selection like Eric Hartman, or a $100,000 international signing who turns into Ronald Acuña Jr., this organization has a pretty good history of finding value where other teams may not. Caden Merritt may be another name worth keeping in mind.
Merritt went undrafted out of Gainesville High School in 2025, but Atlanta liked him enough to give him nearly $200,000 to forgo his commitment to then College World Series runner-up Coastal Carolina. That is not an insignificant investment for an undrafted free agent, especially one coming straight out of high school.
He would not make his professional debut until 2026, playing 40 games at the complex. With someone like Merritt, the appeal is not that he is already a polished player. If that were the case, he probably would not have gone undrafted in the first place. The appeal is in the tools.
Merritt hit just .237 at the complex, but he also walked in 17.1% of his plate appearances, helping him post a .384 OBP. He added five doubles, four triples and three home runs, good for a .405 SLG, while also stealing 20 bases. There is a lot going on there.
In mid-July, Atlanta decided it had seen enough to give Merritt his first taste of full-season baseball with Single-A Augusta. As expected, that jump came with some speed bumps. Merritt slashed .205/.348/.325 with a .672 OPS across 44 games. His strikeout rate jumped to 34.1%, which will need to improve as he develops. At the same time, his plate discipline did not disappear; Merritt still walked at a 16.2% clip despite facing significantly better pitching. Of his 31 hits with Augusta, nine went for extra bases, with three doubles, three triples and three home runs.
There is still a long way to go here, and Merritt should absolutely be viewed as a developmental project rather than someone knocking on the door of the Braves’ top prospect conversation. But this is also exactly the type of player you can dream on a little bit.
He’s a 6’1, 195-pound outfielder with some speed, power, an advanced willingness to take a walk, and plenty of physical tools to work with. Now Atlanta has to see how much of it can translate as the hit tool develops. Clearly, the Braves saw something worth betting on when they gave an undrafted high school player nearly $200,000. After his first professional season, I can see the vision.
The Arms That Caught My Attention
Gensi Angeles (2025 | IFA | DR | N/A)
Moving over to the pitching side, the list of players who received extended opportunities is even smaller. Only 11 pitchers at the complex recorded at least 20 innings this season, and only 12 appeared in double-digit games. Again, that is largely the point of this level. If an arm looks ready for more advanced competition, Atlanta is going to get him to Augusta.
Still, there were two pitchers who really caught my eye. The first is Gensi Angeles, who led the team with 10 starts and 55.2 innings pitched.
After signing for an undisclosed amount in 2025, Angeles made 10 appearances in the DSL and posted a 3.57 ERA with a 0.96 WHIP, 7.2% walk rate and 17.3% strikeout rate. Atlanta brought him stateside to begin 2026, and this is where the 18-year-old really started to find his footing.
Angeles made 12 appearances at the complex, 10 of them starts, and posted a 2.26 ERA with a 1.20 WHIP. His walk rate increased to 11.6%, but his strikeout rate also climbed to 19.3%. The underlying numbers provide a little more reason to be interested.
He held opposing hitters to a 27.4% hard-hit rate while generating an impressive 42.7% chase rate. For a pitcher this young, I am less concerned about seeing a completely finished product and more interested in seeing traits Atlanta can continue developing. Getting hitters to expand the zone that frequently is certainly one of them.
He received his promotion to Single-A Augusta at the end of July. Angeles allowed seven, two and five earned runs in his first three starts. You could pretty much label that his welcome-to-full-season-ball moment.
What I liked, though, was how he responded. Atlanta moved Angeles to the bullpen for his final three appearances, and he allowed just five hits and one earned run across 10 innings.
Right now, Angeles is working with a five-pitch mix that includes a four-seam fastball, curveball, changeup, sinker, and slider. No pitch in the arsenal jumps off the page as a dominant offering yet, and that is perfectly fine. He is 18 years old. At this stage, Atlanta appears focused on helping Angeles develop the entire arsenal while learning to consistently throw quality strikes.
The early results are intriguing enough to make him one of the many young arms worth following in what should be a very interesting Augusta pitching staff next season.
Victor Duarte (2025 | IFA | DR | N/A)
The other pitcher who caught my attention at the complex was Victor Duarte. Like Angeles, Duarte signed for an undisclosed amount in 2025 and made his professional debut in the DSL at 17.
There was not much to take away from that first look. Duarte made only three appearances and pitched 1.2 innings, allowing three hits, five earned runs, and four walks while striking out three. Still, Atlanta saw enough to bring him stateside for 2026.
In nine appearances at the complex this season, I think the easiest way to describe the results is that they were messy, but there was also a lot to like underneath them. Let’s start with the good.
Duarte led the entire complex team with a 36.0% strikeout rate. His 42.9% chase rate and 35.2% whiff rate both ranked inside the top three on the team. Three of his four pitches generated a chase rate of at least 33%, while all four produced a whiff rate of at least 23%. That is the type of stuff that makes you pay attention to a teenager regardless of what the ERA says.
Now for the problem. Duarte simply did not throw enough strikes. He finished the season with a 16.0% walk rate and put only 41.4% of his pitches in the strike zone. That is a difficult way to survive at any level. The swing-and-miss ability helped him escape some trouble, but the free passes consistently put him in difficult situations, contributing to a 5.57 ERA and 1.76 WHIP.
Duarte will be only 19 years old next season, and the raw ingredients are already there. For a pitcher this young, I would much rather see legitimate swing-and-miss stuff with command that needs to be developed than pristine command without anything capable of missing bats. You can teach and develop the former. Finding the latter is a lot harder.
He currently features a four-pitch mix with a four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup. The slider is the headliner, producing a 42.9% chase rate and 40.0% whiff rate across 62 pitches. The rest of the arsenal showed some intriguing traits as well. His changeup generated a 36.8% chase rate and 46.7% whiff rate across 30 pitches. The sinker produced a 33.3% chase rate and 23.1% whiff rate across 30 pitches, while his four-seam fastball generated a 19.7% chase rate and 34.0% whiff rate across 129 pitches.
It is still a very small sample, and Duarte is nowhere close to a finished product. But that is exactly what makes players at this level fun to follow. You are looking for ingredients more than results, and Duarte has some pretty interesting ingredients.
If he can take even a moderate step forward with his command, the strikeout ability gives Atlanta something legitimate to work with. Assuming he is healthy, I would expect him to join Angeles in Augusta next season, where we should get a much better idea of just how real that swing-and-miss ability can become.