For much of the first half, Eric Hartman and Tate Southisene grabbed all the headlines on the farm — and for good reason.

Hartman is making history just a couple of years after being drafted in the 20th round. He secured a 20/30 first half, vaulting himself from unranked all the way to the 25th-best prospect in all of baseball, according to Baseball America.

Southisene — a first-round pick out of high school last year — has also cracked the Top 100 after a stellar start to his first full professional season. He hit .297 with eight home runs, 36 stolen bases, and a .929 OPS before earning a well-deserved promotion to High-A Rome.

But neither of them is the Braves’ hottest prospect right now. That honor belongs to a member of Southisene’s draft class: second-round selection Alex Lodise.

Lodise is an older shortstop prospect coming off a magnificent career at Florida State, so it was a bit surprising to see him start the season so slowly in Augusta. However, any concerns have been put to rest in a hurry. Over the last month, he’s hitting a hair under .300 with 10 home runs and nine multi-hit games — good for an OPS well over 1.000. He’s now up to 18 home runs in just 81 games to go along with an .822 OPS, and at 22 years old, you’d expect a promotion could be in his near future as well.

I’ve said it all season, but this isn’t the Braves farm system of old, when it sat near the bottom of the league. Atlanta is now oozing with high-upside talent at just about every level, and a draft class headlined by two first-round selections is on the way.

That’s not a spot they’ve been in heading into a trade deadline in quite some time. The Braves can finally deal some of their young talent without feeling like they’re mortgaging the future. It should free them up to be aggressive over the next several weeks, patching up some of the glaring holes on the major-league roster.

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(Photo by Larry Radloff/Icon Sportswire)