In 2014, Atlanta Braves' prospect Lucas Sims was the youngest player in the Carolina League (Single-A Advanced). Now he is one of the youngest in the Southern League as the 21-year old made his Double-A debut with the Mississippi Braves against the Jackson Generals (affiliate of the Seattle Mariners) last night.

Sims, who was taken with the 21st overall pick in the 2012 MLB Draft by Atlanta, has had a very turbulent rollercoaster ride of a career so far.

The Braves started the Georgia native in the Gulf Coast League, where he had no trouble performing to standards and struck out 10 in seven innings while only allowing one earned run. From the GCL, Sims moved up to the Danville Braves, which presented him with his first obsticle. For Atlanta's higher ranked Rookie League squad, the 6'2" right-hander was knocked around for 13 earned runs in 23.2 innings pitched (4.33 ERA). In six decisions Sims had four losses.

Nevertheless the statline, Atlanta decided to promote the top rated prospect to Single-A Rome for the start of the 2013 season at the young age of 17. This time he would exceed expectations by not only going 12-4 with a 2.62 ERA, but fanning 134 batters in 116.2 innings as well.

With his dominance in Single-A, Atlanta promoted the starter to Single-A Advanced with the Lynchburg Hillcats for his next challenge. Unfortunately the results were less than desirable since Sims finished the season with an 8-11 record and a 4.19 ERA. Although the future ace showed glimpses of greatness with the Hillcats, specifically three six plus inning starts of no runs surrendered, he found himself at the same level to begin this season, but in a different location due to the Braves changing their affiliate to Carolina from Lynchburg.

Unlike some, the change of scenery did not help the high school product as Sims struggled until a May 9th start versus Salem, in which he permitted no runs in seven innings. Was everything beginning to re-click? No one will ever know as the Carolina Mudcats' had a terrible bus crash in route to Myrtle Beach that sent six players to the DL, including Sims who was sidelined for more than a month and a half due to a bad hip contusion.

After returning to full health and making two "rehab starts" with the GCL Braves, Sims returned to Carolina on July 5th. The start did not go well as MLB.com's 74th top prospect in baseball gave up six runs in three innings. Eventually Sims did find his old form though by striking out eight in six innings of one run ball against Winston-Salem on July 16th. Impressed by his recent performance, the Atlanta's organization shocked all of Minor League Baseball by promoting Sims to Double-A for yesterday's start.

In his Double-A debut, Sims did "okay" despite walking six batters and allowing two earned in four innings. In the first, a walk with two runners on and one out led to a sacrifice fly by Seattle prospect Julio Morbon to jump the Generals ahead immediately. The following frame, Sims' problems continued as he allowed a lead-off triple to Tyler Marlette, who was later driven home by Aderlin Rodriguez to extend the Jackson advantage to two.

After two rocky innings, Sims escaped a third inning, one out, bases loaded jam and a throwing error the insuing inning to put up two scoreless frames before exiting with 82 pitches.

In a battle of top-100 prospects, Sims was able to send MLB.com's 39th top prospect D.J. Peterson (Seattle) back to the dugout both times they faced, once via the strikeout and the other by fly out.

As of today, Lucas Sims is scheduled for his second Double-A start Sunday versus 2015 All-Star Futures Game selection Socrates Brito and the Mobile BayBears.