Minor league thread

[chop2chip]

Top prospect flameouts since the rebuild who have turned out to be unsuccessful are plentiful - and Grissom hasn't sniffed a Top 100 list yet. It happens - in EVERY system. At no point did I say (or have I ever said) this system has more of them than anyone else, so don't try to put words in my mouth. The Braves' flameouts tend to be more widely talked about because their hype machine is so good and they have had more kids make Top 100 lists over this stretch than most organizations. The "hits" have been great - Acuna, Albies, Riley, Fried, Dansby, Harris and Strider (so far) - but there's no need to dodge the fact that there have been more than a few pretty major (Top 100) flops.

Jose Peraza, Christian Bethancourt, Aaron Blair, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard, Touki Toussaint, Kevin Maitan, Luiz Gohara, Bryse Wilson, Pache, and Waters.

The point is that it's more than fair for people to want to see these kids succeed at higher levels against better competition before going nuts over them - there are plenty of those who were going to be "the next big thing" before they'd even reached AA.

The pitching flame outs is pretty bad. Granted, pitchers have universally poor attrition rate, so not sure Braves are uniquely bad in that respect.

But what the hit rates Braves have had with position player prospects by both rate and volume is historically good.

[Russ2dollas]

Top prospect flameouts since the rebuild who have turned out to be unsuccessful are plentiful - and Grissom hasn't sniffed a Top 100 list yet. It happens - in EVERY system. At no point did I say (or have I ever said) this system has more of them than anyone else, so don't try to put words in my mouth. The Braves' flameouts tend to be more widely talked about because their hype machine is so good and they have had more kids make Top 100 lists over this stretch than most organizations. The "hits" have been great - Acuna, Albies, Riley, Fried, Dansby, Harris and Strider (so far) - but there's no need to dodge the fact that there have been more than a few pretty major (Top 100) flops.

Jose Peraza, Christian Bethancourt, Aaron Blair, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard, Touki Toussaint, Kevin Maitan, Luiz Gohara, Bryse Wilson, Pache, and Waters.

The point is that it's more than fair for people to want to see these kids succeed at higher levels against better competition before going nuts over them - there are plenty of those who were going to be "the next big thing" before they'd even reached AA.

I do not recall Blair, Allard, Toussaint, Maitan, Gohara, or Wilson being top 100. Of the top of my head maybe Wilson made one KLaw list. Maitan was a ton of hype, but that seemed to go away almost the moment he played.

Peraza I do not recall being highly ranked either. We just had a bad system then.

Bethancourt was a shocker to me b/c we were told he was a minimum a stud catcher and then we was not. Pache was super hyped by Klaw. Waters and Newcombe qualify.

But I do think that happens to lot of teams. Probably 75% of the first round picks or more...

[Tapate50]

Thats like all the pitchers that have flamed out in like 10 years. It isn't that bad.

Especially when you have guys like Strider, Medlen, Beachy and Venters that never sniffed a top 100 if that is your measure.

[Russ2dollas]

Thats like all the pitchers that have flamed out in like 10 years. It isn't that bad.

Especially when you have guys like Strider, Medlen, Beachy and Venters that never sniffed a top 100 if that is your measure.

That's my thought. Pitchers we've done well with by my definitions.

Fried we traded for in A ball. He's a stud.
Wright and Anderson were top picks, but they look good pitchers. We can argue about them, but Anderson probably already made his pick and development worth it in the playoffs. Wright looks to be building into a legit guy.
Strider looks very good.
We've also had Folty and Minter.
Soroka hit briefly.

I'd have to see data. I just do not know that we are that bad with our pitcher strategy.

If we count home grown as guys who we acquired before they had any MLB service time then we assembled a WS contender with CF, RF, 3B, SS, 2B, backup C, Fried, Wright, Anderson, Strider, Minter. Obviously 1B was in that list when we won the WS. We have impact guys in that group.

Not bad for selling off Heyward, Kimbrell, Shelby Miller, two Uptons and 4 years of being bad.

[The Chosen One]

No question about it. Finding three players like strider/Harris/Grissom while being a competitive team is damn impressive.

Not to mention the players that were valuable enough to headline the Olson trade. Outside of Pache the others were from AA.

[zbhargrove]

Trade acuna and move Riley to the OF

Trade for Freddie to play third.

[thethe]

Not to mention the players that were valuable enough to headline the Olson trade. Outside of Pache the others were from AA.

Trade I think was centered around Shea and he was the last highest pick that AA will have for another 5-8 years.

[zbhargrove]

I do not recall Blair, Allard, Toussaint, Maitan, Gohara, or Wilson being top 100. Of the top of my head maybe Wilson made one KLaw list. Maitan was a ton of hype, but that seemed to go away almost the moment he played.

Peraza I do not recall being highly ranked either. We just had a bad system then.

Bethancourt was a shocker to me b/c we were told he was a minimum a stud catcher and then we was not. Pache was super hyped by Klaw. Waters and Newcombe qualify.

But I do think that happens to lot of teams. Probably 75% of the first round picks or more...

All of those guys were top 100 at one point. Gohara was even top 25… if he had stayed healthy he would have been good. Most of those other guys topped out around the 50-100 range. You are right on Maitan… he was top 100 but never earned it. Blair was very disappointing… he was in the 50s when we traded for him. Allard was only in the top 100 early. He fell quickly. Peraza was definitely top 100. Closer to top 50… even though the system sucked.

[The Chosen One]

Trade for Freddie to play third.

What a team player. Moved to 3B briefly just so Adams could play 1B lol

Like Chipper moving to LF for SVOD then for DeRo.

[zbhargrove]

I remember a brief time when the Braves had Heyward as the best position prospect in baseball and Gohara as the best LHP prospect in baseball.

Edit: Not Heyward sorry… Acuna duh.

[Tapate50]

I remember a brief time when the Braves had Heyward as the best position prospect in baseball and Gohara as the best LHP prospect in baseball.

WOW

[thethe]

I was so irrationally excited about Gohara when he came up here for a brief cup.

Hope that man conquered his demons and will return one day. Legit thought he was going to become an ace.

[zbhargrove]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2018-top-100-prospects/

2018 Fangraphs list had Gohara at 31 (Fangraphs were even the low ones on him) and Touki at 60. Allard had fallen off but was well in the top 100 in previous years. Joey Wentz was another top 100 here.

[Enscheff]

The pitching flame outs is pretty bad. Granted, pitchers have universally poor attrition rate, so not sure Braves are uniquely bad in that respect.

But what the hit rates Braves have had with position player prospects by both rate and volume is historically good.

I think the Braves have had a pretty amazing hit rate on position prospects, and a fairly poor hit rate on pitching prospects.

The only true flop so far position player-wise has been Pache, and he was still used to acquire Olson. Every single other position prospect either hit as good or better than their mean projections, or folks around here pumped them up way higher than they ever should have (like Waters). I can't think of any position prospect other than Pache where I've been disappointed with the result, and that's amazing to me.

Pitchers, on the other hand, have been pretty brutal. All the resources spent on young arms has produced a single TOR guy (Fried), a nice #3/#4 (Anderson), a guy trying to come back from injury (Soroka) and a couple guys we hope stick (Wright and Strider). Even the BP has been almost purely built from outside, so the Braves aren't even turning failed SPs into BP guys with any regularity. Turning guys like Touki and Newk into BP weapons is what organizations with good development staffs routinely do.

[zbhargrove]

I think the Braves have had a pretty amazing hit rate on position prospects, and a fairly poor hit rate on pitching prospects.

The only true flop so far position player-wise has been Pache, and he was still used to acquire Olson. Every single other position prospect either hit as good or better than their mean projections, or folks around here pumped them up way higher than they ever should have (like Waters). I can't think of any position prospect other than Pache where I've been disappointed with the result, and that's amazing to me.

Pitchers, on the other hand, have been pretty brutal. All the resources spent on young arms has produced a single TOR guy (Fried), a nice #3/#4 (Anderson), and a couple guys we hope stick (Wright and Strider). Even the BP has been almost purely built from outside, so the Braves aren't even turning failed SPs into BP guys with any regularity. Turning guys like Touki and Newk into BP weapons is what organizations with good development staffs routinely do.

To be fair even prospect analysts were hyping up Waters a bit too irrationally early on. He was definitely my dude. Wanted him on draft day and was pumped we got him. But he sucks.

[msstate7]

While they certainly didn't hold up long, hard to not give some credit for folty and newcomb. They did help win a division title

[chop2chip]

I think the Braves have had a pretty amazing hit rate on position prospects, and a fairly poor hit rate on pitching prospects.

The only true flop so far position player-wise has been Pache, and he was still used to acquire Olson. Every single other position prospect either hit as good or better than their mean projections, or folks around here pumped them up way higher than they ever should have (like Waters). I can't think of any position prospect other than Pache where I've been disappointed with the result, and that's amazing to me.

Pitchers, on the other hand, have been pretty brutal. All the resources spent on young arms has produced a single TOR guy (Fried), a nice #3/#4 (Anderson), a guy trying to come back from injury (Soroka) and a couple guys we hope stick (Wright and Strider). Even the BP has been almost purely built from outside, so the Braves aren't even turning failed SPs into BP guys with any regularity. Turning guys like Touki and Newk into BP weapons is what organizations with good development staffs routinely do.

Not to mention guys other organizations have turned into good relief pitchers from our failed pitchers like Wisler and Sims.

A lot of these failures on the pitching side have been known for several years now and I am sure that contributed to why AA completely revamped the scouting and player development staffs. I haven’t been overly impressed so far, but Strider and Lee both seem like keepers.

The Braves at least seem to have a competent staff on the major league side. Seems like they do a good job managing workload and maximizing talent from the pitchers they do have. This helps smooth over the issues you can solve by simple attrition.

[zbhargrove]

The Matzek reclamation has been impressive too. I think our pitching development under AA has been better than the past regime.

[CyYoung31]

I think the Braves have had a pretty amazing hit rate on position prospects, and a fairly poor hit rate on pitching prospects.

The only true flop so far position player-wise has been Pache, and he was still used to acquire Olson. Every single other position prospect either hit as good or better than their mean projections, or folks around here pumped them up way higher than they ever should have (like Waters). I can't think of any position prospect other than Pache where I've been disappointed with the result, and that's amazing to me.

Pitchers, on the other hand, have been pretty brutal. All the resources spent on young arms has produced a single TOR guy (Fried), a nice #3/#4 (Anderson), a guy trying to come back from injury (Soroka) and a couple guys we hope stick (Wright and Strider). Even the BP has been almost purely built from outside, so the Braves aren't even turning failed SPs into BP guys with any regularity. Turning guys like Touki and Newk into BP weapons is what organizations with good development staffs routinely do.

It’s funny, other than Glavine, Avery, Smoltz, and Millwood, the Braves have missed on almost every legit pitching prospect in the last 30+ years, while we’ve had an amazing hit rate on position players. This isn’t a new development. I always wondered why the previous regime didn’t seem to grasp how flawed a philosophy rebuilding around young pitching is, when they saw proof of it first hand from 1990-2014.

[zbhargrove]

It’s funny, other than Glavine, Avery, Smoltz, and Millwood, the Braves have missed on almost every legit pitching prospect in the last 30+ years, while we’ve had an amazing hit rate on position players. This isn’t a new development. I always wondered why the previous regime didn’t seem to grasp how flawed a philosophy rebuilding around young pitching is, when they saw proof of it first hand from 1990-2014.

I don’t miss dreaming on pitchers like JoJo Reyes