It's like I'm famous around here. The obsession you guys have with posting about me is a little concerning though. Do you lie awake at night thinking about me too?Originally Posted by blueagleace1
It's like I'm famous around here. The obsession you guys have with posting about me is a little concerning though. Do you lie awake at night thinking about me too?
I haven't done enough research to claim that the Braves do it more than all other teams. The observation was that they have been very poor at 1st round picks, especially when they take a guy that wasn't a consensus guy within the industry. And they have been remarkably good at 2nd round picks.
But when you state that they built a great farm system that renewed itself for years, the evidence says they didn't do that with first round picks, if they did it at all. The major cogs of value to the Braves teams over the last 20 or so years has come from players picked later than the 1st round (McCann, Freeman, Wood, Gattis, Medlen, Beachy, Hanson, Kimbrell, Venters, LaRoche, etc.) in the draft or international FA (Teheran, Simmons, AJ, Prado, Escobar, Furcal, etc.).
The few 1st rounders that did hit were either consensus guys (CJ, Heyward), marginal contributors (Kelly Johnson), internally mis-evaluated and traded (Wainwright) or OK but at the expense of much better (Minor). The rest have been busts with most being phenomenal busts. Is that hit rate better or worse than other clubs? I would say better than some, worse than some.
Why the busts? My opinion is that some can be attributed to the high bust rate inherent in the process (which was harder for a team like the Braves because they so often picked late because of record), but not all. I think some is likely associated with the philosophy of high risk/high reward leading to busts and the Wren philosophy of low risk/low floor (going against the consensus of the industry). And some, maybe most important, was the Braves managements hard line ownership and MLB approach to sticking to or below the signing "guidelines" which had little to no punishment for years and certainly no reward for complying.
Bottom line is the Braves aren't very good at drafting first round talent but probably no worse than some others and likely not as good as some. They have been very successful in the second round and beyond and on the international front (except during the Wren years when they largely walked away from the market, not necessarily his fault).
I honestly don't care all that much whether our 1st round picks have worked out more than others as long as overall, we're doing well. And we have done very well overall. When you're dealing with small sample sizes (and 15 or so players is absolutely a small sample size), you could see just about anything.
And you can't knock the Braves for 'reaching' for a guy like Minor and having more successful guys behind him. The guys taken right after him were Mike Leake (no better than Minor, just hasn't had the injuries), Jacob Turner, Storen (a relief pitcher), Tyler Matzek, Aaron Crow, Grant Green, Matthew Purke, Alex White, and Robert Borchering.
Yes, taking Grichuk or Trout would have been phenomenal. But that would have been 'reaching' as well, and clearly a crap ton of other teams missed. They weren't in play at all for that #7 pick.
Most of the Braves problem in the first round can be attributed to the fact that they were always drafting late.
The few times they did have high picks, they took guys like like Minor and Anderson. Notice a trend? Pitchers nobody else thought that highly of, but "the Braves way" is to draft pitchers, so that's why they were selected.
I can't remember who the Braves passed on to get Minor, but I won't forget the Braves passed on Lewis to get Anderson.
AJ Pollock, Shelby Miller, and a guy named Trout went after #7 in that first round.
This is just the worst way to look at an MLB draft pick. Dustin Ackley, Donovan Tate, Jorge Sanchez, and Matthew Hobgood were also taken before Minor in that draft.
They also took Kolby Allard, who everyone thought highly of, and Jason Heyward in the 1st half of drafts. Those are the only 4 top half 1st round draft picks they've had since 1991.
Sure. I get that. He asked who else was selected in that draft. Those were notable names.
Fair enough. I already listed the names of the guys taken with the next 9 picks - Leake, Turner, Storen, Matzek, Crow, Green, Purke, White, Borchering.
re: Minor. He was a safe pick. High floor but low ceiling and he would be ready pretty quickly. He was picked somewhat for need and not taking the best player available. Law doesn't really like those types of picks. I'm not sure who was thought highly of at that time of the draft but I can gurantee you that Minor wasn't thought of as the best player on the board then. I'm a big fan of drafting for best available talent. That generally leads to longer term success.
I didn't like the pick at the time, but it turned out better than I could have hoped...until the injuries hit. He turned out to have a higher ceiling than any analysts thought at the time.
And I don't know who the 'best player on the board' was at the time of the pick, but I'm willing to bet it was one of those next 9 players drafted...in which case, we did at least as well as we would have had we gone with any of them.
Yeah the increased velocity will end up doing that. I would say it's not that common for someone coming out of college.
Heyward was obviously a hitting prospect, and he panned out for the most part. Obviously too soon to tell about Allard.
I'm not talking about the Braves passing on Trout in favor of Minor. Nobody was in on Trout. I'm, talking about the Braves going against the consensus like they did by taking Anderson over Lewis. I seem to remember a lot of folks wanting Matzek, Crow or Green, but I'm not sure. Which is why I'm making it a point to remember that everyone (including me) wanted Lewis this time.
It just seems like no matter what, then, we won't give the Braves credit when they are actually smarter than the consensus. 'We drafted him higher than anybody else thought, Pshh, we've bought into our own genius. Oh he is better than everybody thought? Got lucky, bad move.'
Perhaps we saw something mechanically that could improve his velocity?
Yeah, I get it. I was just saying that in the case of Minor, we did apparently know more than others. We 'reached' and made a good choice.
I don't think we knew more. I think we got lucky
When they did the same thing with gilmartin did they know more?
We went for guys that could be ready sooner and had lower risk. Now we are doing the opposite
Gilmartin was at the end of the 1st, where guys like that normally go.
I'm just saying that if you always chalk our successful 'reaches' up to luck because they outperformed the consensus, then you'll never give us credit for knowing more than others.
So when they don't work out, we're stupid for bucking consensus. And when they do, we just got lucky. You're just arguing the consensus is always right.
That's certainly possible. Could also be that increased velocity is what caused his shoulder injury. Who knows.
The Yankees were really high on Trout. I think they had him as the top player overall but he was gone before they picked and they couldnt trade up.
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