Law: Braves Have #1 Farm System

[striker42]

https://twitter.com/keithlaw/status/697492016272433152

[Orphan Black]

"This system was among the bottom five just two years ago after years of bad drafts and questionable player development, but a series of trades -- including several fleecings of the Diamondbacks -- has stocked the system with pitching depth that is the envy of the industry. They tied for the most players in my top 100 and had a couple of other players who could make cases for inclusion, and their 11th-to-20th-ranked prospects still include a lot of prospective major league value. It has been a remarkable turnaround for general manager John Coppolella and his front office, and the future is even brighter with the team having the third overall pick in this June's draft. The team's agreement to sign Venezuelan prospect Kevin Maitan on July 2 is the worst-kept secret in the industry."

[The Chosen One]

I'm glad [MENTION=1664]keithlaw[/MENTION] finally came to his senses.

[praeceps93]

Loving it. If we're already #1 in his eyes, gotta imagine we'll be SUPER #1 by mid-July.

[Freshmaker]

Love it love it love it. #1 farm by a country mile

[Millwood1Hitter]

We won! We won! We won! We're number 1. Yeah Baby

JS: "Braves fans, I told you, rest assured we'd compete and we have done exactly that. Compete. We have assembled the largest and most dynamic and greatest and best championship caliber minor league system in the history of the Braves, not only in Atlanta but in the entire history of the Braves. Everyone talks about Kansas City winning the World Series, well that doesn't rival this great achievement. And did I mention Kansas City, well, I did, and I had a hand in both of their championships. It gives me great pleasure looking back at what I did there, bringing baseball to Kansas City and the success that I had there. This achievement is unprecedented, even my our Atlanta Braves standards, going to back to our run of consecutive division titles, which believe it or not I spearheaded and 30 years later, here I am again and we are on top."

[clvclv]

We won! We won! We won! We're number 1. Yeah Baby

JS: "Braves fans, I told you, rest assured we'd compete and we have done exactly that. Compete. We have assembled the largest and most dynamic and greatest and best championship caliber minor league system in the history of the Braves, not only in Atlanta but in the entire history of the Braves. Everyone talks about Kansas City winning the World Series, well that doesn't rival this great achievement. And did I mention Kansas City, well, I did, and I had a hand in both of their championships. It gives me great pleasure looking back at what I did there, bringing baseball to Kansas City and the success that I had there. This achievement is unprecedented, even my our Atlanta Braves standards, going to back to our run of consecutive division titles, which believe it or not I spearheaded and 30 years later, here I am again and we are on top."

Sucks that they've accomplished Goal #1 for the whiners, doesn't it.

A hint for the many Johnny Come Latelys who thought the Braves didn't exist before McCann and Francoeur were drafted - you can't have 15 years of unprecedented success until you build a monster farm system.

[yeezus]

compared to where we were and especially where we were going to be, this is miraculous.

[yeezus]

Sucks that they've accomplished Goal #1 for the whiners, doesn't it.

A hint for the many Johnny Come Latelys who thought the Braves didn't exist before McCann and Francoeur were drafted - you can't have 15 years of unprecedented success until you build a monster farm system.

the rebuild is still going poorly though!!!!

[sturg33]

the rebuild is still going poorly though!!!!

Can we say that it's going well? Not until these prospects turn into something.

Certainly, I'm much more pleased with the moves this offseason, than last season. But you'd be an abysmal failure if you can't acquire a ton of talent after trading Heyward, Upton, Gattis, Kimbrel, Wood, Peraza, Simmons, & Miller

[sturg33]

The obsession with acquiring great farm talents lends to a psychological effect in humans in general. People get more excited about the farm than the ML team because of "hope." We "hope" this will lead to many championships, and that is a good feeling because it is impossible to disprove at the moment. I "hope" it does as well

[Russ2dollas]

That's nice. Law likes top end talent over probability. So a lot of others will rank us lower.

Having a few more top end position guys would make me feel better.

I couldn't tell if he was including Maitan in the rank. But a haul of international guys plus #3 pick and high picks after that should put us in a very good spot.

Now we just need some of those guys to actually become major league assets. I love having a great farm, but the goal is to win MLB games.

[Russ2dollas]

we did trade 1 year of Heyward, 1 year JUp, 4 years of Gattis, 5 years of Simmons, 4 years of CK, 5 years of Wood, 6 years of Peraza....etc (that's off the top of my head so forgive the years being wrong). We should get some talent for that.

So far we have Swanson as a long term answer at SS.

Albies looks like a long term answer at 2B. Inciarte could be a long term answer at CF. Mallex could be a CF. Still a lot of holes.

[chop2chip]

The obsession with acquiring great farm talents lends to a psychological effect in humans in general. People get more excited about the farm than the ML team because of "hope." We "hope" this will lead to many championships, and that is a good feeling because it is impossible to disprove at the moment. I "hope" it does as well

Dan LeBatard refers to prospect rankings and drafts as "hope trafficking". I have always found it funny that we tend to be more forgiving of players' failures in the minors than we are in the big leagues. If a prospect has a bad month in AA, we tend to write that off as an adjustment period. If the same player struggles in the big leagues, he's exposed and we move on to the next "phenom" in the minors.

OTOH, building successful teams with moderate payrolls means you have to maximize your probabilities. Having the number one farm system seems like the best place to start.

[cajunrevenge]

Keith Law is so obviously bias against the Braves. Any reasonable person would have created an S Rank that is above #1 to rank the Braves farm system.

[Dalyn]

the rebuild is still going poorly though!!!!

While I am certainly happy with some of our prospects, the Mukaki Rebuild was all about the magical 2017. That looks like it'll be a huge failure, to be fair.

[cajunrevenge]

18 months ago the Royals rebuilding was failing too.

[nsacpi]

we did trade 1 year of Heyward, 1 year JUp, 4 years of Gattis, 5 years of Simmons, 4 years of CK, 5 years of Wood, 6 years of Peraza....etc (that's off the top of my head so forgive the years being wrong).

plus the draft picks associated with Heyward and Upton and maybe some of the others...plus money most obviously in the Toussaint trade

[Dalyn]

18 months ago the Royals rebuilding was failing too.

I think that's a good reference point in regards to time (how long it took the Royals, I mean). The mistake the team made was in claiming 2017 as THE year and trying to ride the fence on the rebuild to make it happen. Now that I think they understand that's not possible, we should be able to make 2019 or so.

[Carp]

18 months ago the Royals rebuilding was failing too.

How do you figure? They had their 1st winning season in like 20 years in 2013.