Mallex Smith

[Horsehide Harry]

But I'm not arguing with any of this. In fact, you also said pretty much exactly what I agree with.

But what I'm saying is that 2016 and 2017 are not the end goal, at least they shouldn't be. We should be looking to make some moves to compete in those years, but the cost to truly build a WS contender in 2 years would be far too prohibitive.

I'm not saying we should be looking primarily at pitching and defense in our long-term strategy. Those should be two primary building blocks, but offense and power have to be two others. I'm one of those saying we should draft a hitter, as long as it makes sense in terms of value, over a pitcher at the top of next year's draft. I also love that we're going after Maitan next year as well.

I want offense. I want tons of offense and tons of power. But we have very little power right now, so trying to get enough to be league-average there by 2017 will be extremely difficult and extremely expensive. Therefore, I'd rather just build the best team we can without giving away the farm...so unfortunately, that would mean a team that is below-average in power.

I think we agree

[KB21]

I agree that I'd rather have fewer Ks, but I'd take a ton more HR if they also came with a ton more Ks. Our problem last year was a lot of Ks without much power, as you said. If you have a lot of Ks but a lot of power, it's better than few Ks but few power, as the Astros are proving this year. And the Cubs will soon enough as well.

The Cubs won't do anything till they get some pitching.

[Horsehide Harry]

I want power, but I don't want a team that strikes out every 3 times they bat. Last year, we had a team that had the 3rd most strike outs in the NL but around the 5th or 6th fewest home runs. As a result, that offense wasn't much better than this year's despite the difference in power. Nothing good comes out of a strike out for a hitter, particularly if you strike out looking, IMO.

I agree completely.

I don't think you can have 8 Rob Deer's, Dave Kingman's or Adam Dunn's.

But you DO have to have power to be a consistent long term winner and some K's are going to come with that. Uggla hitting 30HR but also hitting .180 and K'ing 180 times doesn't work, especially since he's a 2B with bad defense.

But, you have to have some fear in the middle of your line-up and you need some quick strike capability.

[Horsehide Harry]

The Cubs won't do anything till they get some pitching.

The Cubs are going to buy their pitching in a market relatively full of options.

The Braves have taken the opposite approach (so far) and are now realizing that the cycle has changed and bats (specifically power bats) are scarce right now.

[smootness]

The Cubs won't do anything till they get some pitching.

Their pitching will be fine. They're 5th in the NL in runs allowed and have allowed 73 fewer than we have. Arrieta and Lester should anchor their rotation for the next several years, and all they really need is 1-2 pretty good options after that, which shouldn't be difficult to find given their money and assets.

They're just waiting now for their bats to all graduate and get some experience. In 2-3 years, their worst bats will be Castro, Russell, and Billy McKinney. That is crazy; I would give them a ton if they would give us just one of Russell and McKinney, and that's about the worst their lineup will get. And they'll have Rizzo-Bryant-Schwarber in the middle. It's going to be crazy.

[smootness]

I don't think you can have 8 Rob Deer's, Dave Kingman's or Adam Dunn's.

The Astros are not too far away from that right now.

[yeezus]

The Braves have taken the opposite approach (so far) and are now realizing that the cycle has changed and bats (specifically power bats) are scarce right now.

I think this is really silly to say, and not exactly true. I'm sure they have understood the whole time what their plan is and aren't suddenly realizing anything.

[thethe]

I think this is really silly to say, and not exactly true. I'm sure they have understood the whole time what their plan is and aren't suddenly realizing anything.

I love this idea that the Braves front office is a bunch of dinosaurs that are behind the times.

[nsacpi]

I think this is really silly to say, and not exactly true. I'm sure they have understood the whole time what their plan is and aren't suddenly realizing anything.

“You look out onto the market and it’s just tough to find those bats."---John Hart after the Olivera trade

[yeezus]

“You look out onto the market and it’s just tough to find those bats."---John Hart after the Olivera trade

So that means the FO suddenly realized something that you understood all along? That quote is not even close to proving what HH said as true.
I'm quite sure they have a decent finger on the pulse of the league, and do their homework. They aren't suddenly realizing anything.
Go ahead and throw everything into a vacuum, but it's not how it works. In a vacuum, you can say "Oh well we traded two good bats for mostly pitching, so clearly they don't understand the game!" But that ignores heaps of context around why we traded those bats.

[thethe]

I will just continue to chuckle at the thought the Braves front office doesn't know what they are doing.

[yeezus]

I will just continue to chuckle at the thought the Braves front office doesn't know what they are doing.

When I think, in hindsight, it's clear they made the right call by not going for broke for this year. The likelihood we would've truly competed is very small, and we'd have been left with next to nothing. So yeah, I trust them a tad.

[nsacpi]

So that means the FO suddenly realized something that you understood all along? That quote is not even close to proving what HH said as true.
I'm quite sure they have a decent finger on the pulse of the league, and do their homework. They aren't suddenly realizing anything.
Go ahead and throw everything into a vacuum, but it's not how it works. In a vacuum, you can say "Oh well we traded two good bats for mostly pitching, so clearly they don't understand the game!" But that ignores heaps of context around why we traded those bats.

This is from the NY times in an article dated July 27.

"We’re trying to build as much upside, impact pitching, as we can." ---John Copollela

In a broad sense finding bats and emphasizing pitching are not necessarily incompatible. Every team seeks out both. But up until the Olivera trade, the predominant pattern has been for the Braves to move hitting for pitching.

[thethe]

This is from the NY times in an article dated July 27.

"We’re trying to build as much upside, impact pitching, as we can." ---John Copollela

In a broad sense finding bats and emphasizing pitching are not necessarily incompatible. Every team seeks out both. But up until the Olivera trade, the predominant pattern has been for the Braves to move hitting for pitching.

Or the more likely scenario is that only pitching was available for the players given up.

But the Braves did acquire a few positional prospects in their offseason trades. If Ruiz hadn't **** the bed we would be in a different situation right now. Maybe one where the trade for Olivera wasn't necessary.

[nsacpi]

Or the more likely scenario is that only pitching was available for the players given up.

I think there were two factors at work:

1) The Braves wanted to get back to the Braves way. Which means pitching, pitching and more pitching. Which might not be the right approach in the current era.

2) Other teams were more willing to part with pitching than hitting. Which is part and parcel of this new era where hitting is relatively scarce and pitching relatively abundant.

[Tapate50]

This is from the NY times in an article dated July 27.

"We’re trying to build as much upside, impact pitching, as we can." ---John Copollela

In a broad sense finding bats and emphasizing pitching are not necessarily incompatible. Every team seeks out both. But up until the Olivera trade, the predominant pattern has been for the Braves to move hitting for pitching.

Well his diagnosis of the milb roster was correct. There was no impact pitching in our system. Lot of filler arms, and mostly bp guys...

It might have been abundant but that doesn't mean that we had any.

[keithlaw]

Or the more likely scenario is that only pitching was available for the players given up.

But the Braves did acquire a few positional prospects in their offseason trades. If Ruiz hadn't **** the bed we would be in a different situation right now. Maybe one where the trade for Olivera wasn't necessary.

Also when the rebuild started we had one major league pitcher who had finished the season healthy and only 2 legit SP prospects.

[thethe]

Also when the rebuild started we had one major league pitcher who had finished the season healthy and only 2 legit SP prospects.

It was pretty clear where the organization was deficient.

[yeezus]

I think there were two factors at work:

1) The Braves wanted to get back to the Braves way. Which means pitching, pitching and more pitching. Which might not be the right approach in the current era.

2) Other teams were more willing to part with pitching than hitting. Which is part and parcel of this new era where hitting is relatively scarce and pitching relatively abundant.

1) and not necessarily wrong, either, especially if the pitching you're being offered provides a higher upside than the hitting being offered.

2) this pretty closely coincides with point #1.

Teams win championships on the heels of pitching all the time.
And still none of this supports the idea that Hart and the FO suddenly just realized offense was part of baseball, too; it's just a different approach, and stocking up on pitching is hardly a new, or previously unsuccessful, strategy.

[yeezus]

Well his diagnosis of the milb roster was correct. There was no impact pitching in our system. Lot of filler arms, and mostly bp guys...

It might have been abundant but that doesn't mean that we had any.

this is also a key point: we didn't have much of that "abundant" pitching (and I think the abundance is overstated by some). our organization needed a lot of things, pitching definitely being one of them. building on pitching is not a crazy idea.