Mallex Smith

[nsacpi]

Maybe they just identify the best values rather than clinging to only one school of thought leading to missed opportunity , no?

There is a lot to choose from. So probably best to look for value than focusing on a particular guy.

[Enscheff]

So no chance of the Braves pursuing Price or Cueto this off-season right?

I certainly hope not. If the Braves are going to tie up $200M in one player I would prefer it be a position player, who has a much greater chance of contributing to the MLB team for the duration of the contract. All long term contracts are risky, but pitchers are much riskier than position players.

For the record, I am not against giving a guy like Kazmir something along the lines of $40M over 3 years to fill a slot in the rotation with a veteran, but I don't want to see the Braves stuck with huge contract for a dead armed pitcher. You asked in another thread if folks would rather buy Price/Zobrist or Heyward/Buerhle. No matter the names involved, I would rather commit to the position player and fill in with FA pitchers as needed.

[auyushu]

Yeah. This whole thing about us being better at developing pitchers is greatly overblown. You can add Prado and Simmons to the list.

Yeah, one of the more baffling things to me is how people defend the Braves spending early draft picks on pitching and say "It's the Braves way!" or "It's what the Braves do well!" when the results of this strategy in the early rounds has been very poor over the past 20-25 years. I mean, how many truly successful pitchers have we gotten from the top 2 rounds over the past 25 years or so (and by successful I mean starting pitchers who have career ERAs of 4.25 or better, making them solid #4 starters at least).

From 1990 on we have Jason Marquis (4.61 career ERA), Adam Wainwright, Mike Minor (4.10 career ERA), and Jeff Locke (4.08 career ERA). So in 25 years of 1st, supplemental, and 2nd round picks we have one Ace, 2 4th starters, and 1 5th starter to show for it. That's actually very poor, not something to crow about. Most of the Braves pitching success from the draft has come from later round grabs like Millwood and Hanson, or international signings.

We've actually been tremendously more successful going after hitters in the early rounds, particularly with our second rounders.