No real puzzle or imperfection at all. Long term success is usually based on starting pitching and power. There are deviations from that, but those are the two most important components of most winning teams.Originally Posted by nsacpi
No real puzzle or imperfection at all. Long term success is usually based on starting pitching and power. There are deviations from that, but those are the two most important components of most winning teams.
smootness hit the nail on the head with Muller. It's all about projection.
I was fine with the first day given the way things fell. Can't predict what other teams are going to do and it looked like the Braves rolled snake-eyes on hoping guys like Kieboom and Trammell would fall to them. Thought rounds 3 through 5 were a little odd. Harrington and Wilson look like good prospects, but there were some decent bats (especially college bats) on the board when those picks were made and I was hoping for a little more balance in those rounds.
It is interesting to analyze the starting pitcher vs hitter scarcity argument and see what the data says. Since the start of the 2013 season there have been 136 starters who qualified for the Cy Young. Of those 136, 127 have provided at least 2 WAR since 2013. 118 at least 3 WAR, 100 at least 4, 85 at least 5 WAR and 71 at last 6 . So, one could say that around 83% of qualified starters have been good enough to stay in the rotation over the last 3 seasons. and 53% were near 2 WAR a season
There have been 261 position players since the start of the 2013 season with enough PA's to qualify for the batting title. Of those 261, 221 have provided at least 2 WAR, 202 at least 3, 172 at least 4 , 146 at least 5 and 122 at least 6 WAR. so around 60% were good enough to deserve a starting role and only 47% were near 2 WAR a season.
Looks to me, using WAR anyway, that it is easier to find league avg pitching than league avg hitting, at least since 2013.
NOW, that being said, pitchers have a higher bust rate than bats due to the extra variables of injury, command...etc So, I don't think that taking 24 pitchers in 42 draft spots is a bad thing at all. Especially if they add 3-5 bats in INT free agency time. That will be like adding some first round bats to the mix.
Last edited by bravos4evr; 06-13-2016 at 04:01 PM.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
Shows you what I know.
The strength of the draft was high school pitching, per basically everybody (Keith Law, Baseball America, Callis, etc.).
The Braves tapped into that as best they could and arguably took BPA after the Ian Anderson pick.
I don't see how anyone can disagree with picks 2-5.
Where I understand the criticism:
(1) Trading Groome/Ray/Lewis for Anderson, Wentz and Muller: Anderson is not as good as Groome. Reportedly, the Braves didn't think that either (there were disagreements on whether we preferred Pint or Groome, but never that we liked Anderson over both. So, it's obvious we wanted to save enough money to get three first round quality players. Personally, I would have preferred Groome and Muller over Anderson, Wentz, and Muller, but I can see the other side of that argument.
(2) We knew the strength of this draft was high school pitching and our draft slot since last fall. Why did we seem prioritize pitching in the Simmons trade? We do need position players at some point even if you find yourself to be the most devout Snyder-ite.
(3) I'm just quite frankly not impressed with our young pitchers in the system. The scouting reports on most of them are great, but we have seen little in terms of results. Where is our Lucas Giolito? or Julio Urias? You can't win a lot of ball games with a staff and bullpen made up of quality number three starters and lineup full of scrubs. Perhaps, that's argument to keep adding more pitching, but I'm starting to question the type of pitching we are targeting in trades.
I think Senzel was a lock at 3 if the Reds had passed on him. If Trammel was there at 40, I'm not sure we'd take him after taking Senzel at 3. This wouldn't be because we wouldn't want him but more because we probably couldn't afford to sign him. If we could afford the signing then I definitely see us going with Senzel and Trammel (unless Anderson is there at 40 which he wouldn't have been).
That being said, with Senzel going second I don't think we took the BPA approach at 3. I think our plan shifted. We drafted Anderson earlier than he should have been knowing we'd sign him cheap with the hopes of grabbing a top prep bat at 40 and whoever else happened to fall to 44. We essentially decided we'd rather go BPA at 40 and 44 than go BPA at 3. I think Trammel was our preferred bat but if Keiboom or Rutherford was there at 40, I don't think we draft Wentz. This plan would have worked had one of the prep bats fallen. None did. But the flexibility from not taking BPA at 3 allowed us to go BPA at 40 and 44.
The Braves swear their draft went just as they'd planned it. Of course every team in the history of drafting has sworn their draft went just as they planned. But I really don't think it did. There's no way this front office went into this draft wanting 3 pitchers with their first 3 picks. I'm not 100% sure they take Anderson if they knew that all the prep bats would be gone at 40.
While I've made it clear at length that I think drafting Anderson was a mistake, I will applaud the front office for sticking with the BPA approach at 40 and 44 and not reaching for a bat there. I'm not sold on Wentz or Muller but they were the right choices once the board played out like it did.
Last edited by striker42; 06-13-2016 at 04:51 PM.
The FO was genuinely pumped about the way the draft shook out. You can disagree with them if you want, but they absolutely did not settle for some kind of lesser plan than they had initially.
Fans get too caught up in the idea that a FO is specifically thinking, 'We're going to get bats' or 'we're going to get arms'. Good FOs just want the best talent they can get, and the Braves' FO believes they came out very, very well.
I haven't commented very much about our draft, but I thought people were way more negative about it than they needed to be. I LOVED the quantity of quality talent. I would love loved some offense, but I think we did a really good job.
Either way, our strategy looks like it's going to come down to trading for offense. Prospects or Teheran is on the move pretty soon me thinks.
bravos4evr (06-13-2016)
Reportedly, Anderson was #1 on their board at pitcher. Whether you believe that or not, the week leading up to the draft was not the first time Anderson's name had been mentioned concerning the Braves which is a little odd since he was not projected at the #3 pick.
I never really understood the knock on Groome, but it was apparently a personality issue, and the knock on Pint was always whether his delivery would let him survive. Its possible the Braves didn't like either option all that much.
Or its possible, they just wanted to take three high ceiling arms rather than one or two. Hard to say, but that's the way it happened.
.....
I tend to agree with you that the pitching that is closest to the majors looks to be middle of the rotation down type of talent. That's probably why they were available to be traded as no team is likely to trade very advanced, #1 starter level pitching talent. Everybody needs that, it is ultimately the most important part of winning, IMO, and it is terrible expensive to acquire.
I believe the Braves are trying to build a nucleus of high level pitching talent at the bottom of the system that will hopefully produce some #1 starters in the 2020s. I have to believe they will also begin working on getting the major league team to respectability before then, but I think properly managed these are two separate goals that need to be addressed independently of each other.
I think the Braves are putting together a group of players who will start arriving in the 2020s and it should hopefully be a constant stream. I think they should aim at 2018 as their year to return to respectability and play 2017 as another rebuilding season to do things in the draft.
I'm not entirely sure that this was the best strategy to pursue, but now that they are here, I don't see much reason to speed things up. But the problem with tanking is that no one tends to have the patience for it and sometimes you tend to lose your job before you can see it through.
I feel comfortable believing that that the draft went roughly as they planned it, but I think that the Braves likely did not have specific targets in mind to float through. They were simply resolved to take the draft as it came to them knowing that they were likely to be in a position to sign three top prospects that were on their list of kids they viewed as good pickups.
There simply was no way for them to be sure that a particular player was going get through as there were too many teams playing similar games. That's why I thought the idea they were hoping Groome or some other big target fell all the way was just noise. There was no reason to expect that to happen. But the math of the draft pretty much guaranteed they would get two players they valued highly.
Maybe they would have preferred to have gotten their picks of bats, but I don't think so. I think the Braves have always targeted pitching.
The real question is whether they really felt Anderson was the best pitching prospect in the draft overall. That isn't something that anyone will ever be able to confirm one way or the other. I kind of doubt that they thought he was the most talented, but its possible they liked his makeup and projectability more than other teams and didn't like the makeup of Groome or the concerns about Pint as much as some outlets were reporting.
Basically no one out there projected the Braves' pick accurately so you have to take a grain of salt all the reporting they were doing that lead them to the exact wrong conclusions.
chop2chip (06-14-2016)
We do know they wanted Trammel at 40 but he was one of several targets picked before the Braves' second pick.
I disagree that they targeted pitching all along. I think they were surprised when all the prep bats got taken. I was surprised too. However, just because they were surprised doesn't mean they weren't ready for that eventuality.
While there was, as you say, no way for them to be sure a particular player was going to be there at 40, teams still have strategies involving groups of players. Once Senzel was taken their strategy was to go under slot at 3 and hope one of a group of prep bats fell. It was a good gamble that one of that group would fall but it just didn't happen. The backup was to take whichever talent did fall. Wentz was pretty much the no brainer at 40.
I just wonder if the Braves knew the prep bats were going to be gone if they'd still have drafted Anderson. I'm not sure they would have.
Where did we find that out?
There was a tweet posted earlier in the thread to that effect.
I went back and found McAuley's tweet that he was 'one Braves target who wasn't there at 40'. That in no way suggests we would have taken him had he been there. He was probably a target, and he should have been, he has a lot of talent. But we do not know that the Braves wanted him at 40.
Striker keeps stating his opinion as though it's something everyone knows is a fact and then using that 'fact' to show that the Braves didn't get what they wanted or messed up in some way.
Last edited by smootness; 06-14-2016 at 01:14 PM.
Anyone incapable differentiating between a poster's opinion and stated fact probably shouldn't be reading internet forums.
Your continued reminders that we don't know what they were thinking cuts both ways, right?
I've acknowledged we don't know what they were thinking. All I've said is that they probably didn't have specific players they thought they had to have and that they were thrilled with the way the draft fell for them.
Your response to a poster saying they probably weren't upset that certain players didn't fall and were prepared to just take the best talent all along was to say that we know they wanted Trammell at 40. You weren't presenting that as an opinion.
Yeah, it's just got a bit of a "we've always been at war with Eastasia" vibe to it. I mean, I take the point that there's no indication that we missed someone we had to have, but, really, under what circumstances WOULDN'T you say the section I bolded?
And hell, weren't you on the "Take everything the FO says with a grain of salt" tip?
"had to have" seems to be forcing the argument a bit.
If they had a board of "pick 1' and a list of names , "pick two" and a list of names, one could easily say any of those players were "targeted", that doesn't mean that the FO thought they "had to have" any single player.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
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