Originally Posted by
Horsehide Harry
If he ends up being really good he never gets flipped BECAUSE he is good. And if he ends up being really good, he does it on a string of horrible teams in a true rebuild. If he becomes really good, say after 3-4 years, and the rest of the team finally begins to catch up, then he's 1.not far from FA and 2. expensive (not decreasing his ability, but decreasing his bargain value) and 3. Virtually untradeable because fans won't put up with the continuation of a rebuild after the first signs appear that the rebuild is over.
In other words, in a true rebuild, which the Braves never did, 2-3 young prospects of similar projected value as Folty but much further away and therefore more of a long term risky proposition is a better value than getting one Folty. On a rebuilding club, if done right: YR1: horrible team YR2: horrible team YR3: marginally better team YR4: good competitive team YR5: competitive team. So you take a Folty and he pitches at the ML level from YR1 of the rebuild (setting aside the strong possibility that the horrible nature of the team could retard Folty's development) and he has no effective value YR1, YR2 or much in YR3 no matter what he does unless he is so good right away and the GM is ballsy enough to move what appears to be a true ACE for a true ACE return - which doesn't happen. By YR4 his value becomes important but he's becoming expensive. In YR5 he's very important but also pretty expensive AND entering his FA season.
If you take 2-3 players who are in Low A instead of AAA/taste of the majors, and those players have a similar potential as Folty, chances are not all will make it. But, if only on makes it and performs as well as Folty will perform, and arrives first time late in YR3, then when the rest of the team catches up to being good, YR5, you still have your Folty equivalent under contract for four more years. But, what if, out of the 3, then 2 become Folty productive? Say one arrives in YR3 and one in YR4, then you have a 2 Folty equivalent talents available for a while after the rest of the team becomes good enough to win.
The way you lose is if you take 3 players and none make it or some make it but the total value never combines up to be equivalent to one Folty. That's where the scouts come in. As a GM, either you trust them or you don't.