Braves trade Mallex and Simmons to M's for Gohara and Burrows

[Enscheff]

Depends on how you define disproportionate. I agree the Braves have acquired more pitching prospects than hitting prospects, but I don't think they've focused exclusively on pitching and I don't think their focus has actually been inordinately directed at pitching.

I think its likely the market has dictated to some degree what they've acquired. I think that the Braves have been asking after high upside hitters and probably have made many attempts to acquire it, but I think it very likely they've found that they didn't have the talent to acquire one for the assets they've had to trade in a deal that they can pull the trigger on.

Except the Braves could have had Kyle Lewis instead of Ian Anderson. They could have not packaged BJ with Kimbrel and had Manny Margot. Other teams are extracting position players in these trades. Other teams are drafting position players...the Braves used their first 3 picks on pitchers.

They have outright stated they are trying to build around pitching. To deny that they are spending the majority of their talent acquisition resources on pitching is to deny facts in favor of your opinion.

I don't really think the front office is winning every deal or maximizing value every time they make a trade, but I do object to the idea that they don't understand what they are doing, don't have any sort of plan, or aren't capable of understanding basic level analysis that you can find on a website frequented by a million people who own fantasy teams. That's just not a realistic point of view.

Again with the constant bashing of sites like FG, almost as if MLB teams aren't actively hiring analysts directly from the site. They are hiring these guys because they do better work than the team was doing, not the other way around.

No baseball analyst thinks the Braves are right to be building around pitching like they are. Analysis of surplus value shows position prospects are clearly and significantly more valuable, on average, than pitching prospects.

Quite literally the only group of people who think it's a good idea to invest so heavily in pitching is the Braves, their mouthpiece beat writers, and fans suffering from a case of homerism.