2025-2026 offseason thread

Metaphysicist said:
For comparison:

DET: 6 (Verlander, Skubal, Thompson, Moehler, Porcello, Jeff Weaver)

CHW: 5 (Buerhle, Sale, A. Fernandez, Rodon, Sirotka)
COL: 5 (Freeland, Cook, J. Gray, Jennings, Francis)
OAK: 5 (Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Harden, S. Gray)

HOU: 4 (Oswalt, Keuchel, W. Miller, McCullers)
MIL: 4 (Sheets, Woodruff, Gallardo, Burnes)
SF: 4 (Bumgarner, Cain, Linceum, Webb)
TB: 4 (Price, Shields, Snell, Cobb)

BAL: 3 (Mussina, Bedard, Means)
KC: 3 (Greinke, Duffy, Rosado)
LAA: 3 (Jered Weaver, Lackey, Washburn)
LAD: 3 (Kershaw, Billingsley, Buehler)
MIA: 3 (Josh Johnson, Beckett, Jose Fernandez)
MIN: 3 (Radke, Baker, Berrios)
PHI: 3 (Hamels, Nola, Wolf)
PIT: 3 (Skenes, Maholm, Cole)
STL: 3 (Morris, Lynn, Flaherty)
TOR: 3 (Halladay, Stroman, Ricky Romero)
WAS: 3 (Strasburg, Zimmermann, Vazquez)

BOS: 2 (Lester, Bucholz)
CHC: 2 (Wood, Prior)
CIN: 2 (Greene, Abbott)
CLE: 2 (Sabathia, Bieber)
NYM: 2 (DeGrom, Harvey)
SD: 2 (Peavy, Joey Hamilton)
SEA: 2 (Gilbert, Paxton)
TEX: 2 (Helling, Holland)

ARI: 1 (Webb) -- Team didn't exist until 1998, so they get some slack
ATL: 1 (Millwood)
NYY: 1 (Pettite)

In conclusion, we suck at drafting a pitcher and turning him into a good, healthy Brave.
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We had quite a few flame out from injuries that had good years for us, but something doesnt seem right here. Morton got there just not all with us. Wainwright would have been another. Also a whole lot of those guys are top 10 draft picks. Some even top 5. How were we supposed to pick them.
 
Enscheff said:
I’m not doubting the accuracy, but this is mind boggling. Then I immediately remembered Julio Teheran exists, and I think some rechecking needs to happen.

Either way, the more I think about it, the more I realize the Braves top pitchers do seem to flame out just as quickly as they ascended to stardom.

Strider’s days as an impact arm are very possibly over already, and Schwelly literally just broke his elbow. I guess the Braves just can’t have nice things.
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This is why I have started to lean on the idea of trading young SP once they establish themselves. So many pitchers we could have traded for a kings ransom.
 
Not sure if starters are the only criteria. But Kimbrel should be on the list as well. He surely got over 10 just with the Braves. I know relievers don’t accumulate war like starters. But hard time believing he did not get at least 10.
 
Metaphysicist said:
Since 1990, here is the complete list of SP that the Braves have drafted and who accumulated 10 WAR (per bb-ref) as a member of the Braves:

1. Kevin Millwood

Which is to say, my expectation for any given pitching prospect is low. For a group of them, it is underground.
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Strider is at 11.2 fwar already. But the point holds, generally.
 
Metaphysicist said:
For comparison:

DET: 6 (Verlander, Skubal, Thompson, Moehler, Porcello, Jeff Weaver)

CHW: 5 (Buerhle, Sale, A. Fernandez, Rodon, Sirotka)
COL: 5 (Freeland, Cook, J. Gray, Jennings, Francis)
OAK: 5 (Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Harden, S. Gray)

HOU: 4 (Oswalt, Keuchel, W. Miller, McCullers)
MIL: 4 (Sheets, Woodruff, Gallardo, Burnes)
SF: 4 (Bumgarner, Cain, Linceum, Webb)
TB: 4 (Price, Shields, Snell, Cobb)

BAL: 3 (Mussina, Bedard, Means)
KC: 3 (Greinke, Duffy, Rosado)
LAA: 3 (Jered Weaver, Lackey, Washburn)
LAD: 3 (Kershaw, Billingsley, Buehler)
MIA: 3 (Josh Johnson, Beckett, Jose Fernandez)
MIN: 3 (Radke, Baker, Berrios)
PHI: 3 (Hamels, Nola, Wolf)
PIT: 3 (Skenes, Maholm, Cole)
STL: 3 (Morris, Lynn, Flaherty)
TOR: 3 (Halladay, Stroman, Ricky Romero)
WAS: 3 (Strasburg, Zimmermann, Vazquez)

BOS: 2 (Lester, Bucholz)
CHC: 2 (Wood, Prior)
CIN: 2 (Greene, Abbott)
CLE: 2 (Sabathia, Bieber)
NYM: 2 (DeGrom, Harvey)
SD: 2 (Peavy, Joey Hamilton)
SEA: 2 (Gilbert, Paxton)
TEX: 2 (Helling, Holland)

ARI: 1 (Webb) -- Team didn't exist until 1998, so they get some slack
ATL: 1 (Millwood)
NYY: 1 (Pettite)

In conclusion, we suck at drafting a pitcher and turning him into a good, healthy Brave.
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My theory is that this stems from us consistently picking in the back end of the first round for the majority of this time. Most of these teams have been consistently bad since 1990 and thus have consistently drafted much earlier than we have and had access to much better talent. While I haven't combed over the entire list, just scanning several of the names it would not surprise me if more than half the names on this list were 1st/2nd round picks.

Another thing I note is that most of these guys were also college pitchers. We largely avoided college players in general in the 90's and early 2000's. But especially we avoided college pitchers during this time. From 90-04 I believe we drafted 4 college SPs total within the first 5 picks of the draft. And from like 92-03, around 80% of our entire top 10 picks were HS players. 4 of those drafts we drafted only HS players with our top 9 picks in the draft. As we know, HS pitchers come with a lot more risk than college pitchers, which was even more true before advanced metrics led to better scouting.

We didn't start to really see a shift to more college SPs (and college players in general) until 2008. It is no coincidence that just happens to be the year after JS stepped down and Frank Wren took over. That is when we also shifted to more SP focused drafts in the early rounds, with 14 of our next 18 first picks being SPs, and a lot of the 2nd and 3rd rounders as well. It's also no coincidence that we've seen a significantly higher SP "success" rate during this time than we did the prior 18 years.
 
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I would say the ratio of talent to career ending injuries is the real problem there. I know everyone has pitcher injuries, but the rate the Braves have had them among pitchers is mind boggling. Wren lost his job in 2014 after the crazy stretch of injuries to Jurrjens, Hanson, Minor, Beachy, Medlen. That’s a pretty talented rotation to have to replace.
 
Yes, Teheran is an international sign and reached 10 WAR. My point was specifically about our drafting as compared to others, and I did not list any international signings for other teams either.

I give the Braves absolutely no credit for Wainwright or Morton. Wainwright tore a ligament in his elbow in the minors right after we traded him. The Cardinals and Dave Duncan brought him back and made him an ace, the exact thing the Braves always fail to do with their own injured guys. Morton had 1.3 WAR through age 33–we have no claim on the old man tricks he developed.
 
Metaphysicist said:
Yes, Teheran is an international sign and reached 10 WAR. My point was specifically about our drafting as compared to others, and I did not list any international signings for other teams either.

I give the Braves absolutely no credit for Wainwright or Morton. Wainwright tore a ligament in his elbow in the minors right after we traded him. The Cardinals and Dave Duncan brought him back and made him an ace, the exact thing the Braves always fail to do with their own injured guys. Morton had 1.3 WAR through age 33–we have no claim on the old man tricks he developed.
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If the Cards get to claim Wainwright, we get to claim Fried. Fried had all of 118 innings above Rookie ball before having TJS and then getting traded to us.
 
You kind of have to do some creative finagling with definitions and boundaries to make Meta's stat accurate -- you have to focus only on starters and ignore relievers, "drafted" means that guys like Fried who we indisputably developed don't count, you have to use bWar and not fWar, etc. But even with that in mind, the broader point still stands -- if you move the borders to be more generous to the Braves, that probably means a bunch of other teams get more guys who qualify, which leaves us in a similar place relatively speaking.

The injury plague from 2010 onward is interesting. I don't know what the causes are, beyond "pitchers be crazy." I don't know that we abused those guys like Dusty Baker abused Mark Prior in 2003, but it was a while ago. I might go back at some point and look at pitch counts in the game logs to get a sense of their usage. I'm looking at Strider's pitch counts in 2023 and there are always some stretches that are raising my eyebrows.
 
Carp said:
I was replying to your post about us getting no credit for Wainwright.
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I give the Braves plenty of credit for Fried, and for Teheran, and for smart trades like Hudson, Jurrjens, Sale, etc.

The point being made, however, is that those kinds of moves should be in addition to—not in place of—actually using the draft to find pitchers who we can develop and give us good reliable innings.

Since 1990, pitchers the braves have drafted in the first 5 rounds:

1991: 2
1992: 3
1993: 1
1994: 3
1995: 4
1996: 2
1997: 2
1998: 2
1999: 2
2000: 7
2001: 3
2002: 3
2003: 6
2004: 1
2005: 5
2006: 7
2007: 2
2008: 5
2009: 3
2010: 1
2011: 2
2012: 2
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6
2016: 6
2017: 4
2018: 3
2019: 1
2020 — We drafted Strider (and Elder!) so we will stop there.

From 1991-2020, that’s a total of 94 pitchers taken in the top rounds. The only one of those to reach 10 rWAR with us is Craig Kimbrel (Millwood was drafted in the 11th round in 1993, so all credit to that scout). There are any number of explanations of for “why,” but taken together it's just a staggering failure to draft and develop a reliable starter with our draft resources.
 
the point is very valid.. this misnomer that the Braves were some sort of pitching factory because they had 4 HOF pitchers for 75 years was laughable..

But I still think a lot of pitchers had the potential to do better but couldn't stay healthy. I think the Braves ability to keep players healthy is a bigger problem than scouting and developing. Based on Meta's own research, the number for every team is pretty small.
 
So knowing all this...why draft a pitcher at all?

Why not draft as many position players like Mac and Fenchy and Heyward and Freeman and Swanson (not drafted I know) and Harris and Riley and Baldwin, develop them like this organization seems very capable of doing, and trade the excess bats for established pitchers?

Why even bother failing with pitchers over and over?
 
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