How do the Braves find bats for 2017 and beyond?

Boys, we ain't signin' starting pitchers. Doesn't matter how good an idea we think it is. Price, Kazmir...whatever.

We think we can build a home grown staff with our scouting and development and trade extras for hitting.

If 473 draft picks 98.3% spent on pitching doesn't tell you something, I don't know what will.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Boys, we ain't signin' starting pitchers. Doesn't matter how good an idea we think it is. Price, Kazmir...whatever.

We think we can build a home grown staff with our scouting and development and trade extras for hitting.

If 473 draft picks 98.3% spent on pitching doesn't tell you something, I don't know what will.
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Well then I guess I can look forward to a couple more seasons of playing for top 10 picks until 2018 rolls around.

If our current FO isn't capable of changing with the times and learning from their mistakes in the past we don't have much of a future with them in charge anyway I suppose.
 
Cormier's Spring said:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/1...ing-plan-throwback-past?ex_cid=espnapi_public

Here's the quote from Coppy: "We see Max Scherzer getting $210 million on the free-agent market," Coppolella said. "We believe free-agent pitching is one of the most inefficient uses of money, and we know how volatile pitching is in every sense of the word, so our goal was to load up on a quantity of quality and try to build our organization for long-lasting success. Nobody knows whether all of these pitchers will have major league success, or even if they will stay healthy, but we do know that they offered us the most upside of any other potential acquisitions."
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I take it he means people aren't readily offering equal position prospects from that last part? I talked about this earlier in another thread probably being why we always got pitching back in trades.
 
Tapate50 said:
I take it he means people aren't readily offering equal position prospects from that last part? I talked about this earlier in another thread probably being why we always got pitching back in trades.
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Yeah, that's how I read it as well. And the trades made over the past year and a half pretty much confirm that situation. Peraza was actually probably the most highly ranked hitter moved this past deadline, and only two of the other trades besides ours really moved any hitters of consequence at all. The Astros traded Phillips and Santana to the Brewers for Gomez, but only Phillips is even close to a top 100 prospect. The Phils got both Alfaro (top 40ish) and Nick Williams (just outside the top 100) from the Rangers.

Outside of that pretty much all the major trades involved pitching prospects. Hitting prospects are basically gold right now.
 
Tapate50 said:
I take it he means people aren't readily offering equal position prospects from that last part? I talked about this earlier in another thread probably being why we always got pitching back in trades.
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I imagine so. Taking it a step further, when we do go out buying bats and have to overpay, it will likely take the form of sending more pitching the other way. But we'll be well-situated to win those deals.

So I suppose I'll buy into the theory advanced by a lot of you guys that we stockpiled pitching at a time that values hitting more.

But I'll also counter with two things - 1: Pitching is what we know and what we do. You are nearly always better off investing in what you know; and 2: This is subject to change. Tighten up the strike zone, lower the seams on the baseball, wind them tighter...suddenly the hitters have the upper hand and the pitchers are in demand. Then we're holding the higher cards. It'll even out.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
But I'll also counter with two things - 1: Pitching is what we know and what we do. You are nearly always better off investing in what you know;
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Is it now? Pray tell, give me examples of all this success we've had picking pitchers in the early rounds over the past couple of decades. I can count on one hand the number of pitchers we have drafted in the first 2 rounds over the past 20 years who have been any sort of success as a starting pitcher. If pitching is "what we know and what we do" then we seem to not know a heck of a lot.
 
auyushu said:
Well then I guess I can look forward to a couple more seasons of playing for top 10 picks until 2018 rolls around.

If our current FO isn't capable of changing with the times and learning from their mistakes in the past we don't have much of a future with them in charge anyway I suppose.
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I don't think so, auyushu. I think this is just the strategy they've chosen and the currency we've stocked.

We've got about nine potential starters for next year, and a lot of good bullpen arms coming back online (Simmons, Rodriguez and Withrow).

If we peel off two and a nice lower level prospect for a power OF and sign a quality hitting catcher and Olivera is what they think he is, we've got a nice-looking, deep, diverse ballclub. That's not farfetched. We could get there sooner than you think.
 
auyushu said:
Is it now? Pray tell, give me examples of all this success we've had picking pitchers in the early rounds over the past couple of decades. I can count on one hand the number of pitchers we have drafted in the first 2 rounds over the past 20 years who have been any sort of success as a starting pitcher. If pitching is "what we know and what we do" then we seem to not know a heck of a lot.
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I guess I could cull through them all and answer the question, but I'll leave that to you. We've developed a lot of pitching over the years. Unfortunately, we've had some terrible luck (Hanson, Jurrjens, Beachy, Medlen) with a lot of them. I think we're good at pitching. If you feel differently, that's okay.

I don't think we're going to be lost in the Black Forest for half a decade because we stocked pitching. Now it's time to convert some to hitting. I think one of the Johns called the Olivera trade the first step in that process.

They're being pretty transparent about the general framework of their strategy.
 
Not signing a Kazmir to Ace type of pitcher would be stupid and show A LOT of faith in our young arms that aren't event relatively proven aside from

Teheran and Miller.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
Not signing a Kazmir to Ace type of pitcher would be stupid and show A LOT of faith in our young arms that aren't event relatively proven aside from
Teheran and Miller.
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Yes, now that we've started down this road, it's going to require patience, nerve and faith to stay the course and not spend money on starting pitching.

I think the stupid move would be to have acquired 20-some young pitchers in trades over the last nine months and then go out and spend what money you have on more pitching.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
If we peel off two and a nice lower level prospect for a power OF and sign a quality hitting catcher and Olivera is what they think he is, we've got a nice-looking, deep, diverse ballclub. That's not farfetched. We could get there sooner than you think.
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Actually, that's pretty farfetched. There isn't a quality hitting catcher to sign, and the only power OF we are going to get for two of our pitching prospects and a lower level prospect is a hitter who has 2 years or less of control left (which would be an extremely bad move for our future long term). You act like these pitchers have gained value since we acquired them, when if anything, they are worth less. And even if we did what you just said we'd be far from a nice-looking diverse ballclub. We are currently one of the worst pitching and worst hitting clubs in MLB, and are going to be close to 20 games under .500 by the time the season ends.

That's not something a player or two fixes on the pitching and hitting side. And if the FO trades Julio like the rumors have been making it seem, then our starting pitching will likely be among the worst in baseball next year without FA additions.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
I guess I could cull through them all and answer the question, but I'll leave that to you. We've developed a lot of pitching over the years. Unfortunately, we've had some terrible luck (Hanson, Jurrjens, Beachy, Medlen) with a lot of them. I think we're good at pitching. If you feel differently, that's okay.
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And not a single pitcher you mentioned was drafted in the first 9 rounds of the draft, and Jair wasn't developed by the Braves at all, he went straight from the Tigers minors to our ML team. Which is my point, we go mostly pitching in the early rounds and have very little success doing so. We have Marquis, Minor, Wainwright, Locke and Harrison that have managed to stick at all from the first 4-5 rounds over the past 20 years. So we have 4-5 4th or 5th starters types and one Ace (for another team) to show for all our heavy pitching centric drafting. So the strategy you are championing has been largely a failure in the grand scheme of things.
 
Guys, we clearly don't have to do too much digging to find our offense for 2017 and beyond. We already have future superstars everywhere in the system.

C- Bethancourt

1B- Freeman

2B- Albies

SS- Simmons

3B- Riley

LF- Olivera

CF- Mallex

RF- Davidson

That right there is a fool-proof title contender. I see no way that we don't win at least 5 titles with that core.
 
But, but, but, BUT

Pitching!

The thing is, the whole Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz era has put an unreasonable aura over the franchise where pitching is the be all end all. Just a reminder though....even then Maddux was a FA, Smoltz was a trade acquisition and Glavine was a 2nd round pick.

If anything, the Braves have been better with early round picks of hitters with Chipper, Heyward and Freeman being a few.

Bottom line is that the Braves need bats and don't have them and aren't getting them UNLESS they get really creative.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
But, but, but, BUT

Pitching!

The thing is, the whole Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz era has put an unreasonable aura over the franchise where pitching is the be all end all. Just a reminder though....even then Maddux was a FA, Smoltz was a trade acquisition and Glavine was a 2nd round pick.

If anything, the Braves have been better with early round picks of hitters with Chipper, Heyward and Freeman being a few.

Bottom line is that the Braves need bats and don't have them and aren't getting them UNLESS they get really creative.
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I think even the detractors from this rebuild would admit they have been very creative in this process so far
 
Tapate50 said:
I think even the detractors from this rebuild would admit they have been very creative in this process so far
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Creative is definitely what comes to mind, and I don't mean that as a negative. It's interesting, if nothing else, and it makes you curious what direction the next move is coming from. Hart could trade Freeman or trade FOR Trout. That's how it feels.
 
Dalyn said:
Creative is definitely what comes to mind, and I don't mean that as a negative. It's interesting, if nothing else, and it makes you curious what direction the next move is coming from. Hart could trade Freeman or trade FOR Trout. That's how it feels.
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Yep, exactly.

This team has a **** ton of money and apparently won't be spending it on FA bats or pitchers (if you chose to read the company line) ... so, the next 6-8 months are going to be extremely interesting and entirely unpredictable.
 
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