It’s funny, other than Glavine, Avery, Smoltz, and Millwood, the Braves have missed on almost every legit pitching prospect in the last 30+ years, while we’ve had an amazing hit rate on position players. This isn’t a new development. I always wondered why the previous regime didn’t seem to grasp how flawed a philosophy rebuilding around young pitching is, when they saw proof of it first hand from 1990-2014.
It’s funny, other than Glavine, Avery, Smoltz, and Millwood, the Braves have missed on almost every legit pitching prospect in the last 30+ years, while we’ve had an amazing hit rate on position players. This isn’t a new development. I always wondered why the previous regime didn’t seem to grasp how flawed a philosophy rebuilding around young pitching is, when they saw proof of it first hand from 1990-2014.
This sort of thing is actually cited as a reason to focus on pitching -- most of your pitching prospects are going to fail, so you need to acquire a whole heaping helping of them to account for the failure rate.
It's kind of like a decision tree where literally any set of facts or circumstances lead you to the inevitable conclusion "focus on pitching."
Except that it’s more efficient to focus on position players and their relatively low bust rate, and then trade surplus for proven starting pitching that’s less of a variable than young starting pitching. You still need to develop your own pitching to keep your window open, but if you’re good enough that will happen on its own.
3 of the current 5 starters were home grown. 5.7 fWAR combined. I expect soroka to be another one soon
Actually, all of our current starters were home grown. Fried is the only one who wasn't drafted by us, but he spent the vast majority of his development in our system.
Why not? He reached the majors with us?
Except we just won a WS title and still have a nice window open, so I am not unhappy about how we did anything.
Me neither. But that’s because we had a unprecedented hit rate on position players and were able to procure a generational talent.
He became a different animal after leaving us. I agree with State, we can't take credit for Morty.
Except that it’s more efficient to focus on position players and their relatively low bust rate, and then trade surplus for proven starting pitching that’s less of a variable than young starting pitching. You still need to develop your own pitching to keep your window open, but if you’re good enough that will happen on its own.
Medlen would have been great if not for multiple TJ's.
Probably the saddest story of that 2010 to 2014 squad.
Medlen would have been great if not for multiple TJ's.
Probably the saddest story of that 2010 to 2014 squad.
I think Hanson is the saddest story of that group of players.
Take his tragic death aside (RIP) he was the guy we all thought was going to be a top 5-10 pitcher in baseball. It was so tough to watch him pitch in his second year onward.