It was a long time ago, but once upon a time they had very early picks in consecutive years and my recollection is they chose three hitters: Tyler Houston, Chipper Jones, Mike Kelly.
Jones was a HOF.
Houston had a long MLB career. (at least parts of 8 years) but he was taken early as a catcher which is very risky. Only 5-10 1st round picks that year had better careers with the true misses being Frank Thomas (7), Mo Vaughn (23), Chuck Knoblach (25), Charles Johnson (10), with Ben McDonald (1) the only pitcher with a clearly better career. 1st round of this draft was a true wasteland of pitchers.
Kelly was a bust although he did get in parts of 6 seasons. He was taken second in what was a forgettable draft behind Brien Taylor and ahead of Dave McCarty, Dimitri Young, Ken Henderson, Johns Burke, etc. You have to go down to 13th Manny Ramirez, 14th Cliff Floyd, and 16th Shawn Green to get into memorable players unless you want to call the Meathook memorable (certainly more memorable than Kelly).
One HOF, one useful major leaguer and one bust in three years.
The four seasons previous to the CJ draft had the Braves taking Greene, Merker, Lilliquist and Avery. Not bad by any means and none taken as high as the hitters but all had significant injury problems, with Greene being given away essentially, Merker bouncing between starting and LR throughout his very useful career, Lilliquist busting and Avery flaming out quickly after a very strong ML start.
The idea that the Braves are some iconic pitching organization, especially when it comes to drafting and development of what the industry thinks is top end first round starters, is pretty much a myth. Now, the Braves have likely been as successful or maybe more so than most others in finding good value with starting pitching in rounds 2-30 which I would attribute to the Braves willingness for years to draft HS arms based on projection - examples being Glavine, Millwood, Schmidt, Wohlers, Wade (FA), Woodall (College), Stanton (CC) etc.
The Braves pitching reputation was largely built on the backs of Glavine (2), Smoltz (trade), Maddux (FA) and to a certain extent Avery (1), Neagle (Trade), Millwood (11).
Now, I am not saying that I am not excited about Allard. I am but mainly because of his status as HS and his projection.
Bottom line, I worry that the front office has bought into the myth and whenever possible defaults to pitching. I would like to see them at least look at the bats available come next June.