Teams passed on Sale and Archer in addition to Teheran. The contending teams made the judgment it made more sense for them to go after a lower tier of starting pitching and to improve their pens. They simply saw that as a more cost-efficient way of improving their pitching.
Sale and Archer only became "available" when the sellers' market got to insane levels. Those guys were never really going to move, and are a much more valuable than Teheran. All the pitchers that were supposed to be traded (like Matt Moore and Rich Hill) were traded, except Julio. Coppy couldn't even figure out a way to unload JJ, in the name of "finishing strong".
Teheran is on the Braves for the same reason Kemp is...to sell tickets in 2017. Anyone that thinks otherwise is naive and fooling themselves.