Coppolella Promoted to GM

[ramadon101]

So in looking at the trades and other moves the Braves have made in the past year is there a theme or analytical signature that distinguishes our front office. I'm not saying that every move has to display this signature, but broadly speaking.

Yes. Tommy John.

 

[dak]

So in looking at the trades and other moves the Braves have made in the past year is there a theme or analytical signature that distinguishes our front office. I'm not saying that every move has to display this signature, but broadly speaking.

The only theme that I can think of is that we've acquired a lot of players that have had some type of history with one or more members of our scouting department. Players w/ history in the Padres system (MacDonald), Yankees system (Blakely). This obviously lends more credence to an overall bias towards scouting.

My assumption in the post-Wren regime is that the front office operates more on a consensus basis. Hart, Coppy, and key assistants from the scouting department all have a voice in key decisions. I'm working under the assumption that Coppy is the most analytical of the deciders. He's only one voice, and perhaps not a particularly strong voice.

 

[nsacpi]

There are two somewhat related things that have stood out for me so far with respect to the new front office:

1) We did very well in the draft when it comes to HS players. First there are the early picks (Allard, Soroka, Riley, maybe Guardado) with the high upside. But we also picked three guys after the 10th round (Hellinger, Suarez and Keller) who have done well so far. I'm not saying that those guys will be stars or even major leaguers but the early results are promising considering where they were drafted. Interestingly, the ancien regime mostly shied away from HS players in the later rounds of the draft, but had a couple successes in the rare cases where they did draft them (Drury and Lien).

2) The other big change was we really concentrated our funds in the current international period and spent it all on three players (Derian Cruz, Christian Pache and Juan Morales). This represents a shift toward quality and upside rather than quantity. It remains to be seen how that works out. The old approach did have the virtue of bringing in some relatively unheralded players who blossomed. Like Martin Prado, Williams Perez, Randall Delgado, Luis Avilan. Just last year we signed one of our best prospects, Ronald Acuna, for a relatively small bonus. Ozhaino Albies signed for a smaller bonus than all three of the guys we signed this year. Would we have been able to sign players like Acuna and Albies with the approach we took this year?

Interestingly, with the trades we have generally accepted quantity rather than quality. Perhaps that was the only way to get the trades done. But there has been a big difference in the way we have acquired amateur talent (where the emphasis has been on quality and upside) compared to the trade market. Again that just may reflect the fact that we have less control when it comes to structuring trades.

 

[KB21]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/interview-john-coppolella-of-the-braves/

John Coppolella: I still think the best way to evaluate defense is through the eyes of a scout. I say that because a scout can see where the defender starts, where he finishes, what kind of break he gets, and what sort of closing speed he has. When we look at the stats, like UZR/150 or other zone ratings, or Bill James’ +/-, there’s about seven or eight different stats that all offer something. It’s about trying to find some kind of blend, some merge that you can feel good about. If you can match that up with what your scouts think, and all of that kind of gels, then you’re onto something. If it’s all jumbled up, then, probably, at least for the Braves, we are going to go with our scouts.

I think that we use stats as much, if not more, than any team in baseball. We just don’t brag about it really. We’ve come up with our own stats, where we’ve ranked offense and pitching, and we’ve used those stats in conjunction with what our scouts think in order to look at big-league free agents, six-year free agents, and guys that we might be getting in trades. It’s something we don’t talk about much, but our stats are very advanced. If other teams feel like we don’t have that, that’s fine if they want to think less of us in any way. Underestimate us, that’s fine. We feel really good about the work we do on each player and the systems that we’ve created.