Klaw rates us the number 2 farm system...I think he's high

GovClintonTyree said:
"Reign of error." Looks like somebody eagerly lapped up the Three Johns' narrative. Didn't have to read it to Law twice.

We weren't that bad then (especially figuring graduates to ATL, which is kind of the point) and aren't this good now.

And as somebody who generally values ML production over Minors potential, I'll just remind everyone that "Potential just means you ain't done ****, yet."
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A couple of things:

First, why would Law be basing that comment on anything the current FO has said? He's basing that on the overall philosophy the organization had under Wren, which was to go after lower-ceiling college guys in the draft and place an emphasis on the amount of players graduating players to the majors (like Gosselin, Terdoslavich, La Stella, etc.) over their actual impact once they get there. Law loves ceiling over readiness, so obviously he was always going to question Wren's strategy.

Second, this is a ranking of farm systems. None of these guys have done **** yet. He's ranking these systems based solely on their potential; so why would you take that beef with him?

Our system was loaded in 2009-2010, and then we graduated those guys to the majors...Heyward, Freeman, Teheran, Kimbrel, Minor, etc. That was great, no question. And after graduating guys like that who are that young, you can have a couple years that are leaner. But you can't have as many as we had. Since that group came up, we basically produced Simmons and Wood and that's it in terms of guys with a real future. And our system after last year was in terrible shape. It just was. Right now we would have Albies, Davidson, Peraza, and pretty much nothing else outside of Sims, who has struggled mightily this year. That would be an awful system.
 
smootness said:
A couple of things:

First, why would Law be basing that comment on anything the current FO has said? He's basing that on the overall philosophy the organization had under Wren, which was to go after lower-ceiling college guys in the draft and place an emphasis on the amount of players graduating players to the majors (like Gosselin, Terdoslavich, La Stella, etc.) over their actual impact once they get there. Law loves ceiling over readiness, so obviously he was always going to question Wren's strategy.

Second, this is a ranking of farm systems. None of these guys have done **** yet. He's ranking these systems based solely on their potential; so why would you take that beef with him?

Our system was loaded in 2009-2010, and then we graduated those guys to the majors...Heyward, Freeman, Teheran, Kimbrel, Minor, etc. That was great, no question. And after graduating guys like that who are that young, you can have a couple years that are leaner. But you can't have as many as we had. Since that group came up, we basically produced Simmons and Wood and that's it in terms of guys with a real future. And our system after last year was in terrible shape. It just was. Right now we would have Albies, Davidson, Peraza, and pretty much nothing else outside of Sims, who has struggled mightily this year. That would be an awful system.
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You could just as easily say the farm was lean because a half dozen players who could have used more development were promoted early and had to grow up on the job. So the lack of money to keep our players or sign suitable free agents resulted in us having to play a different game than say, the Cardinals, who can go out and get a Matt Holliday or Jhonny Peralta when they need to fill. And I think that's the way I look at it.

The other thing is, I challenge you to find an organization with more promising young pitchers wiped out due to injury (Hanson, Jurrjens, Minor, Beachy, Medlen, and on). That has been absolutely crippling as far as limiting Wren's capital with which to deal - and having to fill holes that should have been filled for years. I suppose one could argue that philosophically, there's something wrong with the way the Braves handle pitchers and hang that on Frank, but that would be a stretch.

Given the foregoing, I do not ascribe to the popular Three Johns opinion that Wren looked for low upside signability. Rather, I think he did a very good job, drafted well, made a ton of shrewd trades, and was thin at the end because of the two reasons above - a lack of money to do things at the major league level, creating early graduations - and some of the worst luck imaginable in terms of dynamite young pitchers getting injured.

Cutting the other way is that he was a dick and that whenever he did have a pocket full of money he misspent it. But it wasn't his handling of the farm system that did him in.
 
I don't care who 'said' Wren looked for low upside signability. In fact, I've never heard anyone in the FO suggest this. When people talk about the 'Three Johns opinion,' they're talking about the rumors of Wren being a dick after he was fired...an opinion you actually seem to agree with.

Wren's philosophy of low-upside, high-floor guys is not something I need someone to tell me...I saw that was clearly his philosophy. I saw it as far back as 2011-2012, and it concerned me then. Once we won 79 games with a farm system seriously lacking, it was time to make drastic moves. I believe Wren thought he had his young core (Heyward, Freeman, Teheran) and so he went after solid pieces who could move quickly to fill in the gaps. He based his drafting philosophy on what we needed at the major league level, which is a severe mistake, and we saw why.

Wren did not draft well. Give me a list of what we produced from the draft since 2007, and I'll show you why our future was no longer bright.

He did make good trades, and did a good job of finding diamonds in the rough. We have had some bad luck on pitcher injuries, but pitchers get injured...and hardly any of the pitchers you listed were truly top-end talents. The farm system was lean in 2011 and 2012 because of graduations, but you can no longer use that excuse in 2015. If anything, a lower market team has to go after more high upside guys precisely because we can't sign those guys. A farm system full of Phil Gosselins and Tommy La Stella's for a team without a huge budget is a huge problem.
 
smootness said:
I don't care who 'said' Wren looked for low upside signability. In fact, I've never heard anyone in the FO suggest this. When people talk about the 'Three Johns opinion,' they're talking about the rumors of Wren being a dick after he was fired...an opinion you actually seem to agree with.

Wren's philosophy of low-upside, high-floor guys is not something I need someone to tell me...I saw that was clearly his philosophy. I saw it as far back as 2011-2012, and it concerned me then. Once we won 79 games with a farm system seriously lacking, it was time to make drastic moves. I believe Wren thought he had his young core (Heyward, Freeman, Teheran) and so he went after solid pieces who could move quickly to fill in the gaps. He based his drafting philosophy on what we needed at the major league level, which is a severe mistake, and we saw why.

Wren did not draft well. Give me a list of what we produced from the draft since 2007, and I'll show you why our future was no longer bright.

He did make good trades, and did a good job of finding diamonds in the rough. We have had some bad luck on pitcher injuries, but pitchers get injured...and hardly any of the pitchers you listed were truly top-end talents. The farm system was lean in 2011 and 2012 because of graduations, but you can no longer use that excuse in 2015. If anything, a lower market team has to go after more high upside guys precisely because we can't sign those guys. A farm system full of Phil Gosselins and Tommy La Stella's for a team without a huge budget is a huge problem.
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Yup, that success that we enjoyed for much of the Wren tenure had more to do with what was in place as opposed to what he brought in. Now of course there were a bunch of pieces that Wren accumulated which were impressive. The EOF acquisition was brilliant. Same goes for Soriano. Justin Upton was of course a good get but I think it has more to do with whats in the water in Arizona because while it was a different management group they just gave us a top pitching prospect for cash.

Believe what you want but the scouts within the organization were not feeling as if there input was valued anymore. Just because something was working in that past does not mean its guaranteed to work in the future. THe organization was going down a shaky road and it was the right time to make a change. I've said it countless times but the fact that Clark was essentially waiting outside in the parking lot for the Wren's cars to leave was very telling.
 
2 is pretty high but Chi is graduating Schwarber and some others.

Min brought up Sanu and Baxton.

I dont think its that crazy but i dont know who every other team has .
 
GovClintonTyree said:
You could just as easily say the farm was lean because a half dozen players who could have used more development were promoted early and had to grow up on the job. So the lack of money to keep our players or sign suitable free agents resulted in us having to play a different game than say, the Cardinals, who can go out and get a Matt Holliday or Jhonny Peralta when they need to fill. And I think that's the way I look at it.

The other thing is, I challenge you to find an organization with more promising young pitchers wiped out due to injury (Hanson, Jurrjens, Minor, Beachy, Medlen, and on). That has been absolutely crippling as far as limiting Wren's capital with which to deal - and having to fill holes that should have been filled for years. I suppose one could argue that philosophically, there's something wrong with the way the Braves handle pitchers and hang that on Frank, but that would be a stretch.

Given the foregoing, I do not ascribe to the popular Three Johns opinion that Wren looked for low upside signability. Rather, I think he did a very good job, drafted well, made a ton of shrewd trades, and was thin at the end because of the two reasons above - a lack of money to do things at the major league level, creating early graduations - and some of the worst luck imaginable in terms of dynamite young pitchers getting injured.

Cutting the other way is that he was a dick and that whenever he did have a pocket full of money he misspent it. But it wasn't his handling of the farm system that did him in.
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But Wren's misguided spending helped create the lack of resources at the major league level that limited his flexibility. Wren did some good things and he did some bad things, but if you have tight pursestrings, you can't make decisions like the ones he made with Melvin.

To the original point of the post, we are probably a top five system now, but I doubt we're in the top two, but like smootness said, this is the conjecture Olympics.
 
smootness said:
Right now we would have Albies, Davidson, Peraza, and pretty much nothing else outside of Sims, who has struggled mightily this year. That would be an awful system.
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I would add Williams Perez, Janas, Daniel Castro, Povse, Lien, Dykstra, Parsons, and Camargo as holdovers of note. Plus the ancien regime did sign some of the young players currently on the GCL team--Mejia, Yepez, Acuna, Salazar, and Rangel. We can only speculate how the ancien regime would have conducted the draft, but having a relatively early pick and second first round pick would not have hurt. So I think the farm system right now would not be in bad shape if we had opted to not to punt in 2015. Not punting would presumably also have netted us two more picks in the 2016 draft.
 
nsacpi said:
I would add Williams Perez, Janas, Daniel Castro, Povse, Lien, Dyskra, Parsons, and Camargo as holdovers of note. Plus the ancien regime did sign some of the young players currently on the GCL team--Mejia, Yepez, Acuna, Salazar, and Rangel. We can only speculate how the ancien regime would have conducted the draft, but having a relatively early pick and second first round pick would not have hurt. So I think the farm system right now would not be in bad shape if we had opted to not to punt in 2015. Not punting would presumably also have netted us two more picks in the 2016 draft.
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Which would be a net negative in terms of the talent brought back in from punting those two players.
 
thethe said:
Which would be a net negative in terms of the talent brought back in from punting those two players.
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I would hope that if you punt the net for future years is a positive. And I would think that any assessment of the decision to punt would include an accounting of what is forgone.
 
50PoundHead said:
But Wren's misguided spending helped create the lack of resources at the major league level that limited his flexibility. Wren did some good things and he did some bad things, but if you have tight pursestrings, you can't make decisions like the ones he made with Melvin.

To the original point of the post, we are probably a top five system now, but I doubt we're in the top two, but like smootness said, this is the conjecture Olympics.
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Yes, I agree that his big tag spending was poor. I just don't buy the barren system and low upside pick argument.

By definition, the upside of a college player is more defined than that of a 17 year old. So Wren preferred college arms that were closer to ML ready than a 97-throwing lottery ticket far more likely to flame out than to be bigger and better than the more known commodity.

Exhibit A for this signability argument is Minor, of course. And that was based on a fallacy perpetrated by Keith Law when HE was wrong - that Minor magically picked up three mph once he signed. Nonsense. A lot of the scouting on him was done at the SEC tournament, and his speed was down based on overuse. The Braves knew he could touch 94 because they'd scouted him more and with proper rest. Look at the 12 K game he threw at the Cubs in August of his first half year and tell me he was low ceiling.

We hit on Minor. Keith Law ****ed up, like Wren ****ed up signing Melvin. Then like every other damn pitcher we've developed, he got hurt.
 
nsacpi said:
I would hope that if you punt the net for future years is a positive. And I would think that any assessment of the decision to punt would include an accounting of what is forgone.
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Yeah, you'd have to be a major dumbass to trade away most of your valuable veteran roster and come out with a farm in worse shape than when they started. Let's face it- you'd be Ruben Amaro.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Yes, I agree that his big tag spending was poor. I just don't buy the barren system and low upside pick argument.

By definition, the upside of a college player is more defined than that of a 17 year old. So Wren preferred college arms that were closer to ML ready than a 97-throwing lottery ticket far more likely to flame out than to be bigger and better than the more known commodity.

Exhibit A for this signability argument is Minor, of course. And that was based on a fallacy perpetrated by Keith Law when HE was wrong - that Minor magically picked up three mph once he signed. Nonsense. A lot of the scouting on him was done at the SEC tournament, and his speed was down based on overuse. The Braves knew he could touch 94 because they'd scouted him more and with proper rest. Look at the 12 K game he threw at the Cubs in August of his first half year and tell me he was low ceiling.

We hit on Minor. Keith Law ****ed up, like Wren ****ed up signing Melvin. Then like every other damn pitcher we've developed, he got hurt.
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Minor was also drafted by Roy Clark.

I also think we need to realize that pitchers getting arm injuries isn't something that is just associated with the Braves. This is an epidemic across the sport, and it is directly related to these players having too much competitive pitching at a young age.
 
Just 'cause somebody (smootness, I guess) asked, and since it's a general topic of conversation, here are our notable draftees since 2007:

Jason Heyward
Freddie Freeman
Brandon Hicks
Cory Gearrin
Brandon Belt*
Zeke Spruill
Craig Kimbrel
Bret Oberholzer
JJ Hoover
Billy Burns*
Anthony Rendon*
Mike Minor
David Hale
Andrelton Simmons
Todd Cunningham
Phil Gosselin
Joey Terdoslavich
Chasen Shreve
Sean Gilmartin
Brandon Drury
Evan Gattis
TLS
Cody Martin
Nick Ahmed
Kyle Kubitza
JR Graham
Alex Wood
Shae Simmons
Brax Davidson
Fulenchek
Povse

* are guys who didn't sign, obviously.
 
Julio3000 said:
Just 'cause somebody (smootness, I guess) asked, and since it's a general topic of conversation, here are our notable draftees since 2007:

Jason Heyward
Freddie Freeman
Brandon Hicks
Cory Gearrin
Brandon Belt*
Zeke Spruill
Craig Kimbrel
Bret Oberholzer
JJ Hoover
Billy Burns*
Anthony Rendon*
Mike Minor
David Hale
Andrelton Simmons
Todd Cunningham
Phil Gosselin
Joey Terdoslavich
Chasen Shreve
Sean Gilmartin
Brandon Drury
Evan Gattis
TLS
Cody Martin
Nick Ahmed
Kyle Kubitza
JR Graham
Alex Wood
Shae Simmons
Brax Davidson
Fulenchek
Povse

* are guys who didn't sign, obviously.
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I think the more appropriate list is the one since Roy Clark was forced out of the organization.
 
thethe said:
I think the more appropriate list is the one since Roy Clark was forced out of the organization.
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That would include the following

Andrelton Simmons
Todd Cunningham
Phil Gosselin
Joey Terdoslavich
Chasen Shreve
Sean Gilmartin
Brandon Drury
Evan Gattis
TLS
Cody Martin
Nick Ahmed
Kyle Kubitza
JR Graham
Alex Wood
Shae Simmons
Brax Davidson
Fulenchek
Povse
Sims
Lien
Cornely
Schlosser
Parsons
David Peterson
Kyle Wren
Salazar
Janas
Marksberry
Gamez
Godfrey
Kinman
Sobotka
Diaz
Hursh
Lipka

That's the list that has made the majors and still imo has a chance to make it. For the high school players taken last year (Davidson, Fulenchek, Dykstra, Gamez) it is obviously still early to determine how much impact they will ultimately have. It is also worth keeping in mind that we never had a high pick in the 2010-2014 period.
 
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