I would say Coppy has been the beneficiary of some luck, high draft picks, and good assets to trade. I'd give him a C+.
When you trade Heyward, Upton, Simmons, Gattis, Kimbrel, Wood, Peraza - all of whom's value was good at the time of the deal - you better stock up the system quickly.
I disagree with much of the strategy - using those assets on acquiring high risk pitchers.
I disagree with the Markakis signing - which basically just replaced the dead money of BJ
Also - if you look, 4 of our top 6 prospects were due to Wren (Albies and Acuna) or High draft/international signing (Anderson and Matian).
Looking at the trades... there were two beauties:
1. The Heyward deal - which wasn't a beauty at the time but it sure turned into one with the Miller trade
2. The Gattis deal - getting Folty & Ruiz for Gattis was tremendous value
There were some solid deals:
1. The Upton trade gave us some good assets that was worth the gamble
2. The Gohara trade - this one can still bite us but probably worth the gamble
3. The Touki deal was an interesting gamble... Paying $10M for a high risk prospect is an intriguing bet... but I would have much rather maximized value from Kimbrel if that was indeed the either/or scenario
Then - there were some really bad ones.
1. The Simmons trade was extremely questionable at the time and has resulted in a bad move
2. The Kimbrel trade was questionable at the time and has resulted in a bad move
3. The Olivera trade was baffling at the time and has resulted in a horrendous move, compounded by us now being forced to pay Kemp for another 3 years big money
To me - the bad would have whalloped the good if not for the Swanson deal - which actually saved this rebuild from being a disaster. He gets a C+ from me due to the international investing.