Which was the worst Braves draft ever?

rico43

rico43

<B>Director of Minor League Reports</B>
I am not taking a position just yet on this question, but those of you who follow the prospects have long held debates on just this thing.

I was trying to approaching it scientifically, but I ain't no scientist. The factors, obviously, are as follows:

Who was the top pick?
Where did the Braves' No. 1 pick fall on the board?
How many future big leaguers came out of the overall draft?
Were picks part of key trades before they reached the majors?
Who were the key people we failed to sign, if any?

The nominees, as I sit here in the middle of the night, are as follows:'

1981: Zero big leaguers. Jay Roberts, a football player from Washington, was their No. 1 pick (12th overall!). Mitigating factor: many more bad first-round picks followed in one of the ugliest drafts ever.
1995: Most productive Brave was one-year wonder Kevin McGlinchy. Top pick, Chad Hutchinson (26th, DNS), followed meekly by Jim Scharrer and Rob Bell (traded to Reds with Neagle for Remlinger and Boone).
2001: Had five picks in the top 73 and selected Macay McBride (24th), Josh Burris (29th), Richard Lewis (40th), J.P. Howell (52nd) and Cole Barthel (73rd). Howell DNS, Barthel never made it past Class A, Lewis schlepped in minors for 9 seasons without seeing the majors and Burris, one of the Braves worst picks ever, was a Braves farmhand for eight seasons without getting the call. McBride was dealt to Tigers for Wil Ledezma. Kyle Davies was fourth round pick.
2006: Seven picks in the top 100! That netted Braves Cody Johnson (24th). Cory Rasmus (38th), Steve Evarts (43rd), Jeff Locke (51st), Dustin Evans (68th), the immortal Chase Fontaine (72nd) and Chad Rodgers (100th). Signing all seven, that group netted the Braves zero wins and zero hits. Mitigating factor: Kris Medlen was 10th-round pick.

Which was worst? Did I miss one worse than these? I invite all manner of discussion.
 
2013. Not only do none of them look likely to be big leaguers, not a one even cracked a top 100 prospect list. None of those guys probably would have ever been in consideration for top 150-200. At least the other busts had some prospect shine for awhile.
 
By "worst" do you mean poorest choices by our scouts and management or least realized outcomes to once promising baseball careers? In other words, are you talking about logic or luck?

I think there's more luck involved than we like to admit - players getting lucky by staying healthy and finding the perfect fit with teams and/or coaches that allow them to reach their potential and teams getting lucky by choosing players who end up succeeding where so many with even more potential don't.

I'm sure teams are doing everything they can to research players as much as possible through every conceivable metric to take the luck out of the equation, but fortunately, :Bowman: luck remains.
 
Picking up on Runnin's point, are you looking for worst or most disappointing? 2001 may fit both criteria, but the first round pick of Jay Roberts is probably the all-time stinker.

Burrus is one of the reasons I worry about guys who dominate in youth baseball, especially youth baseball in hot beds like East Cobb. Some of those guys look like fundamentally sound products who are going to project higher as the fill out physically. Unfortunately, some are as physically developed as they are ever going to be. Of course, the draft is a crap shoot as rico43's exercise points out. If the Braves hadn't tabbed Burrus at 29, he likely would have been gone by pick 35. He was that highly regarded.
 
Any draft that includes Sean Gilmartin as a first-round pick has my vote as the worst ever. A short, soft-tossing lefty as a first-round pick. It's amazing that the front office never thought that would be a bad idea.
 
Oklahomabrave said:
2013. Not only do none of them look likely to be big leaguers, not a one even cracked a top 100 prospect list. None of those guys probably would have ever been in consideration for top 150-200. At least the other busts had some prospect shine for awhile.
Click to expand...

There's much that supports you, but it's still to soon to rack it as a done deal. It only takes one surprise to make a draft count for SOMETHING, and until Hursh, Janas and Stiffler are stiffs, we'll have to leave this one as incomplete. But it sure as hell is trending that way.
 
Runnin said:
By "worst" do you mean poorest choices by our scouts and management or least realized outcomes to once promising baseball careers? In other words, are you talking about logic or luck?

I think there's more luck involved than we like to admit - players getting lucky by staying healthy and finding the perfect fit with teams and/or coaches that allow them to reach their potential and teams getting lucky by choosing players who end up succeeding where so many with even more potential don't.

I'm sure teams are doing everything they can to research players as much as possible through every conceivable metric to take the luck out of the equation, but fortunately, luck remains.
Click to expand...

An injury to a top guy definitely is a factor. One reason I won't let myself call Brad Devall the worst No. 1 pick ever. A draft were the players were healthy while they sucked counts much more as a BAD draft to me.
 
CJ9 said:
Any draft that includes Sean Gilmartin as a first-round pick has my vote as the worst ever. A short, soft-tossing lefty as a first-round pick. It's amazing that the front office never thought that would be a bad idea.
Click to expand...

The only problem with your summation is Gilmartin has emerged as an effective MLB pitcher. Not to mention that Ahmed and La Stella have actually turned out to be what they projected to be in terms of a usable MLB infielders. Wouldn't be surprised if Kubitza joins them this year -- and trading a draftee in a deal that helps the MLB club counts in that draft's favor.
 
rico43 said:
The only problem with your summation is Gilmartin has emerged as an effective MLB pitcher. Not to mention that Ahmed and La Stella have actually turned out to be what they projected to be in terms of a usable MLB infielders. Wouldn't be surprised if Kubitza joins them this year -- and trading a draftee in a deal that helps the MLB club counts in that draft's favor.
Click to expand...

That's probably why I don't see the 2006--while disappointing--as being a bust like some of the other years. Locke and Rasmus are both big league players and Locke was a key guy in the acquisition of McLouth.
 
I am leaning towards 2001 as the worst, because of the timing as much as anything. This draft's utter failure played a key role in the team's regression after the playoff streak ended. It is all the more surprising when you consider that Roy Clark and Dayton Moore were in charge of scouting that year.
The '81 draft was wretched, but a lot of things in the 80s sucked for the Braves. In that vein, I began (and abandoned) a project last year that indicated why the Braves collapsed in the 70s -- six of their firsrt seven No. 1 picks failed to reach the big leagues as a Brave.
 
rico43 said:
I am leaning towards 2001 as the worst, because of the timing as much as anything. This draft's utter failure played a key role in the team's regression after the playoff streak ended. It is all the more surprising when you consider that Roy Clark and Dayton Moore were in charge of scouting that year.
The '81 draft was wretched, but a lot of things in the 80s sucked for the Braves. In that vein, I began (and abandoned) a project last year that indicated why the Braves collapsed in the 70s -- six of their firsrt seven No. 1 picks failed to reach the big leagues as a Brave.
Click to expand...

I hear what you are saying but I think it's more complicated than just viewing the results of the draft, draft by draft. For instance in 2001, the Braves picked 24th and 29th in the first round taking LHP Macay McBride and SS Josh Burrus. In hindsight the better picks would have been RHP Jeremy Bonderman who was taken by the A's at 26th and then 3B David Wright taken by the Mets at 38th in the supplemental 1st or C Jeff Mathis taken by the Angels at 33 but there aren't 10-15 better players to choose from that the Braves missed on.

The Braves had a lot of draft picks and really only ended up with Kyle Davies in the 4th round as a contributor. But, if you look at the picks behind each of the Braves picks taken by other teams, there weren't a lot of hits. It just looks like a very bad overall draft.

The quality of the 2001 draft was mostly at the very, very top (and the Braves had no shot at that) and even that was extremely limited. The lower round guys are really a crapshoot where some scout gets really lucky. Geovany Soto and Dan Uggla went in the 11th round while Brooks Conrad went in the 8th....

I think you can argue that a draft like 2001 where the top end talent mostly flops actually opens doors for guys drafted lower down to develop since they are given more time before they are shuffled out for the next crop.

To me, I look for several things:
1. Is the player taken an industry reach? If most in the industry think a guy is a 3rd or 4th rounder and a team takes him in the 1st, then they better be right. Sometimes people fall in love with their own genius and do stupid things to show how smart they are. The A's moneyball draft was like that.
2. Does the team pass on players due to money concerns, taking a less talented player to save cash or stay in line with MLB direction. This is where I think the Braves have hurt themselves in staying below slot (even before there was any penalty for not staying below slot) while other teams paid for the talent they wanted without regard to any Commissioner concerns.
3. Does the team supplement their drafting with international signings? This also hurt the Braves in the 2001 time frame where the Braves stopped being as competitive in the International market place and lost some of is scouting infrastructure.
4. Is the team too married to an organizational philosophy? When in doubt take a pitcher. Concentrate on HS talent. Concentrate on Georgia talent. Concentrate on College talent. Take bats. Go best player available. Draft for need. Any of those taken to extremes can cause tunnel vision and lead to a bad pick(s).
5. Being a victim of long term success. The 2001 draft was at least partly a result of the fact that the Braves were in the middle of a long run of ML excellence. They had a lot of picks but they were all at the bottom of rounds. That reduces the margin of safety. Let's say you're picking 4th in 2001 and really, really want Mark Prior. Well, unfortunately he goes 2nd to the Cubs, but that still leaves you Gavin Floyd or Mark Teixeira (In that case you don't want to have the disaster of picking Dewon Brazelton or Josh Karp). The odds are pretty good that if you don't get the player you really want, you will still get a serviceable ML part no matter what. But, the further down in a round you go the worse the odds that not only your pick, but those others picked around you are going to be busts.

The draft is interesting because its like choosing stock. But, the top of the first round comes from the blue-chip list and then things devolve fairly quickly to choosing from the penny stock list.
 
Remember how Shanks used to loudly insist that Cody Johnson was a top-flight power prospect? Fun times.

Good thread, Rico. Should spark fun discussion.
 
I didn't want to waste bytes by putting HH's entire response in mine, but the Georgia-centric approach has always bothered me a bit. Sure, you hit with Heyward and Wainwright, but (and a lot of this depends on what terms "success" in drafting), but a lot of these Georgia kids flamed out. Of course, a lot of the kids they would have drafted from other parts of the country would have flamed out as well, but the parochialism seemed to be an easy way out of sorts.

East Cobb has a great baseball program and the Braves have mined that vein extensively over the years. East Cobb is one of the best, if not the best, youth baseball program in the country. But as I mentioned in my first post, when you are drafting kids who have played a lot of baseball and as a result are fundamentally sound, scouts can really be fooled that the fundamental soundness is going to automatically transfer into similar success as these players move to higher levels of competition. I'm not a totally tool-centric guy, but scouts ignore tools over fundamentals (especially at the high school level) at their own risk.

MFII, I think Cody Johnson was an elite power prospect until he got to a level where the guys were throwing consistently in the 90s with good control and the pitches started bending with more authority. Like so many others, his prospect status simply evaporated at that point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top