Atlanta Braves Draft Philosophy
By Fred Owens
The 2014 restructuring
In a recent podcast with Jonah Keri, John Coppolella opined that the Braves “lost their way a little bit” under Frank Wren by “going with the safe college guy” in the draft. Shortly after that draft Braves new after the Wren purge director of scouting Brian Bridges took part in a podcast with Bill Shanks ($) and made it perfectly clear that he was a disciple of Wright, Snyder and Roy Clark, who had returned to the Braves at the same time as Bridges.
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In Coppy’s first draft last year Braves he and Bridges reverted to the old Braves philosophy in a big way. Although the Braves took 16 college players in the first 25 selections, five of the first six were high school players and 19 of the first 25 picks were pitchers.
While pitching is always a shortage commodity, there are a couple of things currently in even shorter supply; power bats and third basemen. A case can be made for catchers being a shortage as well but a team can survive with a catcher who gets most of his WAR value from defense as long as they have run production and defense elsewhere.
Next: Drafts of future past