Atlanta Braves Trying Hard to Beat the Math

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Mar 16, 2017; Jupiter, FL, USA; St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher John Gant (53) delivers a pitch against the Minnesota Twins during a spring training game at Roger Dean Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

Trade Philosophies

Now let’s look at trading pitchers.

The Braves are probably as keenly aware as any team about how rare a commodity Julio Teheran is. Ditto about someone of the ilk of Jose Quintana, for that matter.

If 4 out of 5 prospect pitchers ‘bust’, then pitchers like these Colombians must be at least a 1-out-of-25 occurrence.

So how do you value your own prospects – especially those at the lower levels – when trying to make offers for such a pitcher? Especially while the Braves are trying to turn the math on its ear?

The White Sox, for their part, know what they’ve got and they also expect big failure rates in any group of pitchers that might be offered up by any trade suitor.

The Braves, while operating from this new playbook, don’t yet have a track record to be able to demonstrate success, and thus they cannot claim “Pitcher X is a Can’t Miss guy”… which is what the White Sox must reasonably have in return for Quintana.

If the Braves truly believe their ideas represent a roadmap to future success, then almost anything acceptable to the White Sox for Quintana will feel like an overpay since the Braves might feel that several of their Top Tier arms ‘might’ work out.

Conversely, the Sox can’t assume that anything is a good bet, and that’s why they want only the premium cuts of beef from any other club’s farm. Certainly, their fans will hold their feet to the fire for that once Quintana is ultimately dealt.

More from Tomahawk Take

This is also why the Cardinals/Braves trade to get Jaime Garcia made sense. St. Louis had what they believed to be a surplus arm in Garcia, and were fine with getting a pair of ‘next tier’ Wild Cards back in John Gant and Chris Ellis (along with Luke Dykstra).

The Cards didn’t need to be assured of ultimate success, so they went with (a) the payroll reduction; and (b) lottery tickets. And it turns out that Gant is now probably 6th or so on their rotation depth chart now, so that works for them (1.64 Spring ERA/0.73 WHIP in 11 innings!).

Good for Gant; good for the Cardinals; and good for Atlanta.

These are examples. This is not intended to stir up debate on the rightness or wrongness of trading anyone at this point. It’s much more about the plan to beat the odds of failure that is being employed.

That said, certainly the Braves have some extra considerations to think about when they are adding up the potential that their prospect pitchers might have going for them.

But until a track record can be established that verifies and is recognized by future trading partners, then Atlanta will have to pick their spots and be cautious with using the ‘value’ they believe they have.

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Seems that might be exactly what’s going on now.

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