Atlanta Braves future front office choices
By Fred Owens
Jason McLeod
According to a Baseball Prospectus post last year, the first draft pick McLeod made as Scouting Director for the Boston Red Sox was Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia wasn’t a top ten pick; he wasn’t even a top 50 pick. McLeod selected him at #65, that seems to have worked out well.
The following season the Sox selected Jacoby Ellsbury (23), Clay Buchholz (42), Jed Lowrie (45), those guys were high enough that they were expected to be good. Picks like Charlie Blackmon (618). Josh Reddick (523rd in 2006) and Anthony Rizzo (206th in 2007) aren’t as easy to find.
Currently McLeod acts as Cubs’ senior vice president of scouting and player development. He came to the Cubs from San Diego where he served as AGM under Jed Hoyer. He remade the Cubs farm system growing it from a bottom third to a top five system in less than three years.
After last season the Cubs extended McLeod through 2021 but his boss, Jed Hoyer, expects him to be a GM before that. He told Mark Gonzalez he was surprised someone hadn’t already signed him.
"“We dodged a few bullets the past few years with him. I’m sort of expecting, if not now, soon. . . There’s probably not a better scouting and player development guy out there. . .he has all the skills to do . . .the (GM) job. He’s got a great way about . . . manages people very easily . . They love working for him. . . we probably know it’s somewhat inevitable that at some point he’s going to get an opportunity, which is great.”"
Mike Elias
According to the Astros bio page, Elias is a Yale graduate who started his front office career as an area scout for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2007. The Cardinals liked his work and made him Manager of Amateur Scouting in 2010
He came to Houston in 2012 as Special Assistant to the GM-Scouting advocated strongly for the selection of Carlos Correa 1-1 that year. Under his guidance the Astros selected 10 players made their debut, including Correa, Lance McCullers, Alex Bregman and Preston Tucker.
That work led to his promotion to AGM in August of last year.2016. He’s currently in charge of amateur scouting Astros and leads their player development department.
J.J. Picolo
I’ve mentioned Picolo before, he’s Dayton Moore’s right hand man and a respected AGM throughout the game. He’s a former Braves front office guy having joined the team in 1999 as the Assistant Director of Player Development. In November 2005 the Braves promoted him to Director of Minor League Operations.
A year later he followed Moore to Kansas City as Director of Player Development earning promotion to AGM Scouting & Player Development in 2008 and Vice President/Assistant General Manager-Player Personnel in 2015.
Picolo led the 2008 draft and signing on Eric Hosmer, Mike Montgomery. He had success in 2009 as well, signing of Wil Myers, Aaron Crow and current Braves outfielder Lane Adams. The draft over the next three years wasn’t as successful. The bounced back in 2013, signing Hunter Dozier and Sean Manea and 2014 saw Brandon Finnegan sign and appear in the World Series.
That’s a Wrap
These options offer a younger, fresher face and a new outlook for the team. I put them in order of fitting my stated preferences for moving the team forward.
Next: Don't blame me I didn't choose it
There are surely others out there that fit the mold. I hope today’s Tweet by Mark Bowman that Braves are looking for a president of baseball ops is correct. I feel that and a new GM from the outside is the way forward.
Of course, no one asks me.