Atlanta Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos’ draft selections will be the best available player. His trades based on team needs. Deciding who is best and when to trade is the trick .
Alan started the draft conversation with a review of Jay’s drafts under Anthopoulos. When looking at those as an indicator of the future, context is important.
While teams don’t draft for current needs, those needs – overall current and future – do influence selections; more perhaps than they realize.
Until Mr. Spock gets a job as GM, decisions will be as subjective (maybe more subjective) as objective. We saw this when the Braves took Mike Soroka in the first round of the 2015 draft. Logically their subjectivity skews towards how much the need for a skill is on their minds now and into the future (see what I did there, never mind.)
A look at the where the Jays were when AA moved into the GM chain in October 2009, gives context to the drafts and trades he made.
The team he took over in 2010
Anthopoulos took over a Jays team that defined mediocrity. After winning it all in 1993 the next 16 years produced:
- Three last place finishes,
- Three fourth place finishes and
- Ten third place finishes
That’s a recipe for frustrating the fans, players and of course ownership. When they won 86 games in 2009 and finished fourth, ownership decided new leadership would help and promoted Anthopoulos.
The 2009 team had two really bad contracts – Vernon Wells and Alex Rios– and an old lineup. Rios left in August clearing one contract but the roster in general looked old and unexciting.
That screamed rebuild/retool/revitalize – pick your euphemism – and AA took over with that in mind. He started off with a big move.
In December he cashed in his biggest chip – Roy Halladay – for Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor. Then immediately flipped Taylor to Oakland for Brett Wallace.
According to John Sickles those moves jump the team’s system to fifteenth but it still lacked an A graded prospect.
The farm system
Prior to the 2009 season, the Jays had the fifth ranked farm system in baseball and the Jays were bad. That meant most of the top prospects got a shot in Toronto; none matched their projection.
After the 2009 season Sports Illustrated ranked the Jays’ system near MLB’s worst.
"28. Blue Jays: Toronto would be No. 30 if not for last summer’s Scott Rolen trade. . ."
Overall the Jays 2009 draft was awful. Only two players selected by the Jays played significant time for the team. On the other hand, the swap of Scott Rolen for Edwin Encarnacion and worked really well long-term.