Rumor: Atlanta Braves making Cristian Pache available in trade discussions

Ranking Details

A few things need to be said about their list above.  There was a big struggle among the BA staff concerning the evaluators they spoke with – many who ranked these players at all levels among this group.  Among the statements they have made or otherwise implied (all in the podcast excepting those otherwise linked):

• All ‘comfortably’ rank in the Top 100 overall.
• All are very closely ranked… figuratively speaking, they made it sound like they were all close enough to shake hands with one another.
• Your mileage may vary:  one scout might prefer defense, another hitting, another pitching.
• There was a particularly difficult time in ranking the pitchers, though Anderson stood out.
• Riley was placed at #1 because of his effort to improve on his weakness areas.
• Soroka was dropped below Anderson specifically because of concerns about his shoulder, though they still believe Anderson has a higher ceiling.
• Waters was elevated above Pache because they believe more in his hit tool than Pache’s… and for another reason we’ll discuss shortly.

That last bit gets toward the core of the argument to make Pache available in trade discussions.  One of their key points was in noticing that scouts who were former major league players were bearish on Pache as a hitter – more so than former minor league player scouts.

But here was the money quote:

"[JJ Cooper] …when I talk with Front Offices around baseball, is they felt like that Pache – if they worked out a trade – Pache was available. [Kyle Glaser] I got the same [information] [Cooper]… multiple front offices… [Glaser] …the same."

They went on to clarify that while the Braves were neither ‘shopping’ nor ‘pushing’ Pache in trade talks, he was nonetheless more available than others on the list.  Nonetheless, Cooper made it clear that he is ‘very available‘ via trade.

While this was a minor factor in how they ranked players, this bit of information accounts for why they placed Pache down on their list compared with some others.