Atlanta Braves trade ranked prospects for a draft pick: Why?

The Atlanta Braves need bats.

The Atlanta Braves’ draft philosophy since 1965 has centered on getting pitching and trading for everything else. I don’t believe that works well today.

In a game where pitchers throw as hard as they can as long as they can, injuries often end or curtail a career. Pitchers arriving in the majors too soon find themselves out of baseball before they find their groove.

In other words, pitching is more of a lottery ticket than ever. If teams find it, nurture it, and it blossoms, they’re reluctant to trade it away.

Batters are easier to project and more plentiful. The 2022 draft is batter rich; once you get past the top ten arms, it’s possible to find similar arms in round two or three.

Why not add college bats early and under-slot and use the saved money to add pitchers in later rounds?

Give me some names!

Glad you asked. How about Spencer Jones? If you’d like to have an Aaron Judge clone, the 6’-7, 225-pound Jones is an upgraded model.

His hit tool is still blooming, but he has 60-power, 55-speed that would allow him to stick in centerfield. Joe Rexrode recently profiled him in The Athletic Z($), writing that Matt Pajak of the Prospect Development Pipeline indicated an extraordinary mix of gifts.

"Pajak wrote a piece about Jones on lodensports.com, calling him an “outlier athlete” with a Loden Score of 9 out of 12 — “a feat accomplished by fewer than 1 percent of elite, physically mature athletes,” Pajak wrote."

Traditional scouts know he has thump, but wonder whether he’ll strike out too much; but the young man has thump and wheels.

"Last month at the MLB Draft Combine . . . he averaged 103.6 mph on his 10 swings and had the hardest-hit ball . . .at 112.2 mph. Of those 10 swings, nine counted as “hard hit” at 95 mph or higher. Only two players . . . were 100 percent in that exercise. Jones also ran a blistering 3.60 in the 30, the third-best time at the combine."

Most expect Jones to go in the second round, But taking him in the first at 20 or 35 allows the Braves to convince SS Brandon Ritchie to skip UCLA or pitcher Cole Phillips to tell Arkansas he changed his mind and sign with Atlanta.

These names are examples, not suggestions of how the Atlanta Braves might go in the draft – except for Jones. I really want Jones; the team’s always had great luck with players named Jones, right?

We’ll begin to get the answer Sunday night.

That’s a wrap

Here’s what I’ve seen from Alex Anthopoulos since he arrived:  he doesn’t throw money around willy-nilly. He does his research. Not every signing works, but he’s doing better than most. He doesn’t allow intelligence leaks, either; no one knows what the Atlanta Braves will do until it’s done.

If you read through the high school pitchers in BA’s top 100, you’ll find all of them classified as an extreme risk. I understand that high risk may, eventually, bring a big reward. Maybe, AA will use the extra funds to go over-slot on a high school pitcher, but I don’t think so.

This feels like a way to spread the money around on a group of players with a higher probability of success.