With the Braves and Cubs about to square off this weekend
in Atlanta, you're undoubtedly going to hear commentators compare the two clubs
and their rebuilding processes.
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| (David Banks - Getty Images) |
However, there are some stark differences between the two
franchises. First off, the Cubs completely remade their entire front office.
While Theo Epstein garners most of the attention, the additions of Jed Hoyer
and Jason McLeod shouldn't go unnoticed. All three worked
together in Boston and helped them finally get over the preverbal hump
(the New York Yankees.) It also doesn't hurt to have one of the best managers
in Major League Baseball in Joe Maddon.
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When you compare that to the Braves, they fired
a successful General Manager in Frank Wren and replaced him with John Hart
and later on, John Coppolella. John Hart, John Schuerholz, and Bobby
Cox all still have important roles with the franchise. While these men have all
had successful and accomplished careers, shouldn't the front office be rebuilt
with the rest of the team? It makes you wonder just how much freedom someone
like Coppolella is allowed to have when he has so many old school guys around
him.
Getting back to the rebuilding efforts of both clubs, the
Cubs have taken a very different route to their successful rebuild. First and
foremost, the have an ownership group that allows the front office to spend on
international talent as well as allows them to spend on the amateur draft. If
you look at their draft philosophy, they very much differ from the Braves.
Unlike Atlanta, the Cubs believe in taking college hitters with early
first-round picks, and they have done so for three straight Drafts. Those
hitters being: Kris Bryant ('13), Kyle Schwarber ('14), and Ian Happ ('15).
Bryant and Schwarber have already provided huge value for the Cubs and Happ is
rated as the third best second base prospect (by MLB.com). When asked
about Draft philosophy, Cubs’ top scouting and player development executive
Jason McLeod told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times
that, “We certainly don’t walk away from pitching,” McLeod said, stressing
the club’s best-player-available philosophy. “We’ve talked also about how the
history of the draft will tell you if players are close on evaluations, the
college hitter is the way to go. They usually pan out the best.”
When you take a look at the Braves'
drafting philosophy, they've totally abandoned taking college bats.
Since firing Frank Wren at the end of the 2014 season, Atlanta has drafted
seven high school pitchers within the first two rounds during the '15 and
'16 drafts. The front office did well in trading Shelby Miller for Dansby Swanson,
but that's more about the Diamondbacks being in "win-now" mode
and making a desperation move. Atlanta did very well for themselves
in getting Swanson, but it feels more like a case of Arizona making a
terrible move. The Braves organization is loaded with interesting pitching
prospects, but there's only one potential impact bat (Swanson) and he was one
of the best college hitters available in the '15 draft.
If you look around Major League Baseball, more and more
teams are deciding to go with college bats that can make an immediate
impact. Michael Conforto (Mets), Trea Turner (Nats), A.J. Reed (Astros), and
Stephen Piscotty (Cards) are all college bats who have already made
an immediate impact or are on the cusp of breaking into the majors. (Even
Bryce Harper spent a year at a Junior College).
The Braves philosophy seems to be more like teams
from the 1990's, in that they take power pitching with "projectable
bodies" that are prone to breaking down over time. Much like the book
Moneyball mentioned, teams continuously take high school pitchers who
"look the part" instead of going with college pitchers who do not
require much time to develop. Under Frank Wren, Atlanta successfully
took college pitchers like Mike Minor, Sean Gilmartin, Craig Kimbrel, and
Alex Wood. Not only were these pitchers able to be major league contributors
soon after draft day, but they proved to be solid value picks because
they've already completed their college careers and do not have the leverage of
using a college commitment to gain more bonus money.
High school players are like the ultimate lottery ticket.
Some teams have hit big and been greatly rewarded, but far too often teams take
players who just look the part and it can hurt the franchise for years to
come. College pitchers, in my opinion, tend to be more projectable and require
less time to develop. They've already been pitching in the equivalent
of Double-A ball (especially in powerhouse conferences like the ACC, SEC,
and PAC-12).
The Cubs' rebuild has been successful due to their
willingness to not only take college bats, but also find gems in trades. It's
clear that they have a tremendous analytics department that have found
things in players that other organizations either don't care about or
don't want to work on. The best two examples of this are the trades for Jake
Arrieta and Anthony Rizzo. Both were top prospects, but their previous
organizations gave them up after waiting on them to reach their potential.
Thanks to an ownership that is engaged to the team, they've been able to
spend big not only on impact free agents like Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist,
and Jon Lester, but they brought in Joe Maddon to tie all the pieces
together.
While the Braves are rebuilding, they haven't followed
the same path as the Cubs. The Braves seem set on eating up bad contracts to
gain draft picks and instead of taking impact college bats or pitchers, they're
taking their chances on high school arms that will take much longer to develop.
They've made several trades that just seem like they're spinning their wheels.
Giving up cost controlled arms for players like Hector Olivera or signing aging
vets like Nick Markakis who give the team no real upside. Fans see this
team competing in 2017 or 2018, but unless they spend big in the free agent
market, this rebuild looks like it's going to take until 2020 at the earliest.
So far, there's just not enough to believe this team will suddenly compete by
the window first put in place by the front office. At this point, it's unclear
what the goal is for this organization. They have some nice pieces in
place, but outside of Dansby Swanson, there's no immediate impact bat.
Will this team actually be committed to spending on free agents? As
we saw with the previous front office, spending on free agents is
what ultimately cost Frank Wren his job. With the players that have been
traded away, they made no attempt to sign young players like Jason Heyward or
Justin Upton long term.... If those players were deemed too expensive, how can
they justify spending tons of money later on for older players down the
road? Especially with ownership that refused to allow the previous GM
Frank Wren the ability to add salary to improve upon a 96 win
team... The free agent market continues to get more and more expensive, especially
for younger players with power potential. We're not too far away from seeing
players like Bryce Harper potentially ask for $400M+ deal. Can the Braves really
afford to play ball in that market? Time will only tell.
There's really no comparing these two franchises. The
Cubs have the front office and ownership in place to fuel success for many
years down the road. They have a different philosophy and approach to
building a team and so far, it's been very successful. The Braves on the other
hand have been doing what teams have always done, taking high profile high
school arms and praying that one of the dozen or so will actually pan out. In
the end, saying these two franchises are following a similar path is just
lazy journalism. When you look deeper, it's clear that vastly different
ideas are in place for both franchises. Will this old school approach by
Atlanta actually work? I guess we will check back in 2020 to see.
