Braves offseason thread

[smootness]

If every single free agent walks with nothing in return then it is on AA. And that is one reason the farm is in the shape it’s in. Other teams are bringing up youngsters, signing stars, and maintaining a solid or even great farm system. To act like it can’t be done is just an excuse.

And I’m not advocating for trading upcoming free agents. But at this point some of them need to be signed. Fried should be locked up before next season.

That's one of the consequences of having a contender. You don't want to trade Freeman and Dansby while you're in the middle of a WS run. If that's what you're advocating, then yikes.

As for other teams, please give me the other teams who have called up and signed as much talent as the Braves have over the last 4-5 years, not even adding in the supposed solid/great farm system these teams are still fielding. The Dodgers may be the only team capable of fielding a true contender and possessing a top farm system year after year because they're the only team with unlimited money to play with. And even they have struggled to keep graduating talent from their farm system, which is why they're a little down this year.

If you added Strider and Harris to our system, we'd be at worst middle of the pack with two studs, and everybody would feel good about our farm system. It's actually because we have graduated talent successfully that our farm system is now down. That, and the restrictions on our international signings. We have had lower draft picks, basically no international signings, and we've been graduating our talent all while trying to keep our major league talent and build a contender. That is always a recipe for a down farm system. Where we need to start growing it back is by hitting on some draft picks (we'll see how last year pans out, I liked those picks) and being as aggressive as we can be internationally now that our restrictions are gone. But getting back to a top-5 system will be very, very hard during this window over the next 5-6 years.