Montgomery, Lamb and Duffy didn't turn out to be Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz. Simple as that. Braves were obviously well run, but if they don't have three HOF'ers at the top of their staff, they don't have the run of success that generates so much respect.

When you really think about the Braves who they drafted I guess you had Justice, Gant, Deion, Glavine, Avery?, then you had Chipper and Javier Lopez come later but a lot of their stars were trades and free agency.

Edit: Never mind. Reading comprehension

It's more Glavine/Smoltz/Avery, as they signed Maddux as a FA in the middle of their run.

But yes... the Braves had great luck with 3 very young pitchers all hitting to some degree (by the time Avery flamed out, they had acquired more talent to replace him).

They also did a better job developing young hitters... some of that, maybe, you can pin on having more veteran support around them.... but are Terry Pendleton and Sid Bream really better in 1991 than Billy Butler and Alex Gordon are in 2011? (No).

Only real difference there is that the Braves had several proven winners on that 1991 team that turned it all around (Leibrandt, Bream, Pendleton, Juan Berenguer), which is not something the Royals have really had until the past two years.

...and respected nationally. Hell, the papers with a better tandem were very few and far between, and you wouldn't need even need one hand to count on to name them off if there were.

When you sum it up that way, it makes the last 29 going on 30 years even more depressing.

Good point- if you have to refer back to how things were done, I have to give pause and think that maybe you weren't the visionary helming that leadership and their success- sadly.

Patriot way, Moneyball, Brave's system, etc...

We believe (dated)

It's the TBS factor. Might as well poach Ernie and Barkley for comedic relief if the end result doesn't change.

And how would we afford it if they did?

This made me sadder:

http://gradingonthecurve.com/2014/05...r-league-team/

There are definitely areas to be disappointed. I think he's missing a few things there. The biggest is that you can't base a minor leaguer's evaluation entirely on stats. Especially pitchers at developmental levels.

Big disappointments so far:

Zimmer getting shelved long-term again, which we've discussed in this thread a bit. It's not a good sign. If they had kept him on the plan they entered the season with (he starts throwing for real in May), it's no issue.

The other obvious one is Bubba Starling, who also has been discussed to death.

As for the rest of the list... Manaea and Almonte are kind of the same case. Both highly talented guys whose ERAs are not pretty but who are having very successful seasons by all other metrics.

Almonte's ERA is spiked into the mid-4s, but his WHIP, K rate, BB Rate, K:BB all have very minute (less than 1 percent) variations from last year. We don't have ways to measure things like BABIP for minor leaguers, but we can see that hitters are hitting for basically the same average as a year ago against him... he's just had a little worse luck in runs scored.

In-person reports on Almonte have been glowing, and include notes about him making a noted effort to work his breaking pitch in more and rely less on his fastball/change combo. That's something he's going to have to do to be successful at the big-league level, and I'd rather see him doing it now (and having it hit his stats a little bit) than trying to figure it out at AA or AAA when he starts needing it.

Manaea is in the same boat... crazy good peripherals, great in-person evals, ERA that doesn't match. Though he has done a much worse job controlling baserunners than Almonte...

Both of these guys are also still on pitch counts/innings limits, which hurts their overall numbers. If Manaea gets into a two-out jam in the 4th inning of a game and hits his pitch limit (as happened earlier in the year), he's coming out and a middle reliever is taking over for him.

Mondesi was dominating at High-A until he was injured. The back spasms seem to have caused some significant problems for him at the plate (which is to be expected). All other reviews of Mondesi have been glowing - especially from before the injury, when he sounded destined for a top 10 prospect ranking.

Outside of Mondesi, the hitting prospects are less rosy than the pitching side of things. Dozier started slow but is hitting now at High A in a tough pitchers park, so that's nice. Orlando Calixte, who was in my Top 10 but not BAs, currently has an .823 OPS at AA, which is pretty strong from a SS (especially a 22-year-old one). The sample size is small, but he's also posting his best OBP as a minor leaguer.

Those three are really the only ones you can say something really positive about (you could about Samir Duenez, who's starting to hit of late). Bonifacio and Cuthbert have been "meh" at AA. Elier Hernandez and Zane Adams have not hit.

I was hopeful and excited we'd see big things out of Bonifacio at AA now that he's healthy and a year removed from hand surgery. That's a major bummer.

So apparently gmdm asked George Brett to be hitting coach again. He said **** that

Big three game series next weekend.