Braves named one of the best teams in the last decade at drafting pitching by Baseball America

Looking at the last twelve years of draft results, the Braves have been pretty good at identifying arms in the MLB Draft

The Atlanta Braves have a position player core that should be the envy of any other team in baseball, with all eight defensive positions locked up long-term by players that range from above-average to (literal) MVP-caliber talents. 

Perhaps on a related note, Atlanta's farm system leans heavily towards pitching, with seven of our top ten prospects in the organization being pitchers, including every member of the top five. 

At least that's a concentration that the Braves should be well-positioned to exploit. 

Baseball America, writing up the results of a draft study that looked at the time period from 2012 to the present day, named the Atlanta Braves as one of the best organizations at selecting pitching in the MLB Draft. 

Coming in 1st place was the St. Louis Cardinals, who have done an impressive job at drafting both quality and volume, coming in significantly better than the field in innings (6,998), starts, and wins drafted over the rest of the league. 

Atlanta, depending on how you measure, was one of the top teams in the study. In total MLB innings drafted, they were 5th, with 4,961. By ERA, Atlanta was 10th with a 4.27, while they were 7th in Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) with a 4.14. 

A point that Baseball America editor-in-chief JJ Cooper, who penned the piece, made that's worth repeating is while quality is important, quantity does matter. A frontline starter only pitches once every fifth day - all MLB teams need 162 starts to get through the regular season, and it's hard to manage that workload without burning out your studs if you don't have depth.

The Braves arms cited in the piece are a great example of Cooper's point, with Atlanta having a mix of both quality (Spencer Strider, pre-injury Michael Soroka, AJ Minter) and quantity (Alex Wood, Bryce Elder). 

Conversely, some of the worst teams in MLB at drafting pitching include frequent trade partners Oakland and Pittsburgh as well as NL East rival New York. Philadelphia, interestingly, is decidedly average by most metrics except for FIP, where they're 2nd with a 4.09. 

The full article is available for Baseball America subscribers on their website. 

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