Waters is barely a prospect at this point, regardless of what MLB Pipeline says about his status in a depleted Braves farm system (the system comes by that status honestly, though, having churned out a ton of MLB-level talent in recent years, so we mustn't judge it too harshly).

Waters and Pache were going to comprise 2/3rds of the Braves outfield for many years to come.

Kudos to the guy who ranks prospects who would never rank Waters highly, because there was too much swing and miss in his game. However bad those strike-out numbers are in AAA, they are only going to get worse in MLB.

Fangraphs has him #10 in the Braves system, which is probably more up to date. Still, he had talent not that long ago, not a bad flier for the Royals to take. Probably better off trying with Waters (and Hoffman is intriguing) than trying to draft and develop their own guy at #35.

1) I am presuming that:
- KC is doing this because they feel the need to improve the depth of their system; and
- ATL is facing a 40-man crunch this off-season.

Does this sound right?

2) I wish teams could trade their draft picks, in general. I think it would increase interest in the draft, and would allow lousy teams to rebuild faster.

3) That said, I don't know what the market value would be for, say, a top 10 draft pick? Would a team trade a front-line starting pitcher for multiple 1st round draft picks? Or is the problem that (unlike the NBA or NFL) the draft picks have too high a miss rate, and take too long to result in major-league help, to actually be worth all that much in a trade market?

2) I wish teams could trade their draft picks, in general. I think it would increase interest in the draft, and would allow lousy teams to rebuild faster.

I wish teams could as well, but can you imagine the anti-tanking crowd's reaction when you trade your .270 hitting LF for the opportunity to draft some 19 year old in the 3rd round?

1) I am presuming that:
- KC is doing this because they feel the need to improve the depth of their system; and
- ATL is facing a 40-man crunch this off-season.

KC needs a CF of the future (Michael A. Taylor is 31 and is a FA after 2023) Waters fits their MO as a toolsy guy who can cover some ground and maybe they unlock some hitting out of him. Plus they get an interesting pitcher.

Atlanta has a 40-man roster crunch, already has Michael Harris in CF, has soured on Waters after an underwhelming 2021/22, and now they have the #35 pick in the draft and $2.2M more in their bonus pool to be creative with their picks.

For the record, I definitely think Waters is a gamble worth taking for the Royals.

KC doesn't have an obvious centerfielder in the high minors. Isbel has been playing the position in the majors with reasonable success, although he's probably a little stretched. Below him is Brewer Hicklen, maybe? Hitting well in AAA, more of a corner outfielder. Nick Loftin? Converted infielder learning the position, bat probably 1-2 years away.

There's no point in making the trade unless you're going to use Waters, so I'm assuming this means Taylor is on the trading block and Waters will be up before long or be stashed on the AAA taxi squad.

Whether that's fair return for a sandwich pick, I'm not actually sure. AAAA guy who gets playing time in two or three seasons is probably close to the median return for those picks, plus you get it right away with no development time and no bonus payment. But most of the value of a high pick comes from the upside.

I still like Waters, but he was never going to be a star. The guy he's likely to succeed in CF, Michael Taylor, is a pretty decent comp for what you can expect to get.

An MAT career would be a great return for a sandwich pick, and I would be thrilled with the trade if that's what we got.

Would you trade a sandwich pick for Brett Phillips?

Edit -- 23 year old Brett Phillips, with some upside left and entering his cost controlled years.

JJ Cooper says that Hoffmann is actually ranked higher than Waters in their updated list.

Taylor and Phillips are pretty good comps. If Waters can become Taylor - who was a 2.5 WAR player last year - that would be outstanding.

So what is the rationale for not allowing other draft picks to be traded?

Tradition and fear. The draft was created to control the bonus baby problem. MLB no doubt concerned that the cheap teams will just sell their picks. Remember they used to have to keep them for at least a year. Of course at this point there's really nothing preventing them from doing so after the draft. The union may also be concerned that the yanks and dodgers would rather buy young than old.

I could see the bigger teams trading to get the top picks despite never being that bad (Yankees only once have had the #1 pick and blew it) and how that could blow up the competitiveness even worse.

By the way, Taylor is right on the Rich Becker line with 8 WAR -- a great outcome for a 6th rounder. Only a bit more than half of all #1 picks have produced more WAR than Taylor (mostly a lot more obviously). Only about 1/3 of the #10 picks; only 5 #35 picks. Bellhorn, Brian Hunter the Fast and Jason Marquis are excellent #35 picks. Total WAR 156 out of 57 picks, 31 MLBers. 80 percent of that total WAR was from those 3 players. Damon, Langston and Rowand were the big prizes, producing 80% of that total WAR -- well, about 2/3 was Damon & Langston.

Point being that the player the Braves get likely will make the majors and give them a couple of WAR. I assume Waters and Hoffman don't project any better than that at this point but better to have two than one.

Total WAR 156 out of 57 picks, 31 MLBers.

So Brett Phillips's 5.6 WAR is about twice as good as the average #35 pick, and from what you're saying, it would probably rank in the top 5 or so, but wouldn't throw a scare into the really valuable players taken at that spot.

I'd say both sides of my hypothetical trade in #10 are still alive. Trading almost any pick for AAA Brett Phillips is a positive expected return, you just can't trade *all* of your picks like that.

Waters was originally a 2nd round pick, so Atlanta is more or less trading water with draft capital in this trade.

So I'll raise hypothetical trade #2:

You've got a former highly regarded prospect in AAA, taken with a premium (say, round 1-3) draft pick, whose shine has worn off a little. Suddenly, the imp Takesey Backsey appears in the form of a $10 ballpark beer and offers to let you make the pick over again, losing the player but gaining the same pick in next year's draft. How good does the player have to be before that's a bad trade?

Now Takesey Backsey changes the offer: you can travel back in time and make the same draft under the veil of ignorance (no knowledge of future minor league success). So with the new deal you don't lose 3-4 years of development time in making the trade. How good does the player have to be now?

It's also $2 million the royals don't have to spend. So they get two guys who might pan out and the Braves get a guy who will cost $2 million and is a long way from MLB. I can see the logic

For those who missed it, the Braves' "win now" move was to sign Cano, who's starting today against the Mets.

#16 ... for sure. If either the #35 pick the Braves got or Waters (Hoffman) turns out to be Taylor (6th round), Brian the Fast (2nd, #35), Brett Phillips (6th), Sam Fuld (10th) or (as a non-CF example) Brandon Guyer (5th), that's a win. Whether trading a #35 for Taylor today would be a good idea -- probably but these guys also tend to have short shelf lives and you might well be getting Taylor just as everything collapses to replacement level.

Not sure what to say about your hypotheticals. Potential is almost always better than realized "very little." So how "little" has the shine worn off? Waters was looking pretty solid pre-covid but the year off (or was he at the camp) might have derailed that. How's the defense (I notice a lot of LF/RF in 2021 but back in CF this year), what's the injury history? You get other complications like 40-man/rule 5 issues. Your first hypothetical is basically what the Braves have gone for here -- Waters was a #41 pick with some success.

We probably all know but, to be clear, there's nothing concrete about the #35 pick outcomes. For example, #37 picks have turned out much better (208 WAR, with 8 guys between 10 and 50 WAR, but not all signed). Randy Johnson and Johnny Bench were #36 picks but Erik Hanson (22 WAR) was the only other guy over 8 (233 total WAR, 205 of that from those 3 players). #34 is similar to #35 but #33 is the worst of all with just 67 total WAR, 24 made the majors, led by Mike Gallego and Dave Burba.

I don't know if a Unit or a Bench would ever drop to #36 today but I can't say that Drew Waters didn't have the same potential as Johnny Damon. The draft is always about hitting the jackpot, so you probably always want to take another shot at the jackpot once you "know" the guy you have is not the jackpot. Waters is still just 23, his track record doesn't look any worse to me than Lorenzo Cain who didn't crack AAA until the middle of his age 24 season and was still there for almost all of his age 25 season ... then put up 38 WAR (jackpot!) But he was a 17th round pick, not the guy you're thinking of. Given how many Max Muncies we see these days, not to mention 26-yo relievers now throwing 99, I'm not sure when it's safe to give up on a guy.

Mainly it's just how weird the draft is. Picks 33-37 have produced two inner-circle HoFers, 3 HoVGers incl a CYA winner (Viola), another CYA winner (Mike Scott), another 8 or so good players, a number of useful players ... and about 200-225 players (out of about 250) who achieved very little/nothing in the majors. How many lotto numbers need to be drawn before you'd change this week's ticket for one next week?

So Waters was the 2nd round in 2017. So far the best player in that round is Daulton Varsho at 3.5 WAR and looking darn good. He was grabbed 27 slots after Waters. The only other guy with noticeable value so far is Griffing Canning at 2.5 WAR, a SP for the Angels with a 96 ERA+ in 200+ innings over parts of 3 seasons, had a bad 2021 and I assume is hurt because he hasn't pitched anywhere this season. He was taken 6 slots after Waters. Gavin Sheets, MJ Melendez, Spencer Howard (ouch) and Will Crowe (ouch) are the only other guys to receive substantial ML time so far. So in the "would you redraft knowing nothing except how Waters has turned out so far?" question seems to produce the answer "it probably wouldn't matter unless you lucked into Daulton Varsho 27 picks early." When in doubt, look for who the Cardinals picked ... but they don't seem to have had a 2nd round pick in 2017.

So put me down in agreement on your general take: you can't be paralyzed by the possibility of trading away the next Cain but you need to hold onto most of these guys cuz one of them might eventually be the next Cain plus everybody needs 4th OFs, etc. Basically, hold onto them until you have to make a 40-man decision and then until you need 40-man room or they're gonna be a minor-league FA.

Cano with a single/RoE off Scherzer. So if Cano manages to hang on next year (very unlikely), does he get one of Manfred's "old guy all-star" slots? :-)

Using the lottery analogy - Atlanta already knows their 3 'tickets' in hand don't have all 7 numbers (HOF level) and are very unlikely to be a 6 (All-Star), with a chance at being a 5 (very good regular) so they trade them for a new ticket which could be any of those things going on the theory that they can find 4's and under easily (backups/middle relievers) but odds are these guys will end up as 1's (short call up someday and that is it). There is a non-zero chance one of those guys could be a HOF level suddenly ala guys like Phil Niekro who came up and then lasted and lasted and lasted, but that is very unlikely - more so than a #35 pick being that level. At their current level Atlanta has little use for prospects who aren't likely to be all-star or better so why not toss a few away to get a new draft pick?

Now, teams on the lower end have a need for those guys. For them a solid regular is very valuable and if he has a great stretch he can be traded for better quality. Thus the deal makes sense for both teams, but too many of these and the bad teams will never get the stars they need to become playoff contenders.

I was gonna run the analogy to those extremes too but then decided it doesn't quite work (because of nerdy analogy reasons, not baseball reasons). Anyway, the triks is still at what point do you know they're not gonna be that 5 or 6. Damon was up at 21 but wasn't very good at 22-23 and 24 just because of Rfield and wasn't Damon until 25. Langston was up at 23 and did well but was not so good at 24-25 (but good FIP at 25). Viola was in the majors at 22 but not good at 22-23. Cain didn't come into his own until 26-28.

So I think Zach's question is a good one -- the lottery analogy only goes so far. I won the lotto not long ago -- about $17 (not $17 M, $17). Now that's not enough money for me to care about but it would have bought me 14 more lottery tix (this is where the analogy starts to break down) or 2 banh mi and a coke. In baseball, it's more like the banh mi than 14 more draft picks but maybe I can eat one banh mi and most of the second one then trade the remaining bit for a lottery ticket.

If Waters and Hoffman combine for 2 banh mi then this was 2 banh mi for one lottery ticket, clearly a bad trade but maybe still worth the risk. How many banh mi would you give up for a lottery ticket?

But as John implies, the Braves are usually pretty good at playing the lottery so if they're confident that Waters and Hoffman are not a winning tichet they should move them along for a new ticket. They win the lottery an awful lot ... but don't seem so good at developing useful players. Most of their add-ons are purchased (d'Arnaud, Olson, Ozuna, Duvall, Rosario, Gosselin, Heredia, Morton, McHugh, Smith, O'Day, Chavez), I'm sure ownership would love some cheap, average players ... but it doesn't really matter if you can get Acuna, Riley, Swanson, Albies, Fried, etc.

When in doubt, look for who the Cardinals picked ... but they don't seem to have had a 2nd round pick in 2017.

That was the year the Cardinals were penalized in the "hacking scandal" by losing their first two picks (Nos. 56 and 75), which were given to the Astros. (they gave up their first-round pick by signing Dexter Fowler)

The Astros picked RHP Corbin Martin at 56, and he reached the majors in 2019 and made five starts before being traded in mid-season to the DBacks for Zack Greinke, who went 8-1 and helped the Astros reach the World Series. Martin is still with the DBacks, and has a cumulative -0.9 bWAR in parts of three MLB seasons.

With the No. 75 pick Houston chose J.J. Matijevic, who is currently a bench player for the Astros after being called up earlier this year, and he has 0.1 bWAR and a .179/.233/.464 line in 30 PA after raking in AAA.

Sure ... but if the Cards had picked at #56 and #75, they'd have selected the next Tommy Edman (6th round) and the next Andre Pallante (4th round) because that's what those MFers do.

Knizner 7th
DeJong 4th (past his use-by date)
O'Neill 3rd
Bader 3rd
Carlson 1st (33rd)
Donovan 7th
Nootbar 8th
Hudson 1st (34th)
Hicks 3rd
Helsley 5th

All told that's about 12 WAR this year out of guys selected outside the top 30 (including Edman and Pallante). That's not including Sosa, Yepez and the other international signings nor Gorman who was #19 overall. And longer-term:

Bader 12 WAR, 6 WAA
Carlson 4 WAR, 1 WAA, 1000 PA
DeJong 13 WAR, 6 WAA
Edman 13 WAR, 8 WAA

We've just discussed that 3 WAR out of one of these guys would be pretty good, 8 WAR would be very good, >10 WAR would usually be top 20% for a 2nd round pick. The Cards do this all the time. And they nearly all seem to fade quickly once their 3-4 seasons of above-average play are done (see DeJong) or they become lifelong productive Cardinals or the best player in the game (Pujols, 13th round).

#19 -- Interesting, because I think I'm talking myself into the other extreme. The average value of "AAA Brett Phillips" is so far ahead of the average return for a premium but not elite draft pick that it's a sucker bet to give up any player who projects for significant MLB playing time. Players who get playing time can take a step forward, find a niche, etc, but a washout is a washout.

I don't think I would want to trade all of my picks for the Brett Phillips of the world. But trading one pick out of several lays off a lot of risk.

Not sure what to say about your hypotheticals. Potential is almost always better than realized "very little." So how "little" has the shine worn off? Waters was looking pretty solid pre-covid but the year off (or was he at the camp) might have derailed that. How's the defense (I notice a lot of LF/RF in 2021 but back in CF this year), what's the injury history? You get other complications like 40-man/rule 5 issues. Your first hypothetical is basically what the Braves have gone for here -- Waters was a #41 pick with some success.

I meant to be a little ambiguous, but I think it's a fair description of the Waters situation, or the "AAA Brett Phillips" situation. You have a guy who looked fantastic in the low minors but has hit a snag in development a little short of MLB or with minimal MLB experience. You're starting to believe he's not going to live up to your highest hopes, but he probably will get significant playing time.

Re-picking the round under the veil of ignorance probably gets you 3 WAR, with a slight chance of much more and a large chance of nothing at all. Median return is probably equivalent to a AAA guy who projects to be an MLB backup.

Making the same pick in next year's draft probably gets you 3 WAR ... several years down the road. Median return is probably equivalent to a AA guy who has a chance of being an MLB backup.

I suspect part of it is also where in the win cycle you are and do those parts fit today? 5 years from now it is much harder to know what you'll need, thus why smart teams draft the best player not the one that fits their current needs. Now you can trade those guys who don't fit your needs as your 40 man gets full to teams that could use them today in exchange for future kids. For example, suppose you have a all-star at 1B and another at DH, but in AAA you have an excellent hitter who can't play elsewhere - trade him for multiple picks then (sadly not allowed ... yet).

I could see if the International Draft happens as rumored with trading picks allowed, the Jays going nuts on it with teams who do poorly in scouting IFA's today. The payoff takes very long for those guys (they are 16 when signed most of the time) but the payoff can be huge (Jays have Vlad, Kirk, and Moreno via IFA with the last 2 being sub $30k each, Vlad was over $3 mil - 2 starting All-Stars and a top catching prospect). I could picture a few teams trading for most of the first round picks so they can overstock their minors, while cheap teams with GM's worried about today and tomorrow, not 5 years from now, trading those picks for some immediate help.

#25: Agreed, your hypotheticals are reasonable and are trades we see fairly often.

Before I get to my not very big general point, let me say that Phillips is a bit different. Based on DRS, his defense is excellent, maybe even elite. The guy's credited with 4.3 dWAR in just 858 PA (or 2000 innings). I suspect WAR kinda over-values "part-timers with one elite skill" but still he's at 5.6 WAR with 2.7 WAA. WAA is very valuable, that's not a space-filler. I think we all know that if they gave Phillips a full-time job he wouldn't really be a 4-WAR player but he's definitely not somebody you trade for a lottery ticket.

The space-fillers are also valuable -- everybody's got some players like this on the roster -- but also pretty fungible. I'm thinking less Phillips (who granted I had little knowledge of before this) and more Ildemaro Vargas who I only know because of his brief Cub stint. Vargas debuted in 2017 and has played a bit in every season since. It's just 407 PA total with an atrocious 63 OPS+. He's just below-replacement ... if you need a Vargas, you've probably got another one in your system or can get one cheaply from somebody else or, at worst, invite 4 vets on NRIs and throw $1 M at one of them.

With 20/20 hindsight, if you were given a chance to trade Vargas for a decent pick back in 2017, you'd do it in a second. Of course in the real world we can't be sure which one is Vargas and which one is David Bote which is what makes your hypothetical challenging. Bote is not noticeably valuable but he's not fungible. How far up the non-fungible ladder (and with what certainty) do you have to get to be worth more than a #35 pick ... and how quickly does the value drop as service time (and cost) increase? (Or options, etc.) This gets into John's points -- how many Vargas-Botes do you have in your system, how many are around baseball, what vets are available, are you competitive, are you rich? Nobody really _needs_ more than maybe two Vargas-Botes in a season.

Phillips different again here -- possibly nobody can consistently tell which will be Vargas and which Bote but if your player development folks can't recognize elite CF defense (or at least "guarantee" it's above-average or better), you've got a much bigger problem. So you _know_ Phillips will have value. You may not want to start him often but you know on the days you do that your OF defense will be better than usual which will help offset the drop in offense. Similarly you know that Vogelbach has no defensive value but that he can hit for power at a ML level and maybe he'll have enough BA/OBP to at least be an average bat.

I know baseball simulations are not real baseball but I often followed that philosophy when looking for bench players. Everybody needs a back-up C, pretty much every back-up C is not good. So I'd look for one with really good defense; or average defense and an average-ish OBP; or average defense and above-average power and live with the 250 OBP. I don't know if it helped but I'll go for a bench player who is at least good (ML average) at one thing and decent on defense over a generic 0.5-1 WAR player who's a bit below-average at everything. Obviously there are limits to just how bad the bat can be or how useless the defense can be (relative to bat) but a 60 OPS+ with excellent defense or a 100 OPS+ with terrible defense sounds better to me than a 80 OS+ with below-average defense.