It's always interesting to look at how the World Series teams were built as a good reminder that there isn't necessarily just one way to construct a team, so as the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros travel west for Tuesday's Game 6 at Minute Maid Park, we examine how both rosters came together -- and what other teams around baseball can learn from this year's last two standing. You need to find players in all avenues: the draft, from Latin America, in free agency and via trades. One thing the Braves and Astros have in common, however: It's good to have that homegrown talent to build around.
ATLANTA BRAVES
Homegrown drafted players
1B Freddie Freeman (second round, 2007); 3B Austin Riley (first round supplemental, 2015); P A.J. Minter (second round, 2015); P Ian Anderson (first round, 2016); P Tucker Davidson (19th round, 2016); P Kyle Wright (first round, 2017)
The Braves have long been known as a draft-and-develop organization, but they have just six originally drafted players on the playoff roster, with Davidson and Wright only added due to injuries to Huascar Ynoa and Charlie Morton. Freeman and Riley have something in common besides their big numbers at the plate: Both were two-way prospects in high school and some teams liked both better on the mound. Freeman wanted to hit, however, and the Braves loved Riley's power potential. Needless to say, they projected correctly.
By the way, the Braves' first-round pick in 2007 was Jason Heyward. He eventually brought them Shelby Miller in a trade with St. Louis, and Miller later brought them Dansby Swanson. They also drafted Craig Kimbrel that year, although he didn't sign and the Braves re-drafted him in 2008.
Anderson was taken with the third overall pick in 2016 -- the fruits of a 67-95 record in 2015 -- as a projectable high school pick from the Albany area. Wright was the fifth overall pick out of Vanderbilt, and he has developed slower than expected given his polished repertoire coming out of college. If you rebuild like the Braves did for a couple years, you have to nail those top picks, and it looks like they at least went 1 for 2.