The draft strategy of John Coppolella and the Atlanta Braves’ scouting department finds itself under fire for the second straight year — spending six of their first seven picks on pitching to bolster an arm-heavy system garnered the expected reaction — so it’s an opportune time for a reminder: The 2016 team would be in the exact same predicament if the organization had spent its past 25 picks in the top 10 rounds on position players.

MLB-ready position prospects are unicorns in this process, and there have been zero unicorns in the past two drafts.

The 2015 and 2016 draft classes have had no bearing on the parent club’s paltry results, nor this rebuild’s tangible success to date. The same would be true of any draft-day direction the Braves elected to take. Time is a mandatory prerequisite here. Picking position players with their early selections may have led to a more balanced farm system, but shortchanging the franchise on long-term value to chase positional needs is not how smart front offices operate.

(All of this hand-wringing over the pitching shopping spree ignores the fact that the Braves essentially selected the best-available position player in the 2015 draft by acquiring Dansby Swanson.)

So the criticism — and it should be noted that the criticism does not come from industry experts, who unanimously praised or understood Atlanta’s gameplan in adding Ian Anderson, Joey Wentz and Kyle Muller on Day 1 — directed at scouting director Brian Bridges & Co. falls on deaf ears. The Braves continue to accumulate the top (affordable) players on their board. That translated into not only a run of pitching for the second straight year, but, more importantly, a run of high-risk, high-reward value which the previous front office regularly avoided.

When it comes to the MLB raft, the best strategy is often the one that, on the surface, sounds least controversial: Take the best player. Worry about redundancies down the line.

The Braves are invested in baseball’s most volatile stock market, and they are hedging every last bet. Here are a few more observations from the Braves’ 2016 draft class:

Right-handed pitcher: 16

Left-handed pitcher: 8

Outfielders: 5

Catchers: 4

Second base: 3

First base: 3

Third base: 2

Shortstop: 1

Few surprises as the team stockpiled pitching, addressed the most pressing organizational need with four catchers and avoided the shortstop position almost entirely with Swanson and Ozzie Albies looking like long-term options. As for their draftees’ experience level:

College: 30

High-school: 12

Atlanta owned the third-highest bonus pool at $13,224,100, trailing only Philadelphia and Cincinnati. That figure accounts for every signing bonus handed out to players selected in the first 10 rounds as well as any bonus that exceeds $100,000 thereafter. MLB allows for 5 percent wiggle room over budget, but failing to adhere to the guidelines results in taxation and/or the loss of future draft picks.

Here was the dilemma: Many of the top-rated bats — outfielders Mickey Moniak, Corey Ray, Kyle Lewis and Blake Rutherford and third baseman Nick Senzel — were not offering substantial under-slot discounts at No. 3. Their stocks were too high for the Braves to pay them like mid-first round talent. And while the Braves followed Anderson closely throughout the past year, from the Perfect Game showcases to his work with Team USA, the fact that he is reportedly willing to ink a deal around $3 million — or, $3.5 million under slot value — was the kicker.

Those savings could then be transferred to Wentz and Muller, essentially paying them like first-round picks. That’s how a franchise ends up with three top-25 talents, as opposed to the third-, 40th- and 44th-best players on their board.

The Braves continued this approach in the later rounds by selecting five consecutive college seniors, a group that has exhausted its amateur eligibility and is typically more willing to sign under slot value, to wrap up Day 2, leaving room to draft (and sign) the likes of local high-school arm Matt Rowland.

Baseball’s draft is not an exercise in selecting the very best player available each time you pass in your card. Instead, there’s some game theory involved: A team needs to optimize its draft-day resources by thinking multiple steps ahead and, ultimately, landing on a solution that not only reels in top talent, but fits it into the bonus-pool budget as well.

Pretend each of the pitchers John Hart and John Coppolella either inherited or traded for fall flat. Pretend Julio Teheran is traded, Matt Wisler regresses and Mike Foltynewicz never gets over his control or injury concerns. Pretend top prospects Sean Newcomb, Aaron Blair, Touki Toussaint, Lucas Sims, Max Fried, Tyrell Jenkins, John Gant, Chris Ellis, Manny Banuelos and Ricardo Sanchez bust in spectacular fashion.

Pretend the shorter-term plan fails miserably.

Atlanta would still have a promising future rotation in the farm system.

In the past two drafts, five of Atlanta’s six highest picks took aim at high-end prep arms. Kolby Allard and Mike Soroka have lived up to their billing thus far: The 18-year-old Soroka continues to cruise at Single-A Rome, posting a 2.59 ERA with nearly an 8-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, while Allard is off to a slow start following extended spring training but offered a glimpse of his potential with six flawless innings in rookie ball.

The Anderson-Wentz-Muller trio comes with even higher expectations.

Bridges did not shy away from his selection of Anderson at third overall, comparing him to Mike Mussina for his command and claiming the Braves took the top-rated pitcher on their board. (That’s a tough sell when Atlanta had its pick of the pitching litter and Jason Groome, Riley Pint and A.J. Puk were on the board, but Bridges didn’t budge: "We feel like this guy better fits our organization moving forward.")

Anderson certainly finished his senior season strong by leading his team to the New York state title with 28 shutout innings and 41 strikeouts in the postseason. He struck out 16 and touched 97 miles per hour with his fastball in his final start before the draft. Atlanta’s brass was in attendance, out in full force.

"The kid’s been as high as 97. That’s going to come," Bridges said. "You see guys who are throwing really hard now, but there’s a difference in pitching now. I think pitching is a lost art. A lot of kids throw for the radar gun, and they don’t learn the art of pitching."

Then there’s Wentz and Muller.

The former draws Cole Hamels comparisons and didn’t allow a single earned run in more than 50 innings of 6-A ball in Kansas. And the latter? Well, he only won the Gatorade National Player of the Year award, striking out everything in sight, and led his school to the 6-A Texas state title. There are question marks surrounding both left-handers, but there are question marks surrounding every high-school pitcher. Both were consensus top-30 prospects — two of the four best prep lefties nationally — and would not have been available without Atlanta’s bonus pool gymnastics at No. 3.

That leaves five highly rated arms injected into the lower levels of the Braves system — a potential 2020s rotation worth waiting for. Pretending every other viable pitching prospect in the system fails, that is.

John Coppolella always qualified his pre-draft preference with the phrase "all things being equal." All things were, apparently, not equal: The Braves, according to Bridges, landed three of their top 20 players, but ignored college bats until the 76th pick.

That selection was California catcher Brett Cumberland, a projectable bat at a position of need. He brings power and, if required, positional flexibility, though the Braves’ shallow catching depth could certainly use a boost. The team’s Day 2 also ended with a splurge of college position players: second baseman Matt Gonzalez (Georgia Tech), outfielders J.B. Moss (Texas A&M) and Tyler Neslony (Texas Tech) and shortstop Marcus Mooney (South Carolina).

A trend is starting to emerge here: Bridges and the scouting department are banking on high-end high-schoolers in the early rounds then turning to "safer" college players in the middle rounds.

Considering the team will likely have a top-five pick again next year, keep the up-and-coming top prep players — yes, even the pitchers — in mind.

The Atlanta Braves drafted a catcher named Handsome Monica in the 2016 Major League Baseball draft.

There were no typos in that sentence.

This section is complete.

A two-sport athlete out of Indiana — he was an all-state wide receiver — the Braves’ 29th-round pick is a 6-foot-3 outfielder with wheels. Pokorney tore up high-school pitching as a switch hitter and, with a fairly compact swing, could offer upside once he focuses solely on baseball. He checks two niche boxes for Atlanta’s scouting department, the multi-sport athlete and cold-weather home state that prevents year-round baseball, and appears to have the athleticism to advance if he chooses to sign.

Bridges’ personal sleeper pick? Another small-town prospect in shortstop Gabe Howell, who hails from Trion, Ga., also known as the U.S. denim capital. The Braves’ 20th-round pick brings unreal numbers out of 1-A high-school competition. In 26 games recorded by MaxPreps, the 6-foot-2 Howell, who committed to JUCO baseball power Chipola but signed with Atlanta on Monday, hit .615/.730/1.205 during his senior season.

Five picks before the Wentz selection, local product Taylor Trammell’s slide came to a halt. The Reds selected the athletic outfielder — the 13th-best player in the draft, according to Baseball America; MLB Pipeline listed him as its 32nd-best player — with their Competitive Lottery A selection at No. 35. A 6-foot-2 left-handed bat with athleticism to spare, Trammell hit .463 with six homers and 22 steals at Mount Paran Christian School in Kennesaw, Ga., and he fit the high-ceiling mold the Braves have targeted.

It’s unclear where exactly Trammell was positioned on Atlanta’s board, though his name certainly came up in post-draft commentary, but a top-tier position player that fell, likely due to financial reasons and his commitment to play baseball at Georgia Tech, was an ideal scenario for the hometown team that still needs bats and had money to spare.

Coppolella & Co. landed the Gatorade National Player of the Year, a 6-foot-5 Texas left-hander that struck out 36 consecutive batters at one point during his senior season, with the 44th overall pick. Wentz deserves mention here for similar reasons, but it’s difficult to ignore Muller, regardless of his need to develop more consistent secondary pitches at the next level.

LISTEN: #Braves draft pick Handsome Monica explains the background of his name. (Related: I love the draft). https://t.co/VxV6vdrmjV — Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) June 12, 2016

Kyle Muller was arguably the most dominant two-way player in high-school baseball. Plus, he seems destined for "Pitchers Who Rake" fame.