Off-Day Open Thread 9/14: It's never too early to look ahead

Here we are, folks -- We've reached late September. The weather's starting to cool down, but the races around baseball are heating up. The battle in the AL West is certainly interesting, as the Cinderella-story Astros are trying their hardest to hold off the hard-charging Rangers. The Blue Jays are trying their best to make sure that the Yankees don't spoil the party of seeing a new team win the AL East, and don't look now but the Pirates are only two-and-a-half games behind the Cardinals for the NL Central lead.

However, we all know that none of the cool kids like us care about those races. Not when we've got an absolute humdinger of a race going on for the #1 pick in the 2016 draft! As of this moment, the Braves and the Phillies are currently tied with a record of 56-88. I know I've said this a few times now, but it really is astonishing to see this team go from being respectable to arguably Quad-A in just a matter of two months. A while back, the #1 pick seemed like a pipe dream. Now, it's a legit possibility and one that the Braves will probably have to be prepared for. This could actually happen, y'all -- The Braves could legitimately finish the season as the worst team in baseball, and could finish with 100~ losses, to boot.

Now, the good news is that when the present's this bad, you at least have the future to look forward to. While it may be painful to watch Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, and the rest of this motley crew slog through the remaining 18 games left in this campaign, it's fun to dream about what could be coming in the future. Baseball America recently published an interesting article on two possible candidates for the #1 pick in next season's draft (and they're both pitchers. Yeah, I know, the Braves totally need more pitching after the 2015 draft, right?): Riley Pint and Jason Groome. Here's an excerpt from the article, which I highly suggest that you guys go read if you haven't already:

Riley Pint or Jason Groome? Who’s the better prospect? Who would you rather have?

"That’s the great thing," Hyde said. "No one knows."

When Hyde thinks Pint-Groome, he thinks of another question, before the 2007 draft: Matt Harvey or Rick Porcello? Both major leaguers came from Hyde’s Northeast area, both first rounders—Porcello out of high school in 2007; Harvey out of North Carolina in 2010.

"One would pitch on Wednesday, and one would pitch on the following Monday, and it’d be, ‘OK, who’s going to be the better guy this week?’" Hyde said. "And I think it’s going to be the same for those guys."

So, what do you think: It's still super, super early to be thinking about this, but do you think either of these guys will look good wearing the Tomahawk across their chest in the future? Or do you think that the Braves should go in a different direction? If you're a draftnik, then this is your night.

Of course, there's still a lot of other baseball-related stuff to discuss. The Phillies are playing the Nationals tonight, so you may want to keep an eye on that game for draft position purposes and schadenfreude as well. Go ahead and talk about anything you want, people -- The floor's yours!