Ding!
Yes, the Braves did remarkable things with pitching in the 90s. But, go back and look at the team DER during the decade, and you'll see they dominated as much or more DEFENSIVELY than in pitching. This is what happens when an organization RECOGNIZES a competency, and instead of concentrating all their energy on fixing their incompetencies, they concentrate on maximizing their positive.
Yes, they had three young, stellar pitchers to build around. But, they continued bringing in or bringing up random arms for almost 15 years with often-times mind-boggling results. Mazzone got a ton of credit for the results, (and he deserves some credit). But, the REAL "secret" was that the Braves *REFUSED* to relax on defense in order to bolster the offense. Oh, they'd bring in the occasional big bat -- but they targeted them for 1B or RF ... the defensive throw-away positions. And when they weren't happy with the defense up-the-middle, they swapped it out quickly and efficiently -- and ALWAYS with an eye toward maintaining defensive quality.
I personally track the Braves reign ending DIRECTLY to the club electing to de-value its defense during the 2000s. The standard take is the pitching got old and crapped out and they just did a bad job of replacing it. But, as great as those arms were, they were supported by league leading defenses nearly every season. As the DER plunged, so did the Braves' win totals.
From a management standpoint, most orgs, (baseball or not), tend to focus on what they do POORLY, and are constantly directing time, energy and resources to these areas. While this sounds perfectly reasonable, (and I have often noted that building a roster, you want to dump your worst players first) -- there is a COST associated with fixation on the negative. That's time and energy NOT spent on the things that are working -- and NEGLECT can allow those things to crumble.
Yes, you need to address problems. But NOT to the exclusion of the good. The best organizations find ways to not only reward for excellence, but to also make sure everyone in the organization knows what is being rewarded. The impact is to incentivize excellence, instead of glorifying failure -- which is what happens in the worst cases.
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