Practically speaking, how is a team supposed to tank games? Players aren’t going to take it upon themselves to lose games, they don’t neccessarily care about who the team drafts and they’re worried about their stats for their contracts for the next season. And if we’re talking about a manager intentionally making bad decisions or poor lineups that’s not something he’s going to do without the organization knowing, he’d be putting himself in a position to get fired, and he’s also not hugely concerned with who the team drafts because it’ll be years until they play for him. So what we’re talking about is a concerted effort on the part of the organization with the knowledge of probably the manager and at least a few key players, a pitcher or two, maybe a catcher and a first baseman. Basically a conspiracy.
Can you imagine the kind of backlash a team would recieve if knowledge of a conspiracy to lose games became public, and it almost assuredly would with that many people involved. What kind of message does that send to fans? We want to win, just not today? But come spend a bunch of money on our intentionally subpar product anyway? I just can’t concievably see how a team would tank on purpose.

And two less wins will maybe cement the Braves at 5 in the draft instead of six. And it’s theoretical anyway. Who’s to say that Clint Sammons wouldn’t perform well given a couple of weeks of every day playing time? I have no illusions that he’d play up to McCann’s level, but there’s no guarantee that he’s going to contribute 0% to any sort of wins. In fact it’s more plausible that he’d contribute in some way. And we’re really talking about one, maybe two starts for Jurrjens. Even if you go back a couple of starts and shut him down then (and again I see no substantial reason why you’d do this, how is he ever going to learn to push through this late season fatigue later in his career if he’s never been allowed to do it) there’s no guarantee that the guy who replaces him will lose or pitch poorly in every game. In fact, you often see a young pitcher come in an pitch well for his first few starts, based solely on the fact that batter’s haven’t seen him before.
I’m still not seeing how shutting down a few players for tenuous reasons is a guaranteed tank job. You’d need a concerted effort on the part of the organization, manager, and players, and that’s just not going to happen.

Really? The kid’s 24. I’d be shocked if four games at the end of the year (he’s not going to play in all six) are going to wreck his knees. I get that catcher is the toughest position in baseball, but that’s still no reason to go along with officially shutting him down for the rest of the year. He has been playing less all September with Sammons and Miller both on the team. Just like last year at the end he played less. If he says, ‘Hey, I’m tired, I’d like to rest for the end of the season’, that’s one thing, but shutting him down to intentionally tank the end of the season to gain a spot in the draft just doesn’t sound like a plausible idea.