How did we get here?

[Enscheff]

The first signs of the FO members being in the hot seat have surfaced. There are reports of internal friction, power struggles, and management shakeups.

But why? Why is there drama in year 3 of a rebuild when rebuilds commonly take 4-5 years to complete?

The answer is that this was never supposed to be a 4-5 year rebuild. From day 1, this was supposed to be a 2-3 year rebuild that saw the Braves competitive in 2017.

Let's recap events...

Early/mid 2013, the Braves decide to move to Cobb county. They were in the midst of a 96 win season, and were routinely drawing ~2.5M fans to Turner Field every season. The decision to move was almost certainly made with projections of the typical 20%-25% attendance boost teams see with new parks baked into the ROI calculations. This means the projected attendance figure was around 3M+. That higher attendance figure, coupled with lower stadium maintenance costs, are what drove the decision to move the team into the new park.

Then 2014 happened. The team missed the playoffs by only winning 79 games (we would kill for that now), and it was decided the combination of the current MLB contracts and poor minor league system would make it nearly impossible to compete in 2017 when the new park opened, and a losing team could not draw the projected 3M+ fans. Frank Wren was fired as a result.

The Braves decided to rebuild before the 2015 season. But wait...rebuilds take 4-5 years, and they couldn't be in the middle of a rebuild when the new park opened and risk poor attendance. The solution? A 2-3 year rebuild! Surely the Braves FO was so much smarter than everyone else they could rebuild in 2-3 years when every other organization in baseball takes 4-5 years to rebuild. They convinced upper management it could be done (they had the legendary JS, Cox, and Hart, and the boy-genius Coppy, after all), and so it began.

Every move the Braves made during the rebuild had an eye towards winning in 2017. CJ's contract was unloaded for contracts that expired earlier. BJ's contract was unloaded by hitching him to Kimbrel. Markakis was signed to play RF in 2017. Olivera was acquired to play 3B in 2017. Teheran was kept to anchor the rotation in 2017. Kemp was acquired to bat 4th in 2017. A trio of serviceable SPs were paid $30M+ to fill out the 2017 rotation. Swanson and Albies were promoted without any concern for maximizing their years of organizational control.

A lot of resources that should have been used to build for the future (2019+) were used to build for 2017. The prospects that were supposed to help win in 2017 have almost all flopped. And the Braves are still losing. And attendance is nowhere near 3M in the brand new shiny ball park.

And now we are starting to see the Braves FO pay the consequences.

[Chico]

You really needed a thread to say the same thing you've been saying over and over again?

We see you. We hear you. You are important.

[rico43]

You had me until you brought organizational control into the mix. It suddenly became blahblahblahblah...

Show me something. Describe what you would have done.

You have no idea how tiresome all this hindsight groaning has become. Many of us agree with much of what you say. Geez, isn't that enough?

[JxnMissFan]

I'm usually positive about the direction of the front office. But their management of veteran players and payroll is terrible. They traded kimbrel, Simba, CJ and BJ in the name of saving money and got the big money contracts Kemp, Swisher, Bourn, HO (30 mil for a rookie is a big market luxury), four years of neck and fat Bart. They would have been better off eating BJ and CJ's money.
Those short term big contracts have made it impossible to build a decent bullpen and bench.

[Chico]

I'm usually positive about the direction of the front office. But their management of veteran players and payroll is terrible. They traded kimbrel, Simba, CJ and BJ in the name of saving money and got the big money contracts Kemp, Swisher, Bourn, HO (30 mil for a rookie is a big market luxury), four years of neck and fat Bart. They would have been better off eating BJ and CJ's money.
Those short term big contracts have made it impossible to build a decent bullpen and bench.

This is where I disagree. That's exactly what we should be doing. We have avoided long term contracts as much as we could, and focused on staying fluid. The Kemp deal is the difference. We backloaded with our money received, so I'm hoping that's a sign of when we planned on money being better and payroll increasing in 2018. That's the only contract hurting us.

[chop2chip]

Hard to disagree with much in the OPs initial post other than I'm sure the powers at be were aware of the possibility that 2017 would flop, hence why the primary use of resources have been spent on the farm system and we haven't spent any of those resources to acquire players through trade.

[Enscheff]

You really needed a thread to say the same thing you've been saying over and over again?

We see you. We hear you. You are important.

I realize this recent news is upsetting for some of you that just had your head yanked out of the pozzy-sand momentarily and are now trying to plunge it right back in as fast as you can. If it's easier for you to say things like, "these title changes mean nothing", "they weren't really trying to win in 2017", and, "the rebuild is going just as planned", then that's certainly your right.

I apologize for being right about this rebuild from the start, and I hope they can right the ship.

Please delete this topic if it makes you guys feel better.

[Chico]

Dude, you are a trip, but the obsession with being right is not healthy. Get out and enjoy life

[50PoundHead]

I've always thought 2017 was a total pipe dream and have been consistent in my assessment that it's going to be 2020 before we are serious contenders. We could sneak into a second wild card in 2019, but a lot of things would have to go right for us and wrong for a lot of other teams. I think we are drafting fairly well and have some, but not many, good-to-very good hitting prospects, so having a team that has some foundational pieces in place isn't out of the question for next year.

That said, I'm not going to get riled up about it.

[Enscheff]

Dude, you are a trip, but the obsession with being right is not healthy. Get out and enjoy life

Funny coming from a guy who is also sitting here posting on a message board haha. Difference is, I'm killing time at the end of my work day. What are you not enjoying in real life to be here?

If you were ever right, maybe you could post about it too.

[Horsehide Harry]

I don't think Enscheff is doing any hindsight groaning. It's more like "I told you so." And nobody likes to hear someone say "I told you so."

Except me. Because I told you so as well. If you go back to when this all started there were a number of us telling everyone how short sighted, wrong headed and stupid the whole idea of the "reload" was. And I've been saying it ever since and will continue to say it because I'm sickened by what's been going on with my team.

The idea of having to rebuild in the first place is sickening to most, especially in the current short attention span days that we live in. So, it should never be entered into lightly. If you find yourself in the position of having to rebuild you cannot be timid about it and you can't change your mind or hurry the process half way through.

The Braves found themselves in baseball purgatory...not good enough to really compete, not bad enough to clearly have to rebuild. They had some good players in Freddie, Heyward, JUpton, etc. but not nearly enough and some of those were well on their way out with no real internal replacement and no money to add from outside the organization. And the vaunted pitching took hit after hit and was verging on disaster. So, IMO rebuilding was the right answer unless they could convince Liberty to cough up another $40M or so based on the prospect of being able to build a team that would weather the storm long enough for the revenue from the new stadium to begin to carry the new burden.

The Braves tried to finesse the rebuild and shorten it based on being smarter than everyone else and getting some good luck. It hasn't worked.

If you look at 2018: Kemp, Markakis & Flowers almost certainly will be worse, not better, yet will play every day because of what they are paid. Freddie and Inciarte likely will be somewhere around what they are now which is good but not carry the team single handedly good. Who knows who the 3B will be. If it's Phillips you can almost assuredly pencil him in to be worse. If it's Camargo, he will likely be worse than Phillips of 2017. Who knows what you will get out of Swanson and Albies. But, let's say you get 2 WAR each. That likely doesn't offset the decline seen elsewhere in the lineup.

As for pitching, I think it clear that Folty is Folty. Teheran, even if he improves, isn't a star. Dickey, if kept, will be 45. Newcomb, Sims, Wisler, Blair, etc all look like projects at best.

You have an anchor chain in Johnson in the pen and a bunch of mostly untested journeymen and prospects.

The manager is not good.

The payroll doesn't appear to have any flexibility.

This team will likely finish in the high 60's, low 70's win total. Even IF Acuna is a star right away and Soroka, Fried and Allard come up some time in 2018 and don't embarrass themselves, what improvement do you really see? 5 wins? 10?

So, let's call it, best case, 10 win improvement. Your Atlanta Braves of 2018 would then be knocking on the door of .500. Not contention. Just mediocrity.

This thing can still be saved but it is going to take some smart moves and hard choices and I haven't seen any of that out of this FO lately.

[NYCBrave]

Dude, you are a trip, but the obsession with being right is not healthy. Get out and enjoy life

This guy is such a trip. He literally created a thread to brag about how right he was. You can tell he loves himself. Like we didn't hear him saying the exact thing in every other thread.

P.S. You can see how much of an ego maniac this guy is by how little he uses the "Thanks" button compared to everyone else. With all the time spent on this board, can literally never acknowledge anyone else has a good point. Sad

[Southcack77]

Harry,

You were indeed upset that the braves didn't completely tear down this team, including trading Freeman and Teheran. And on paper I would agree that might have been a way of better creating a core for the future.

That future certainly would not have been in 2018, 2019, or probably 2020, but maybe there would have been a few more pieces to work with after that point.

But when you say the rebuild can be saved--- let me just point out again that the Braves still have a top three farm system including a top three individual prospect.

There are plenty of prospects to come and very little payroll dedicated past 2019. As long as the braves don't screw things ip by committing money to the wrong people they should have the beginnings of a cheap core and a lot of payroll to work with at that point.

They might well screw it up but this is not a process that has reached a dead end.

My least favorite deal is the Kemp deal though it will free payroll for the 2020 season.

I have respect for the theory of a complete tear down with no concern at all for winning at all for a long long time, but that's not something that was going to happen here, perhaps unfortunately. I dig the extreme thinking i do though.

[Eyeman]

That was some pretty linked relationships between wanting the rebuild to be further along by now. But I think you could put together something similar implying that we were looking at the year 2020.


Due to incredibly bad luck with core pitcher going down (Medlen, Beachy, Minor, etc), it became clear the Braves young soon to be expensive team was in trouble. About this same time, a new stadium deal came up. The plan was to rebuild through the draft, the international draft, and signing high upside players. We'd reassemble our old team of scouts and go back to emphasizing pitching since young pitching is the most valuable asset in baseball.

Since the new stadium deal will be opening during the middle of the rebuild, we'll need to put some good names on the field and make it appear to the easy to confuse fan that we want to have a good team on the field by 2017 so that attendance will not flounder too bad. We'd know it would be likely that we would not get that much of our future core when offloading our upcoming free agents since teams typically refuse to give up top prospects for soon to expire contracts. We'll hold onto a couple of our more popular younger players also to make it appear that we are not giving up. As 2019 and 2020 approach the big name players we picked up will be gone so we'll have money to sign a few players and to extent those that will be our future core.

[Julio3000]

Yeah, on the real tip, regardless of what the FO has hinted at, nobody really though we were contending til '19 or '20, right?

I'm not letting the FO off the hook, mind you. They played a silly game with 2017 and haven't helped our future in the process.

[Horsehide Harry]

Harry,

You were indeed upset that the braves didn't completely tear down this team, including trading Freeman and Teheran. And on paper I would agree that might have been a way of better creating a core for the future. I was wrong about trading Freeman but right about trading Teheran. My view was a true target to be good would be beginning in 2018 with the likelihood of being 2019-20. By then, Teheran, even if good, will be finishing control and Freeman will be past his prime.

That future certainly would not have been in 2018, 2019, or probably 2020, but maybe there would have been a few more pieces to work with after that point. Agreed. But that's what it's going to be anyway. The FO tried to short circuit that and lost the gamble. It could have happened but was never a good gamble.

But when you say the rebuild can be saved--- let me just point out again that the Braves still have a top three farm system including a top three individual prospect. By saving the rebuild, I mean if they come to their senses and recommit to the rebuild and abandon this reload BS. Even if they've quit talking reload, their actions still say they are trying to do it. At best, saving the rebuild will result in a competitive delay since they have to shuffle out Kemp and Markakis and Dickey and maybe Teheran so they can free money to get players who could really contribute to being better along with giving appropriate time to the young players development. In any case, the actions thus far have likely shortened the Braves competitive window if it ever arrives.

There are plenty of prospects to come and very little payroll dedicated past 2019. As long as the braves don't screw things ip by committing money to the wrong people they should have the beginnings of a cheap core and a lot of payroll to work with at that point. Sure. Again a clear indicator that the drive to be competitive in 2017 was wasteful and hurtful. The issue you run into with waves of talent arriving circa 2019 and beyond is that the real current talent of the Braves (Freeman, Inciarte) will be in the decline periods of their career by then, on their way closer to FA and not cheap. Part of rebuilding is timing. The FO has completely bungled timing.

They might well screw it up but this is not a process that has reached a dead end. A drowning man drags others down. What I expect is the FO to go all in for 2018 to show progress going with short sighted moves for short term gain. After all, unless you have a job in 2019 and beyond, why worry about 2019 and beyond and if you make it to 2019 then you worry about 2019 then. If you see the Braves make some goofy assed move like trading for a fading and expensive star with no real increase in payroll room then you will know. For instance, if you see a Allard, Fried, Pache trade for Donaldson with no real payroll increase or ability or intention to keep Donaldson then you will know they've punted the rebuild to save their jobs. Don't get me wrong, a Donaldson trade would make the 2018 more competitive and if everything goes just right they might squeeze into a possible WC shot, but unless he's going to be around for 3-4 years, then it's just a panic move.

My least favorite deal is the Kemp deal though it will free payroll for the 2020 season. I can't say Kemp deal without the HO deal. To me it's one long very bad deal sequence. Somebody had a good view of the inside of their backside.

I have respect for the theory of a complete tear down with no concern at all for winning at all for a long long time, but that's not something that was going to happen here, perhaps unfortunately. I dig the extreme thinking i do though. And I understand the need to build illusions for the sake of the new park. It could have been done differently though. No one is perfect and I don't expect the Braves FO to be. I expect there to be errors made. But, the Braves don't appear to have a coherent, logical, useful and stable plan based on reality. The plan thus far appears to be based on wishes, demands, hopes and gambles, few of which have gone the Braves way.

That's how I see it.

[Enscheff]

This guy is such a trip. He literally created a thread to brag about how right he was. You can tell he loves himself. Like we didn't hear him saying the exact thing in every other thread.

P.S. You can see how much of an ego maniac this guy is by how little he uses the "Thanks" button compared to everyone else. With all the time spent on this board, can literally never acknowledge anyone else has a good point. Sad

Hey genius, how do I thank posts on the mobile site?

[Hawk]

Hey genius, how do I thank posts on the mobile site?

You view the mobile site in desktop mode, genius.

[thethe]

You view the mobile site in desktop mode, genius.

Wouldn't a computer programmer know how to toggle from a mobile site view to a desktop view?

[Enscheff]

Wouldn't a computer programmer know how to toggle from a mobile site view to a desktop view?

lol yes, I'll flip over just to thank you guys from now on.