I think it's safe to say that the "rebuild" wasn't going to plan even before Coppygate. Some things have worked out well - the ascendance of Acuna, the good play of Albies, the emergence of Freeman as a yearly star candidate, the good play of Inciarte after the supposed "fleecing" of Arizona in the Miller trade, etc. But for every thing that has gone right there has been something that has gone wrong, some terribly wrong - the HO trade, the Simmons trade (not Newk necessarily but the lack of a better return for a player of Simmons' capability), the Markakis signing (not that he's been terrible per se but that the reasoning behind signing him was never good), the compounding of the HO error by bringing in Kemp, the rush to try to be competitive therefore missing opportunities to get better long term at the expense of short term, the faceplant of many pitching prospects and the delayed arrival of others, etc. then you have Coppygate.
So, if you stand back and look at the full tapestry then the Braves actions only make sense IF they planned to significantly increase payroll in 2018 and 2019 by adding necessary FA to fill holes to make the team good. If they never had that in the plans then the whole actions of the rebuild really make no sense.
Well, now we are where we are with 2017 falling, apparently, below revenue expectations with rumblings from the FO that payroll would not increase but potentially decrease between 2017 and 2018, even before Coppygate broke. Which calls further into question the wisdom of any of the win-now moves made along the way the last three years.
And, now we come to Coppygate. It's apparent Coppy and his minions got caught misbehaving. And I, like many, believe that he was headed for the door before this convenient excuse presented itself. But, you have to question how much of what he did, whatever that is, was a direct result of the strategy mandated by the upper FO to "reload" instead of "rebuild" but from a starting point of a poor minor league system and limited money both short term and long term. In other words, could the Braves get to the desired location, given assets short and long term, without breaking the rules along the way?
So now, where does it all go? Coppygate provides a built in excuse for failure - "things were going well before Coppy went off the reservation." And it looks like the Braves want to hire a "baseball guy" to run the FO, not a "rebuild guy." So, the rebuild is over apparently. But, should it be? If you look at this team and accept that the budget isn't going to grow anytime soon, can this team not only become competitive but stay competitive for a window of opportunity?
As they say, anything's possible. But the Braves are now in the realm of relying very heavily on the arrival of good luck - they get an ace or two from their current pitching crop (instead of good serviceable ML arms), Acuna plays at All-Star levels very quickly, the new FO makes all the right moves and keeps the good ones while getting others to take the bad ones... Good Luck is always a factor. But, the amount that you have to rely on good luck is a very big part of the success equation.
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