This continues to be one of the most ridiculous statements put forth around here. Not just you CJ9, but this line of thinking simply isn't true. A whole lot of people around here remain handcuffed to the idea that the brass EXPECTED to be competitive as early as next year. Regardless of where each person falls in respect to what they feel they were "told", they (Coppy, Hart, JS) only ever said that something like that was a "shoot for the moon" possibility. IF Albies and Swanson were able to be above average that quickly, Mallex turned into what he appeared he was turning into before getting hurt, and they were able to add another significant piece or two would that have ever been possible. They also said all along that they were going to rush NO ONE and there was no specific timeline. Lots of people conveniently choose to ignore this. They did expect this season to be better than last, and rightfully so. If you look at how Inciarte and Aybar have performed since returning from their injuries, there's little reason not to understand why there was some optimism. The list of players who have underperformed expectations is long and dignified - Olivera, Aybar, Inciarte, Pierzynski, Markakis, Grilli, and Jim Johnson were "proven veterans", and if they'd put up the numbers on the backs of their baseball cards you'd have expected this team to be much better than it was in April and May.
This is where most people need to take a breath and adjust their definition of "being competitive". The Braves are the 6th youngest team in MLB (
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rosters) WITH Pierzynski, Markakis, Aybar, Francoeur, and Johnson on the roster - and NONE of those players will be here in 2017. The young players are going to struggle as they adjust to playing at the highest level, no matter how well the veterans you surround them with perform. When those veterans play badly (as ours have), it makes it that much harder for the kids because they feel like the team's struggles are their fault - and they press. We've seen this every day, and I have trouble believing people didn't expect to see that.
There are lots of folks who continually criticize the front office for creating "unrealistic expectations", but the only people who ever thought becoming a playoff contender by next season either really don't know much about development time and learning curves (which typically eliminates most posters here since I feel fairly confident that they are brighter than the average fan who's access to information stops at DOB and Bowman), or believe that the addition of players like Cespedes/Myers/Desmond/etc. could be coming. Even if you added those types of players, you're STILL only going to go as far as the young arms can take you - and we all know that will take time.
Rio Ruiz, Jace Peterson, Mallex Smith, Dustin Peterson, Austin Riley, Lucas Herbert, Jonathon Morales, Derian Cruz, Christian Pache, Ender Inciarte, Dansby Swanson, Brett Cumberland, Kevin Maitan, Yunior Severino, Abrahan Gutierrez, and Yenci Pena have all been added SINCE the rebuild began. Will any of them turn into All-Stars? Who knows? Outside of Jace and Ender, they all are projectable - even if only as "league average" performers - and all are VERY young. At least a couple of them are likely going to turn into above-average players (with "star" upside).
The thing is, if anyone's looking for a time for this team to become a legitimate contender WITHOUT going outside the organization, they should see that it's always been more realistically 2018/2019 at the EARLIEST (and that's almost entirely dependent on Maitan's development). Trading Julio or Freddie might very well add a couple of young bats, but that still wouldn't substantially affect that timeline. Gallo/Benintendi/Moncada/etc. won't be able to fill all the holes by themselves, and removing one of the two (or both) creates more holes AND requires even more development time to fill them.
