I don't get the apparent baseball nihilism I'm seeing here where nothing is real, everything is chance and the FO knows best even if the duck quacks.
I've never said that a "take it down to the paint" type rebuild would lead to a guaranteed WS title. I have said and will continue to say that given the circumstances of the Braves, (low minor league talent, limited money, ML talent in the window where they are young and valuable at the time of the rebuild but likely older and less valuable at the time of realistically competing again), then a complete committed rebuild would be far better in the long run and have a better chance of success than some half assed, appease the masses, create the illusion of competing, reload ever would.
If the Braves do in fact have plans to infuse about an extra $50M in payroll in the offseason, then their rebuild strategy might appear to have some minimal chance of success. Let's say they trade a package for Josh Donaldson (lets say it takes Allard, Riley and Pache) and extended him for 4 years $100M then signed a rotation anchor like Arrieta or Darvish for an AAV of $25M. You might then see a team of : CF Inciarte, 2B Albies, LF Acuna, 1B Freeman, 3B Donaldson, RF Kemp/Markakis, C Flowers/Suzuki, SS Swanson with a staff of SP: Arrieta, Teheran, Folty, Gohara, Newcomb/Sims and a RP of: Viz, Johnson, Freeman, Minter, Ramirez, Morris, plus can Snit and bring in a real ML manager, then you might have a team that could actually win enough to be exciting in September. And that might justify the strategy that they have followed since Markakis and Flowers cycle out after 2018, Kemp and Teheran after 2019 and presumably Freeman, Donaldson and Arrieta sometime after 2021/2022. That team would be risky since a lot would be on the shoulders of Donaldson, Arrieta and Freeman remaining healthy, happy and productive. It's not the way I would have gone. But, an argument can be made that something like that team would make sense.
However, it would only be possible IF the payroll rises enough to allow the possibility which doesn't appear to be in the cards.
Outside of making significant add moves like those, then the Braves main core reliance falls on the production of the good (Freeman and Inciarte - but how much more can they give?) and the bad/old (Markakis, Kemp, Flowers, Teheran, Folty and Dickey).
The young guys will help and the positions that they play will be better. But can they offset the likelihood of the decline in the positions that they don't play?
We will likely know the odds of the near term success of the rebuild/reload after this winter. If the Braves have spent money to improve then it's possible but not guaranteed that the near term rebuild will have a chance.
If they don't spend any money and add significant good ML ready star type (not necessarily superstar) talent, then the near term rebuild isn't going to work which means the long term rebuild is what you get and if you get that then it is almost certain that the better move would have been to tear it down to the paint and build up again from the foundation, taking the time needed to do it right.
