There's was a pretty vocal minority on here screaming why? Why? WHY? on Swanson at the time.
Which ought to tell us all all we need to know about being posters on a message board, and taking ourselves a little too seriously - apparently there aren't many people associated with the team looking here for answers.
That said, there's little doubt that you guys who said so were right about that. I think the reasoning behind Dansby's promotion wasn't as much about whether he was ready to play as it was that the rebuild (at that point with the management that was in place) was ready for him. The young arms, Albies, and Acuna all still needed a good bit of time to develop before being thrown into the fire in any form - even with aggressive promotions at that point.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to defend it (or to explain that they were right for doing so) - but the brass was dealing with a spoiled fanbase while trying to generate massive interest while opening a new park with a team that simply wasn't ready to contend. Everyone already knew Freddie and Julio, and as much as most fans love them, they just weren't going out to the park to see them - they could only be "headliners" to a point. As exciting as Folty is at times fans knew him too, and they were already getting frustrated that his flashes were so few and far between.
They needed another poster boy to show fans that all this exciting young talent was coming, and while he may not have been quite ready, Swanson was the most prepared for the situation - AND he was the one who was least likely to be ruined in the long run by being rushed. Dansby had been through and dealt with all the hype that the others hadn't - #1 pick in the draft, All-American, leader of a big-time college program that's always in the spotlight that had faced big-time competition in the SEC, won a National Championship, College World Series Most Outstanding Player, had shown that he could perform in big games in the CWS - and almost as importantly he'd have a local following regardless of how he performed since he was a hometown kid. He had (and still has) the makeup that makes you confident that struggling at this level isn't going to crush him.
In a perfect world, I don't think many of us would have promoted him when they did based on his performance. Unfortunately this isn't a perfect world, and while we'd all love to have it back, when looking at the circumstances surrounding his promotion I at least understand why they did it.