This may be the worst Braves' team ever..

[BallsOfFurry]

Management claimed to be building towards this season, so much for planning.
We signed 2 starting pitchers in their 40s who are at least 7 years past being worth a damn. Their only position players added in the offseason are very low rung bench sitters.

Just what the fuck is going on ?

My take is management started the rebuild 2 years too late and the promised increase in payroll was a lie to get Cobb County to invest 400 million in taxpayers' money to build the new stadium in Cobb.

Here is where it gets down right evil, the project includes a billion or more in the project around the stadium. The Denver area investment company who owns The Braves primary income is from operating mixed use areas such as was built around the stadium to help finance The team down the road. Then when it was too late to pull back these snakes separated all operations of the surrounding properties from The Braves. Now not only will they not have to spend profits on Braves' operations, when they sell The Braves, they keep their properites, while the stadium is stuck in the middle of their properties.

 

[JohnU]

Rebuilds seldom go exactly as planned, many times deviating several times.

 

[BallsOfFurry]

Rebuilds seldom go exactly as planned, many times deviating several times.

No doubt, but the fundamental issues I mentioned like waiting 2 years too long to start the process, clearly to keep fans coming, and far more concerning, ownership's bait and switch con to get the most massive building project in MLB history in Cobb County only to steal the entire project away from the team and now admit they won't raise payroll as they claimed the project was for, long term prospects have taken a major hit.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Sounds really familiar minus the stadium over here if you back a decade or so ago.

 

[tducey]

Some of those late 80's Braves teams were bad as well. 1 and 6 though is not a good start though.

 

[BallsOfFurry]

Some of those late 80's Braves teams were bad as well. 1 and 6 though is not a good start though.

1-6 is bad, but they have a cast off 42 year old starting pitcher and a 43 year old cast off starting pitcher. They have 1 proven starter, a couple of hopefuls and the geezer twins. The bullpen is patched together, they have 1 true star playing 1st, a soon to be star at SS and some decent players, not much more.
I know there is talent in the minors, but I'm wondering if the pitching is what management thought it would be and there isn't much power in the system.

 

[redseat]

I don't think the Braves were considering being competitive this season

 

[JohnU]

I don't think the Braves were considering being competitive this season

I agree though there's no doubt the fans were told they would be, going into the big fiesta surrounding the Cobb Corn Crib or whatever bank owns the rights to the ballpark. It kinda proves that fans will believe almost anything if it comes in a different package. Then again, they could win 78 games.

 

[huskers1217]

I don't think the Braves were considering being competitive this season

we are Eva Longoria away from winning the WS...right @Chewbaccer

 

[Chewbaccer]

We won't be contending for a playoff spot, but we'll be far from the worst Braves team ever. Over/under preseason for wins on the season was 74.5. I bet 500 on the over.

 

[Chewbaccer]

But the OP is clearly retarded anyways.

While, RA Dickey didn't get me excited, Bartolo Colon was pretty damn good last season, and was an excellent signing in regards to mentoring the young pitchers that will be coming up(RA Dickey will probably be cut as soon as the weather turns humid in Georgia. Humidity and his knuckle ball didn't exactly mix when he was with the Mets) along with Folty, who is already in the rotation.

And the only difference in the lineup from the end of last season to now is Brandon Phillips is at second base as a stop gap to get to Ozzie Albies, who will be up at some point this season. Really, the only other position player acquisition of note is Kurt Suzuki, who is an upgrade over Aj Pierzynski/Anthony Recker at backup catcher.

And while we got off to a bit of a slower start than I had hoped for, the offense has been putting a lot of runners on base, and eventually, those will turn in to more runs this season. That 20-10 mark this team put up to close out last season was done with the team ERA being over 5 during that stretch.

Our middle relief is a joke, but when we get Mauricio Cabrera back and call up AJ Minter to go along with Jim Johnson and Aroydis Vizacaino, I'll feel pretty damn good about our bullpen.

Our starting pitching is an issue at the moment. Outside of Teheran, there's really nobody you can be confident in. When Bartolo Colon is on and hitting his spots, he's more than serviceable, but if he's off, he's gonna get smacked around. And When Folty is on, he's near dominant, but when he's off, man is he off.

We're not gonna be playoff contenders, anyone with those expectations for this team were overly optimistic. I predicted between 78 and 82 wins this season, and that's still my prediction for this team.

 

[Chewbaccer]

And waiting two years too long to start the process?

This rebuild started in 2015.

We won 96 games and won the NL East in 2013, and in 2014, we were still contending for the division up until the trading deadline before everything fell apart in August and September.

What were they supposed to do, break up a team that had just won 96 games and won the division during the 2013/2014 offseason? Were they supposed to do a firesale before the trading deadline during the 2014 season while they were still in contention?

Jason Heyward was traded to St Louis about as quickly as it was allowed following the 2014 season and then the firesale happened. It was done about as soon as one could have expected considering the circumstances.

 

[BallsOfFurry]

And waiting two years too long to start the process?

This rebuild started in 2015.

We won 96 games and won the NL East in 2013, and in 2014, we were still contending for the division up until the trading deadline before everything fell apart in August and September.

What were they supposed to do, break up a team that had just won 96 games and won the division during the 2013/2014 offseason? Were they supposed to do a firesale before the trading deadline during the 2014 season while they were still in contention?

Jason Heyward was traded to St Louis about as quickly as it was allowed following the 2014 season and then the firesale happened. It was done about as soon as one could have expected considering the circumstances.

The actual rebuild just started after the 2015 season, but many moves were made even this past offseason as a short term solution. We have 2 starters signed in the offseason who are 42 and 43 years old. Management has been unwilling to admit they are blowing the tesm up, that has It was clear 2 years earlier this was going to be necessary.
Management kept insisting they weren't giving up on the season, which made it impossible to act in the best interest of future seasons.

 

[BallsOfFurry]

we are Eva Longoria away from winning the WS...right @Chewbaccer

Eva could ease the pain of loss if nothing else.

 

[JohnU]

Rebuilds after contending seasons isn't too terribly rare, and sometimes only is confusing in hindsight. The Reds were in the playoffs 3 times in 4 years and haven't had anything resembling a .450 season since 2013 when Dusty was fired for blowing the play-in game. It usually comes down to when contracts are due, not whether the team can win games.

 

[Chewbaccer]

The actual rebuild just started after the 2015 season, but many moves were made even this past offseason as a short term solution. We have 2 starters signed in the offseason who are 42 and 43 years old. Management has been unwilling to admit they are blowing the tesm up, that has It was clear 2 years earlier this was going to be necessary.
Management kept insisting they weren't giving up on the season, which made it impossible to act in the best interest of future seasons.

After the 2015 season is when it started you say?

So trading Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, BJ Upton, Evan Gattis and Craig Kimbrel wasn't the start of the rebuild in your eyes?

And I've already addressed Colon and Dickey. Colon is coming off a strong season and is more than serviceable, and a good mentor for the young pitchers that will be seeing time in the Majors this season. I don't look for Dickey to make it through the summer, but he has some value if he pitches the day before Folty in that going from an 80 MPH knuckle ball to an upper 90's fastball would be a hard adjustment to make for the opposing team.

And many moves were made this past offseason? Only one of note that I can recall was trading literally nothing for Brandon Phillips while the Reds are paying 13 of his 14 million dollar salary for this season(the last year of his contract) and the 10th ranked prospect in all of baseball in Ozzie Albies will be his replacement, and will see some playing time at the big league level this season.

And lastly, why are you posting under an alt account, @TeddyJackEddy ?

 

[Chewbaccer]

Rebuilds after contending seasons isn't too terribly rare, and sometimes only is confusing in hindsight. The Reds were in the playoffs 3 times in 4 years and haven't had anything resembling a .450 season since 2013 when Dusty was fired for blowing the play-in game. It usually comes down to when contracts are due, not whether the team can win games.

In the Braves case, Most of their team was locked up for a few years, with Justin Upton and Jason Heyward being the only major pieces traded who only had one year remaining on his contract if I recall correctly.

But the team fell apart in August and September of 2014, and while I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of rebuilding(I was born in 91, so had never experienced a rebuild before), I understand it was the right move and I really like most of the the trades that were made. On one hand, I was thrilled we got someone to take BJ Upton off our hands along with his contract, but on the other, I know that we had to lump him in with Craig Kimbrel to get that deal done, and that probably weakened the haul we could have gotten for Kimbrel alone. And I hated the Hector Olivera trade, but we did flip him for Matt Kemp, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

 

[JohnU]

Once a team starts going in the wrong direction, it takes several draft cycles to fix it. Everyone is looking for the same thing and the scouts/data crunchers all tend to put the same lists together. Where teams come out is turning a 5th rounder into a steady-eddie kinda player. Often that guy is stuck in the minors for 4 or 5 years, or is a backup being blocked elsewhere. The amateur draft is a bigger crap shoot than winning on a slot machine.

The problem a lot of upper-tier teams of the 2010s had was finishing too high in the standings to get a good look at the top draft picks. The sudden thud can be brutal for franchises that have major front office turnover or are in smaller markets.

Then again, if you look at the Pirates and Royals, both sucked big time for 20 or 25 years ... and all of a sudden, the experts are saying what great scouting they had to be contenders. I mean ... what the fuck ... they had the top picks for 2 fuckin' decades and finally started to win when they traded for a pitcher or two. Same thing in Tampa. Jeez, the first 10 years they were in the league, they were a welfare case. Then they won a couple of divisional titles, got the 26th pick ... and pfffffffffffffffffft ... back to Earth.

 

[thedddd]

Rebuilds after contending seasons isn't too terribly rare, and sometimes only is confusing in hindsight. The Reds were in the playoffs 3 times in 4 years and haven't had anything resembling a .450 season since 2013 when Dusty was fired for blowing the play-in game. It usually comes down to when contracts are due, not whether the team can win games.

Just think after the "the slide" it took the Pirates 20 years.

 

[BallsOfFurry]

After the 2015 season is when it started you say?

So trading Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, BJ Upton, Evan Gattis and Craig Kimbrel wasn't the start of the rebuild in your eyes?

And I've already addressed Colon and Dickey. Colon is coming off a strong season and is more than serviceable, and a good mentor for the young pitchers that will be seeing time in the Majors this season. I don't look for Dickey to make it through the summer, but he has some value if he pitches the day before Folty in that going from an 80 MPH knuckle ball to an upper 90's fastball would be a hard adjustment to make for the opposing team.

And many moves were made this past offseason? Only one of note that I can recall was trading literally nothing for Brandon Phillips while the Reds are paying 13 of his 14 million dollar salary for this season(the last year of his contract) and the 10th ranked prospect in all of baseball in Ozzie Albies will be his replacement, and will see some playing time at the big league level this season.

And lastly, why are you posting under an alt account, @TeddyJackEddy ?

At least you're off the brain dead act.
The early moves were for prospects, not many were projected to be ready in 2017.
Colon and Dickie were basement moves, there is almost no value between them other than as spot fillers.
The organization is long on pitching prospects, but early returns are not great. There are several really good infield prospects, led by Albies, but very little projected power and we're light on outfield prospects.
I see a possible also ran faux contender by 2019, but there are far too many holes in the pipeline to be very confident.
Also the claimed plan to use profits from Cobb to bump up payroll was a con, the project has split from The Braves and Liberty is not going to use the mixed-use project money for The Braves, payroll will remain mid-pack while the real money is shipped back to Denver.
So maybe the team will add a good free agent or 2 at some point, but success will have to come from what we see coming through the system, and I think it might be overrated.