Nobody thought the Braves were going to be good, but I doubt anyone is going to let GM John Coppolella and baseball boss John Hart forget that both said they team would be better. Qualitatively the Braves look better lately, but quantitatively they remain on track for a historically bad season.
The Braves are promising better things to come when their prospects bloom, and maybe enough of their customers are buying into that vision that they can stomach what they see now. But I wonder if both the credibility of the team's front office and the franchise's brand will be severely damaged by the time the plan pays off, if it does. History shows the Braves shouldn't count on their major real-estate business , Cobb Taxpayer Stadium, to keep their customers interested in bad baseball for long.
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The Astros and Cubs most often cited as the models the Braves are following — pain now, pay-off later. But the Astros and Cubs were bad during their rebuilds, but never as bad as the Braves are now. They never felt pain this deep for this long.
The Braves' final tear-down can be considered that day last July when they traded Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson (which certainly is how the players viewed it at the time). The Braves are 26-59 (.306) since then. Even in their darkest days the rebuilding Cubs and Astros didn't lose that much.
The Cubs were 43-59 (.411) when Theo Epstein began the rebuild in earnest by trading Paul Maholm and Ryan Dempster. From that point through the end of 2013 the Cubs were 84-138 (.378). That's bad, but not Braves bad. The Cubs won 73 games in 2014 and then 97 in 2015.
The Astros sort of started their rebuild in 2011, but accelerated to full tear-down mode when they hired Jeff Luhnow from the Cardinals. The Astros were 106-218 (.327) over the next two seasons — very bad but still not Braves bad — before winning 70 games in 2015 and 86 in 2015.
Even during those dreadful 2012 and 2013 seasons the Astros had two only months (July and August 2012) that were worse than the Braves in August 2015 (.286) and the Braves so far in April 2016 (.211). The Astros lost 46 games at home in 2012 and 57 in 2013. The Braves are 1-11 at home and need to go 23-46 the rest of the way to avoid tying the 162-game record of 58 home losses by the 1962 Mets.
It’s reasonable to believe that bad is bad, so what does it matter if the Braves now are worse than the Astros and Cubs. You can say you understand the rebuild and accept the short-term ugliness no matter how bad it gets. But I also can't blame anyone who believes the Braves were right to rebuild but have taken the tear-down too far, especially considering the way the front office oversold the product in each of the past two offseasons.
Hart may get a pass for talking up the 2015 Braves before that Craig Kimbrel trade landed in his lap, but his declaration that the 2016 Braves could be 15 to 20 wins better is a bit much. The same goes for Coppolella's insistence that the 2016 Braves have a better roster than the 2015 Braves.
Things could get better this season for the Braves. Freddie Freeman should eventually start hitting for power again. Ender Inciarte will return soon (though he's not going to help the power deficiency). There was a sighting of the old Julio Teheran on Monday night, so maybe the Braves will have at least one effective, consistent starter going forward.
The best reason to believe the Braves will start winning again is they have yet to play the other five NL teams who also are in various stages of rebuilding/tanking: the Phillies, Brewers, Reds, Padres and Rockies. The Braves can stake their fortunes on the opposition being equally bad, but that's not what they were selling for this year.
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