There are 29 other teams in the major leagues and according to those who drive revenues in Las Vegas sportsbooks, 25 of them have a better chance to win the World Series than the Braves.
So adjust your expectations. The bar hasn’t been this low since Jeff Francoeur descended from the heavens and then kept going, and Mike Hampton told team doctors, “It hurts when I go like this. And also like this. And this. And this …”
John Hart, the Braves’ president of baseball operations and radical makeovers, said early in spring training: “Nobody’s picking the Braves. I understand that doesn’t mean the Braves aren’t picking the Braves.”
Actually, I’m pretty sure they’re not. The team’s own radio ads more often allude to the scheduled opening of a new stadium in 2017 than to the team that will be on the field in 2015. It’s easier to sell the certainty of free Wi-Fi, freshly painted walls and a variety of overpriced dining options than it is the upside of, say, Max Fried.
Hart was on point in December when he said, “It’s not like I’m breaking up the ’27 Yankees.” The Braves scored the second-fewest runs in the majors (3.5 per game), had the fourth-most strikeouts (8.5 per game) and had the collective fifth-lowest batting average (.241). Welcome to your nightmare, Kevin Seitzer.
But the ceiling has been lowered. The Braves underachieved with a lineup that included Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Evan Gattis and B.J. Upton. So Hart traded the three players he could for mostly prospects and kept the one no other team would take.
The bad news: In making a decision to tear down and start over, Hart removed most hope for success.
The good news: When a team is projected to lose 88 to 90 games, it’s difficult to underachieve again.
“We’re going in a whole different direction,” said Freddie Freeman, one of the few proven commodities left on the roster. “We’re going to have a young team. You might see some growing pains during the season but I think we’ll be an exciting and fun team to watch. I truly believe that. I know a lot of people are writing us off. But we’re going to be out there every single day playing and we’re not coming in here trying to lose.”
When asked if he was concerned about a lack of protection in the lineup, Freeman said, “If the guys in front of me get on base, they can’t pitch around me. Everyone says I’ve got no protection but we have some truly top-of-the-order guys now who can cause havoc. So I could get more strikes.”
Ah, the optimism of spring.
This much is true. If the Braves pull this off, if they score more runs and win more games and the pitching is as outstanding as it has been in almost every season since Roger McDowell’s arrival as the team’s pitching Yoda, this will be one of the great stories of the season.
Freeman is right. This could be “fun to watch,” to some degree. It’s new. It’s fresh. Hey, when there’s a chance that manager Fredi Gonzalez will set records for lineups and batting orders, it can’t help but be fresh.
The challenge for fans will be processing that this season’s team isn’t nearly the finished product. Hart and assistant general manager John Coppolella haven’t even framed out the house, let alone sheet-rocked and painted. It’s only a starting point.
There could be platoons at every position except first base (Freeman) and shortstop (Andrelton Simmons). Nick Markakis is expected to be the everyday right fielder, but I have a thing about assuming 155 starts for players coming off December neck surgery. His first batting practice came on March 20.
Hart and Coppolella, the general manager in waiting, will tinker throughout the season. Whether they make another major move — like dealing a great-but-unnecessary commodity like closer Craig Kimbrel before the trade deadline — may depend less on the team’s actual win total than a feel for direction. But Kimbrel seems OK with all of this.
“Right now, we just have to find out who we are,” he said. “It’ll be different, but it’ll be a good different — different mentalities, different attitude around the locker room. I think we’ll have a lineup that can go out there and kind of grind, put some stress on the other team’s pitchers.”
Seitzer is the new hitting coach. He replaces Greg Walker, who replaced Larry Parrish, who replaced Terry Pendleton. He’s a good guy. He has a solid resume. Still, I hope he’s renting.
Seitzer believes he can make the Braves more effective, higher-percentage hitters, even though he actually wants them to be aggressive. “If you take a hitter’s aggressiveness away, you might as well shoot them in the head,” he said.
It’s good to have convictions.
The product will debut Monday in Miami. Rare is the season that the Marlins (82 1/2) are picked to win more games than the Braves (73 1/2). Maybe the local team will surprise us. But set the bar low.
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