John Hart wants to make this clear: These Braves aren’t nearly a finished product. Heck, the restoration has only begun.
John Hart also wants to make this clear: This work in the early stages of progress is capable of winning some games.
Speaking during batting practice Saturday, the Braves’ new architect — officially, Hart is president of baseball operations — didn’t point to his unbeaten team and say, “See? Told you so.” Hart has been around, and he knows flying starts can be lost over the course of a six-month season.
Still, what Hart hoped would happen eventually has happened immediately: The Braves have spent their first week together playing like a real team, no small feat given that the fourth major trade of the offseason occurred the night before opening day.
“Trading Craig Kimbrel was heart-wrenching,” Hart said. “I was almost in tears. But as a business move, it was the right thing to do.”
On the one hand, the Braves were without their best player, a closer without peer. On the other, they were also rid of Melvin Upton Jr.’s oppressive salary. The $46 million saved by shipping Upton to San Diego — even allowing for the $11 million the Braves will pay Carlos Quentin, a ride-along in the deal, to go away — should hasten the rebuilding.
In the meantime, there was still a season to play. In the Braves’ first game of 2015, Hart said he “smelled a Greek tragedy. It was a 2-1 game and we didn’t have Kimbrel. It was like in the movie, ‘The Natural,’ where the halo and the goat horns are side-by-side. But the Grill Dog (new closer Jason Grilli) did the job.”
Five games into the season, the Braves have yet to lose. (They beat the Mets 5-3 Saturday night.) Even as Hart was saying, “This club isn’t what we want it to be,” he also lauded its “hard-to-define makeup quotient.”
Speaking earlier, manager Fredi Gonzalez said: “Makeup and character is a tool. Sometimes we forget that. You buy the other stuff (meaning talent), but that stuff (makeup, character) is important.”
Skeptics — I’m one — will note that makeup and character are the ineffable qualities that get extolled when a team lacks the stuff that can be measured, like power. But credit Hart and deputy John Coppolella for this: They shed major talents in Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Evan Gattis and Kimbrel, but they left enough for the remnants to stand a fighting chance.
This being baseball, it starts with pitching. “We can go 1 through 4 with the rotation and 7-8-9 (meaning innings) with Jim Johnson and Jason Grilli,” Hart said. So long as the pitching keeps the Braves close — and this 5-0 team has yet to trail — there’s enough of a lineup to be competitive. And these Braves have hung their collective hat on competing.
Hart: “I liked the energy and the dynamics coming out of spring training. I didn’t know how it was going to translate to W’s and L’s, and I still don’t. But this club is going to play the game the right way. Guys in that clubhouse are going to hold each other accountable.”
Then: “We’re not a perfect club. Sometimes I wear my observer’s hat, and as an observer the thing that jumps out is the great feeling they have for playing the game. There’s going to be a lot of want-to.”
Then: “We have good makeup guys. My hope was that it would come together the way it has.”
Both Gonzalez and Hart pointed to two plays in Friday’s victory over the Mets: Jonny Gomes — who has become something of a talisman — taking second on a fly ball to center and Jace Peterson breaking for third and pressuring David Wright to make a choice. Wright chose wrongly, opting to try and tag Peterson rather than throwing to first to retire Andrelton Simmons. Hustle plays. Exciting plays. Winning plays.
“I don’t want to come across as saying I don’t think we have talent,” Hart said. “We do have talent. … It’s going to be a team that’s fun to watch, a team people are going to want to pull for.”
As noted, I’m skeptical. But winning has a way of turning skeptics into believers. The Braves needed a good start and have gotten it. Let’s see where they go from here.
