Here’s how to fail Logic 101 — by making the following fallacious argument:
The Braves are having a terrible season; ergo, the Braves’ rebuild is doomed.
The first part is fact. These first 40-some games have been awful, from the historically lousy record to the arrest of Hector Olivera to the ungainly firing of an affable manager to Erick Aybar getting a chicken bone stuck in his throat. Can't sugarcoat any of that. Won't even try.
The conclusion, however, is akin to saying, “I’m having a bad day, so every day for the rest of my life will just as bad.” Times change. Not all days are dark. Not all seasons are hellish. What we’re seeing isn’t necessarily what we will see.
This wretched season will have little bearing on 2017 and beyond. If they’re smart, bad teams can get better. (Recent examples: Cubs, Mets, Astros.) Just because John Coppolella and John Hart fired Fredi Gonzalez doesn’t make them dunces or ogres. Did a manager whose teams had gone 106-168 since July 5, 2014 — that dates to the reign of Frank Wren — deserve tenure?
Gonzalez didn't fit what the Two Johns have in mind. That can happen with rebuilding teams. (Fredi G. seemed to know it. He's a pro.) The Cubs fired Rick Renteria after the 2014 season to make room for Joe Maddon, and look at them now. The rebuilding Astros fired Bo Porter — now the Braves' third-base coach — earlier that year and made the 2015 playoffs under A.J. Hinch.
What the Two Johns envision is a bountiful farm system that will feature not just one wave of talent but — to use Coppolella's description — "wave after wave." What they want is a big-league club without a slew of crippling contracts. If the aim was to field a championship team in 2015 and/or 2016, they've whiffed. It wasn't, and they haven't.
In 20 months, Coppolella and Hart have taken a minor-league chain that ranked among the sport’s bottom five and rendered it No. 1 — and surely not just for this year. They hold the third overall pick in the June draft, and it has long been whispered that the Braves are poised to make hay when the international signing window opens July 2.
They turned free-agents-to-be Jason Heyward and Justin Upton into a half-dozen useful players, one of whom (Shelby Miller) was offloaded for three more. They shed the contract of Melvin Upton Jr., which still seems a miracle. They bought the teenage pitcher Touki Toussaint from Arizona by assuming Bronson Arroyo’s contract, which they dumped on the Dodgers.
They agreed to pay Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher $14 million in 2016 because the Indians took on the $6.9 million owed Chris Johnson this season and — this is important — the $9 million for 2017. (Why is that important? Because the Braves, being pragmatic, feel they’ll need that $9 million next season.) Know how many Braves, not counting those who haven’t hit arbitration, are under contract for 2017? Five.
In their long-range planning and execution, where have the Two Johns failed? They’ve exchanged old for young, expensive for cheap. They’ve built an arsenal of arms, the demand for which Coppolella calls “inelastic.” They’ve been creative, exploiting an injury loophole (with Arroyo) and going the NBA route of buying expiring contracts (Arroyo/Bourn/Swisher). They’ve been as aggressive as all get-out. They’ve done stuff that has never been done in baseball.
As Coppolella said in Jonah Keri's must-hear podcast, there's a reason more teams don't undertake a full-blown restoration: Because's it's awful to watch; because knowing on an intellectual level that you're doing what's right doesn't inoculate you against the visceral anguish of 10-30. But if you're in charge of a professional team, aren't you duty-bound to look beyond today? Isn't part of being a professional the ability to treat the season at hand and the ultimate goal as separate entities?
Because the 2016 Braves are a failure doesn’t mean the plan has failed. Had Coppolella and Hart thrown everything into chasing down the Nats and the Mets this summer, they should be fired not for being 10-30 but for embarking on a fool’s errand. But they didn’t try to turn this year into something it could never be. They knew better.
The 2016 season is lost, but there will be other seasons. We around here have seen it. When last this club fired its manager — the date was June 22, 1990 — the outgoing Russ Nixon claimed interference from higher-ups and labeled TBS, which then owned the Braves, “a damn soap opera.” Sixteen months later, the Braves were in the World Series.
