Coppolella on the Atlanta Braves’ Rebuild Progress
Remarkable Progress, But…
Yesterday, I took a look at the major prospect ranking charts that came out last week – from Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com. The rose-colored-glasses view for Braves’ fans would be that yes! Atlanta has several Top 100-ranked prospects coming up!
The more realistic view is this: so do a lot of other clubs… including the Phillies and Nationals. So this isn’t an exceptional thing.
I don’t wish to pooh-pooh the efforts made by The John Trust (Schuerholz, Hart, and Coppolella)… in fact, if this plan is ultimately pulled off in the manner they hope, then fans will probably rename the new stadium as ‘JohnTrust Park‘. But you could argue that there has been some luck involved with the deals made so far… here’s the highlights:
- One year of Jason Heyward has been turned into a year of Shelby Miller and on-going years with Tyrell Jenkins
- One excellent year of Shelby Miller has been turned into Ender Inciarte, Aaron Blair, and Dansby Swanson. Of all of these deals,
- Craig Kimbrel was used to eliminate Melvin Upton’s contract and to receive Cameron Maybin, Mallex Smith, Matt Wisler, Jordan Paroubeck, and a draft pick – which turned out to be Austin Riley.
- One year of Justin Upton was turned into Max Fried, Jace Peterson, Dustin Peterson, and Mallex Smith.
- And that’s not even counting the deals involving Hector Olivera, Mike Foltynewicz, Manny Banuelos, Sean Newcomb, and more. The Touki Toussaint deal was particularly bizarre.
You gotta admit: those first four deals are a bit out of the ‘norm’ for trades. Atlanta was able to leverage high-end talent to their advantage, but even beyond that they were able to leverage needy teams and catch them at weak moments. Had these been “normal” trades, then I could serious expect maybe half to 2/3rds of the prospect returns than what the Braves actually managed to receive.
In the case of the Shelby Miller deals (the second one especially), though: you’ve just gotta shake your head and marvel. Way over the top.
That’s just not going to happen every day… well, unless your the Atlanta Braves, I suppose.
But Wait, There’s More
In addition to this, the best may actually be yet to come. Since I’ve written extensively on this topic, I won’t belabor the point, but the planets are aligned in Baseball’s Universe for a remarkable situation in July:
- Having tanked the end of 2015, Atlanta has the 3rd-best international spending pool available.
- 10 high-spending clubs are sitting on the sidelines in the Sin Bin for having International overspent in the past 1-2 years.
- A robust talent market is out there for the taking
- The Braves are setting aside tens of millions to take advantage of this
Oh, and there’s 4 more top 80-ish draft picks coming in the regular draft this June. Nice.
Right place, right time.
End Game
So yes: there’s joy in the Braves’ Front Office. There should be. But I do have some fear that fans have already had their expectations set too high for 2017. Unfortunately, headlines such as those from the AJC and Fox Sports today don’t do much to dispel those notions.
I do expect things to improve. I do expect this plan to work. I do think that the improvements made will make this team better – sooner than later, but it’s up to some interpretation as to when “then” will occur on the calendar.
Has the plan accelerated? You’d have to say so, given the Arizona swindling that took place in December. Is it ahead of schedule? For that, you’d have to ask if there is ever truly a “schedule” to these things. Unfortunately, the fans were probably led to believe that there was a schedule – one that culminates in April 2017.
The Braves are going to be close to a point where that’s a viable thought, and depending on whatever else Coppy might conjure over the next off-season, things could change yet again. But 2018 is more likely… and that thought really hasn’t changed too much over the past few months (though the players that might be involved certainly have).
So let’s not put too many words into their mouths… the plan will work… but let’s not impose a schedule as to exactly ‘when’.
No wonder Coppy seems giddy at what has dropped into his lap. Heck, the future is bright.