And now for a message to Atlanta Braves fans who are down in the dumps about the club’s rebuild: Don’t be afraid to get your hopes up.
Just ask any fan of the New York Mets or Chicago Cubs.
They were once like the Braves. Five years ago, the Mets responded to consecutive losing seasons by pressing the “REBUILD” button. Four years ago, the Cubs followed suit in the wake of their own consecutive losing seasons.
Now look where they are. The Mets just went to the World Series. The Cubs fell one step short of the World Series, and right now they’re probably the best team in Major League Baseball.
Clearly, this proves a full-on rebuild can be worth it if done correctly. But that obviously raises a kinda-sorta important question: If the Mets and Cubs are guiding stars for how to do a National League rebuild, how is Atlanta’s measuring up?
Without getting too spoiler-y, we can say that the Braves’ rebuild closely resembles those of the Mets and Cubs in some ways and is also completely different in others. Though, not in a bad way.
But, for now, let’s start at the beginning.
Phase 1: Regime Change
As the Mets and Cubs can vouch, all rebuilds must start at the top.
It was in October 2010 that the Mets hired Sandy Alderson as their general manager and charged him with remaking a crumbling roster. It was almost exactly a year later that the Cubs hired Theo Epstein as their president of baseball operations and charged him with the same task.
Such is the drill whenever a rebuild is needed. And just like the Mets and Cubs, the Braves have also followed procedure.
The Braves fired Frank Wren as their general manager in September 2014, replacing him with former Cleveland Indians architect John Hart on an interim basis. When they did, their reasoning was fairly typical: The future just didn’t look bright enough.
So the comparison of the Braves’ regime change to those of the Mets and Cubs at least goes this far. But from here, we get into a big fundamental difference.
Whereas Alderson and Epstein were inheriting rosters that were old and geezerly, Hart was inheriting a roster of a different color. The Braves had won 96 games just a year earlier in 2013 and were still built around the young players who made that possible.
Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran and Craig Kimbrel formed the core that the Braves had locked up long term, and they were flanked by star outfielders Justin Upton and Jason Heyward and additional young talents like Evan Gattis, Alex Wood, Mike Minor and Tommy La Stella.
In retrospect, this makes it easy to second-guess the notion that things were falling apart. You can’t help but wonder if the Braves might have been able to contend in 2015 if they’d kept the band together.
What we can grant, though, is that Heyward’s and Upton’s pending free agency meant that going for it in 2015 likely would have meant going for a last hurrah. With a new ballpark on top for 2017, that was indeed an ominous prospect. Whereas the Mets and Cubs had no choice but to try to build a new future out of the ashes of a broken past, the Braves skipped ahead.
A tough call, to be sure, but one that came with an advantage: Because the Braves’ rebuild began with a strong major league roster, they didn’t have to go the long away when it came to Phase 2.
Phase 2: Breaking Up the Band, Building Up the Farm
To make soap, first you must render fat. To rebuild a broken baseball team, first you must trim fat.
The Mets and Cubs know what that’s like. Over the course of a couple years, Alderson found new homes for Francisco Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Angel Pagan and R.A. Dickey. Epstein did the same with Carlos Zambrano, Marlon Byrd, Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Alfonso Soriano and Jeff Samardzija.
Trades like these hurt, but they can be worth it. Without trading Beltran or Dickey, the Mets don’t get Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard or Travis d’Arnaud. Without trading Dempster or Samardzija, the Cubs don’t get Kyle Hendricks or Addison Russell. The Cubs also famously turned a low-risk contract for Scott Feldman into 2015 Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta.
Et cetera, et cetera. You get the gist: Jettison veterans and accumulate young, high-ceiling talent. With their rebuilds, the Mets and Cubs provided a proof of concept for the idea.
But if that’s all they did, what we’ve seen is the Braves perfect the idea.
With an assist from MLB Trade Rumors, here’s how many players the Braves have traded: Heyward, Upton, Kimbrel, Simmons, Gattis, La Stella, Wood, David Carpenter, Chasen Shreve, Melvin Upton, Phil Gosselin, Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Jim Johnson, Chris Johnson, Cameron Maybin, Shelby Miller and Christian Bethancourt.
All this has taken place over the course of a year. And though a 95-loss season took place in the middle of it, there’s no ignoring what these trades have meant for Atlanta’s foundation.
Going off MLB.com’s rankings, nine of the Braves’ top 12 prospects have been acquired in the last year’s trades. The big prize is shortstop Dansby Swanson, who was acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks just months after he was drafted No. 1 overall. He’s one of the 10 best prospects in MLB, and pitchers Sean Newcomb, Aaron Blair and Touki Toussaint are three more top-100 guys acquired in trades.
This is a stunning turnaround. In the estimation of MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, the Braves have taken “what was one of baseball’s worst farm systems into one of the best.”
And there’s more! Atlanta’s trades have also added core pieces such as outfielders Ender Inciarte and Hector Olivera, second baseman Jace Peterson and pitchers Matt Wisler and Mike Foltynewicz to the club’s major league roster. In Casey Kelly and Arodys Vizcaino, the Braves have also picked up a couple of former top prospects who, with enough luck, could pull an Arrieta.
In all likelihood, all this young talent isn’t going to stop the Braves from having another lousy season in 2016. But contenders by 2017? That’s possible.
“We have what it takes to be what I call dangerous,” Hart told David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution at last week’s winter meetings. “You know why you’re dangerous? When you’ve got young players ready to go, ready to rock, that are Braves down to their core, that have had a chance to come (through the system), and you’ve got money. And we’re going to have both in ’17, boys.”
Relative to those of the Mets and Cubs, this is where the Braves’ rebuild has an advantage. Because the Mets and Cubs started with so little exchangeable talent, it took years for their rebuilds to come together. The Braves’ rebuild has been an all-out blitz that has gained steam in mere months.
And as things stand now, it’s not hard to see where the Braves want to go with their rebuild.
Phase 3: Choose Your Weapon
At heart, the idea of every rebuild is to acquire young talent and to use it to build a dynasty. What flavor of young talent and what kind of dynasty, however, can vary.
The Cubs, for example, responded to the modern game’s emphasis on pitching by loading up on bats. Hence the swap of Andrew Cashner for Anthony Rizzo and the drafting of Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber. Several years later, it’s not by accident that their lineup is absolutely loaded.
The Mets, on the other hand, have embraced the modern game’s emphasis on pitching. Alderson’s system has developed Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia, and his trade for Syndergaard is looking like one of the steals of the last decade.
The Cubs showed in 2015 that an emphasis on bats can work wonders, and the Mets showed that an emphasis on arms can work wonders. It’s almost as if there’s more than one way to build a winner.
It’s clear, though, that the Braves are taking after the Mets.
The Braves have been collecting young pitchers like middle-aged geeks collect Star Wars action figures. Nine of the top 11 players in their aforementioned awesome farm system are pitchers, and that’s not counting top-prospects-turned-major-leaguers like Wisler and Foltynewicz and former top prospects like Vizcaino and Kelly.
Mind you, Zach Dilllard of Fox Sports South pointed out that Atlanta’s young pitching didn’t bear immediate results in 2015. But at the same time, former Braves manager Bobby Cox has a good reason for advising patience.
“They were getting their feet wet last year,” said Cox of Atlanta’s young pitchers in 2015, adding: “It takes time. (Greg) Maddux didn’t do it in one year. (Tom) Glavine didn’t do it one year, neither did (John) Smoltz.”
This is all true. And just as the Braves were able to build a pitching-based dynasty around those three, maybe they’ll do the same with the pitchers they’ve accumulated over the last year.
If so, the Braves should soon find themselves tasting the same kind of success that the Mets and Cubs tasted in 2015. And again, the key word is “soon.” The Braves have stuck to the same basic broad strokes of the Mets’ and Cubs’ rebuild, but at a much quicker pace. They’re only a year away from moving into their new stadium and may only be a year away from being contenders again.
Whenever the Braves become contenders again, one thing’s already for sure: It’ll be a while before their next rebuild.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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