# 145: And Now, The Rebuilding Is Official

Gil In Mechanicsville

Up until about 6PM CDT Friday night, folks in Braves Country still held out hope the Braves might stage a remarkable turn of events and sneak into the play-offs with an improbable cast of characters. After all, they were only 6 games back in both the division and the second wild card. Stranger things have happened, really… Did anyone really expect the Braves to be this close going into August? Alas, with the exportation of Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe to NL East rival Mets, the Braves front office officially signaled to the world that the season is done. Trading two guys who have done much to add some life to a very anemic offense  for yet another pair of pitching prospects pretty much has signaled they are throwing in the towel for 2015.

Now, to be fair, it was not really a surprise for this trade to occur. The pundits and speculators have been signalling for weeks the Braves were in sell mode. The absence of Freddie Freeman from the line up has not helped either. Again, a failure to score runs can lead to a lot of losses, no matter how good your pitching is. To be honest, the Braves defense has had a bit of “Bad News Bears” quality to it. I have seen many times where sharpness with the glove has added a bit of pop to a player’s bat. Giving other teams extra outs, even bad ones, can often lead to long innings, many extra pitches and losses and lots of unearned runs.

So, what now? I expect some other moves to be made soon. Jim Johnson, A.J. Perzinski, Cameron Maybin and others may soon be traded to teams still in the hunt. None figured to be long term fixtures in Atlanta anyway as the rebuild towards their goal of putting a winning team in their spanking new stadium in 2017. For those of us who were spoiled by all the success of the Braves from 1991 to 2005, it is a bitter pill to swallow. Not like it has been unknown to fail in Atlanta, look at the past couple of years.

One thing we have all come to understand is nothing is a given in baseball. Sure, good pitching usually beats good hitting but a player and a team with talent still normally beats one with only desire. So, as the team rebuilds, fans need to look at the current situation as a process. Look for the silver lining as young pitchers hone their craft. Speaking from personal experience, the lessons learned from failure were often more deeply entrenched than those learned from success. Sure, even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while but you don’t see too many blind squirrels getting fat.

We will need to look at each player through the eyes of a scout rather than the eyes of a fan. It’s okay to be critical in your view but not to criticize, after all, they are human beings. Some will have the talent to stay, some will not. Let’s be realistic in our expectations. not many Chipper Jones or Greg Madduxs come along. That is why only 1% of all the professional major league players are ever inducted into the Hall of Fame. Let’s look at it as an opportunity to build another great dynasty in Atlanta. It is just tough sometimes watching them make the sausage.