Braves must stay the course and trust the process

Dear Atlanta Braves,

We would address this letter to someone specifically, but who knows who really needs to read it. It’s not like writing a letter to Arthur Blank of the Falcons or even Tony Ressler of the Hawks. They own their team and the buck stops with them.

Maybe it’s Terry McGuirk, or Derek Schiller and Mike Plant. Maybe John Schuerholz still needs to read this. Maybe John Hart and John Coppolella are the only ones who matter, but they’re probably pressured from those in an even higher paygrade.

Just pass this around the office, if you will.

To those in charge of the Atlanta Braves, this is a plea to forget about the 2017 season. This is someone begging you to not give a damn about trying to be competitive in your brand new shiny stadium. This is someone urging you to not get off the tracks from the process you started less than three years ago.

Yes, it’s hard to hear to not care about this season. It’s crazy for someone to tell you to not care about trying to win when you are trying to get people to come help pay for what you’ve built. Your return on investment would certainly be helped if more people came to SunTrust Park, and fans love to see winning baseball.

This Braves team is not winning a lot. They are struggling to get to the .500 mark. Who cares. Yes, who cares. Fans are going to come check out a new stadium regardless of how good or bad the tenant may be in that first season. You need them to come out once the honeymoon period is over in a few years.

You can’t say this publicly. You must present a front that you want your team to win, at all cost. And certainly, you want the Braves to win. We all do. But that shouldn’t be the priority this year. The process must still be priority number one.

Remember, you started this. After years of allowing, yes allowing Frank Wren to ruin this organization with his bad moves and his complete disbandment of the farm system, you decided to start over. You practically enabled Wren to tear down a once-proud organization into one that had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Why that was allowed is still a mystery. He did it right in front of you. That’s when you should have panicked but you waited too long – to the point your farm system was one of the worst in baseball.

The new stadium has accelerated this process. You tried to balance having the farm system develop the talent, while at the same time expect better results in Atlanta – sooner than necessary. Teams don’t win pennants in year three of a rebuild. But you wanted to sell tickets, to sell out the new stadium you paid so much for.

Ask yourselves how this season would be, in year three of the rebuild, if there was no new stadium? Would it be any different at all? Would the pressure to win be the same?

Be patient Braves. Not to bury the lead here, but be patient. Be patient with Brian Snitker, your manager who the players love and who is the perfect manager for a rebuilding organization. Be patient with the young players, like Dansby Swanson. Be patient with the pitchers you are getting ready to promote and who will inevitably struggle.

Do you know how many games your team won in the third season the last time you went through this? 54. Yes, the Braves went 54-106 in season three of the rebuild, back in 1988. This year’s team won’t be that bad, but it tells you what teams go through that are in the slap dab middle of the process.

Don’t do anything stupid to try and win sooner than you’re supposed to. Don’t make some great big trade to grab headlines and to get people to go through the turnstiles at SunTrust Park. Don’t screw up what you’ve started by panicking because you have a new ballpark you are trying to justify.

Your young general manager, John Coppolella, has done a great job of accumulating talent with trades. Your underappreciated scouting staff has done a magnificent job of stockpiling pitchers with two straight great drafts. Let them have another one next week.

They have together created the best farm system in baseball. They are together fixing what was broke, what you allowed to break.

Don’t put pressure on Coppolella to win and make him think he needs to trade some of those prospects to get someone on the roster who will help the team win tomorrow. You see, the process you started in October 2014 by firing Wren was not about June 2017. It was about the next decade, and the pieces are being put together now that will make the roaring 2020s worth waiting for.

My biggest fear is that trades will be made to screw up what’s been done. My biggest fear is that you will panic if this team continues to struggle and will force Coppolella to make a trade we will all regret.

You have several special pitchers who need to be part of the future. You don’t need to panic and think about bringing in some quick-fix who will help you win tomorrow. You need to allow Kolby Allard, Mike Soroka and Max Fried develop just a little while longer so they can get to Atlanta and make this team great again.

Yes, you have several special prospects. Swanson is special. Let him find his way. Ronald Acuna is special. But he’s 19 and in Double-A. Don’t trade him. He might be the best position player prospect you’ve had since Freddie Freeman.

And that trio in Double-A should be off limits.

Allard, Soroka and Fried are what we are waiting for. Those might be the best pitching prospects the Braves have had in years. Sean Newcomb, Lucas Sims and Patrick Weigel are in front of that group in Triple-A, and they need a chance. Touki Toussaint, Ricardo Sanchez, Ian Anderson, Joey Wentz and Bryse Wilson are behind them in A-ball, and they need more time.

That trio in Double-A may be the core of your rotation into the next decade. Don’t you dare do anything but get them ready for Atlanta. Don’t you dare make Coppolella think you need to win quickly and make him trade one of those special prospects.

Don’t panic when Newcomb comes up soon and struggles. He might not struggle, but if he does, you can’t panic.

Did Stan Kasten and Bobby Cox panic and trade Tom Glavine to the Red Sox in 1988 after he went 7-17? They could have, but they didn’t. Did Schuerholz trade John Smoltz when he went 2-9 in the first half of the 1991 season? He could have, but he didn’t.

The group who led the Braves, particularly from 1986 through 1990, could have easily made moves to make the team immediately better. Instead, they stayed the course and the results were the best decade of baseball we will ever see in our lifetime.

Don’t put pressure on Coppolella to where he’ll think he needs to trade five players for Chris Archer, or where he’ll think he’s got to do something that will interrupt this process by making the team better for today. A rebuilding process is about tomorrow, and that’s not something that’s easily sellable, especially when you’re trying to fill a new, expensive stadium.

But who cares. You started this rebuild. Now finish it. The hell with this season. Continue the process and don’t do anything stupid. We’ll grind our teeth and get pissed off if we see this year’s team lose a few more they shouldn’t lose, but deep down we’ll know you are rebuilding.

Be patient Braves. We’re all trying to be patient. But you are the ones who must be patient more than anyone. Don’t do anything stupid because you’re in a new stadium. Trust the process you started, and the results might just be something special.

It’s time to start the graduation process of letting the prospects come up and show us what they can do. That will make it even more important on your part to not panic and to simply stay the course.

Trust what you started, or if not, you’ll be in the same boat you were when Wren almost ruined this franchise with no future and limited talent. The foundation has been laid for the future, and the stadium should not make you change what you started.

It’s up to you, Braves. Please don’t screw this up. Stay the course and trust the process.

This story was originally published June 6, 2017 at 8:08 AM with the headline "Braves must stay the course and trust the process."