As fate would have it, my dentist’s office overlooks the site of SunTrust Park. From the 18th floor of one of the Galleria towers, it appeared last week to this non-architect that the Braves’ new stadium was coming along nicely. The thought also occurred that the Braves will be hard-pressed to build a roster worthy of these new surroundings by Opening Day 2017.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a big deal. So the Braves don’t get good again until 2018. As long as they get good at some point in the near future, what’s the difference? I respectfully submit that this is:
The Braves aren’t making it easy to be a Braves’ fan. After 50 years downtown, they’re leaving for Cobb County. Even if you understand the reasons for their move (and I do), this isn’t how teams usually operate. Of the 16 ballparks that have opened since Turner Field, all have been built closer to the heart of the city or adjacent to the old edifice. By asking their fans to follow them to the suburbs — although the Braves would point to their heat map and say they’re actually moving closer to those fans — they’re bucking a trend.
And it’s not as if everyone in Cobb County is ecstatic, either. I’ve lived there for 31 years. Whenever a Cobb resident mentions the Braves’ move, it includes the question: “How bad do you think traffic is going to be?” (Unscientific Cobb consensus: Awful.) But getting to Turner Field has never been easy, and the lure of any new stadium is always mighty. Even so, the Braves have all but dared their constituency to ask the question you never want constituents to ask: “Is this team still worth following?”
Even if you understand what the front office is doing (and I do, I think), the massive selloff has come at a curious time. They lost 95 games in their penultimate season downtown. They could lose 100 in their kiss-off to Atlanta. They’re dumped so many regulars they probably won’t be break .500 in Year 1 at SunTrust, and what happens in Year 2? The novelty factor of a new stadium is just that, meaning it passes pretty darn fast.
Writing in Baseball Prospectus, Dustin Palmateer raised another concern: "The Braves are set to move into a new, publicly funded stadium in Cobb County in 2017. … There's an unwritten rule to the art of stadium-building that says if you're going to use the public's money to fund shiny new digs, you at least have to make a good-faith effort to put a solid product on the field. The Braves are trending in the opposite direction, cutting payroll and trading off cornerstone players while construction crews are turning the $672 million SunTrust Park from blueprint to reality."
I’m sure the Braves will deny that they’re not making a good-faith effort, and I won’t deny that they’re working very hard at their chosen plan. But is this plan, given the impending move, the right one? Do you trade almost everybody on your roster that has any semblance of a fan following? Can you wait two or three years for young pitching to mature when the dynamics of the franchise are set to change 16 months hence? Nobody doubts that Opening Day 2017 will be SRO, but what of the next 80 games? How much of a honeymoon will the Cobb Braves have if they’re not winning?
Fans always complain that they never have a voice, and they're right. Fans didn't get to vote on the move to Cobb or the trade of Andrelton Simmons. Fans can gripe on social media or talk radio, but that carries little oomph. (Although it did rankle newly minted general manager John Coppolella to the extent that he told Bob Nightengale of USA Today: "I'm getting so tired of this.") The only thing that resonates is if they stop buying tickets.
Understand: I’m not proposing a Braves boycott. I admire the audacity of their rebuilding plan, and I think there’s a chance it will work. But I will say this: It would be nice of the Braves to throw what fans they have remaining a bone. They’ve traded for a slew of young pitchers. Would it kill them to trade a couple of those to the Dodgers for Yasiel Puig? Like, say, today?
