by Justin Spaeth

Baseball has been an American pastime for many generations, which makes for no secret that fans have been patiently waiting for the season to get underway.

As for fans of the Atlanta Braves franchise, they are extremely concerned and painfully pessimistic for the upcoming season. The Braves have numerous amounts of players of which have potential but have had little to no experience in the Major Leagues.

Atlanta has many question marks on the team, and no team can succeed throughout the season without a base and foundation of players who build off of the skills of others.

It all starts in the front office of the organization with John Schuerholz, president of the Braves, when he fired Frank Wren and hired John Hart to take his place.

Hart, who led the Indians in 1996, seemed like a great front office acquisition in the off season. However, the move took a turn for the worst as he released and traded almost all of the Braves talent.

He sent off Andrelton Simmons, who was arguably the best defensive short stop in the game and traded Craig Kimbrel, who is on track to be the youngest player to have 200+ saves.

Through all  of that, the front office did make an extremely promising trade when they acquired the number one draft pick in last year’s MLB draft Dansby Swanson, an extremely skilled second baseman who can also hit the ball fairly consistently. And if there is one major key the Braves are lacking it is consistency in hitting, pitching, and defense.

The front office’s off-season plan was to pick up great talent by also saving money. A baseball team is a business and should be run like a business, and from a business prospective you must spend money to make money.

If the Braves front office is not willing to spend the money needed to fill in the gaps in their team, Braves fans can only brace for the worst in the upcoming season.

Braves fan should remain optimistic. Maybe the front office has a plan. Maybe the players they have acquired will shock the fan base, play as a machine, ,surprise the rest of the National League, and make a run at the playoffs. One could only hope for this perfect scenario.

In reality, I would be surprised if the Atlanta Braves finish the season at .500.

They must rebuild every aspect of the team to be back on track on the road to success