Atlanta Braves: Roster Ready to Compete Now with Pitching Help
By Kit Anderson
The Atlanta Braves front office is in the middle of a scandal and a rebuild two things that may have Braves fans struggling to find something to like about this team. The good news is that with pitching help this roster is built to compete now.
The Atlanta Braves have a wealth of exciting young position players and a core that might remind some of what the recent World Series winning Houston Astros focused on. With that in mind the Braves now have a roster that is ready to start to compete with one caveat.
Pitching is something that the Braves have lacked for some time and outside Julio Teheran it is hard to see who will make this rotation. The Braves need to invest in adding at least one top of the rotation arm as well as supplementing veterans to compete for spots in Spring Training.
The former regime has built a good roster that is ready to compete now if they can get any type of consistency from the rotation. Not to say that the Braves need to add five aces and will be able to compete. That would be an idiotic statement that any team could make, rather that with a bit of pitching help this team can contend now leaning on a young exciting offensive core that is going to score a lot of runs in 2018.
Looking at the back end of the Braves bullpen it seems likely that the Braves will need to add an arm there as well. If they are able to bring in new leadership that can keep this core together and bring in a pitcher or two that can at least keep the Braves in games and eat innings this team could be a surprise wildcard contender in 2018.
Say what you want about the former GM and his disgraced front office they put together a team that is going to bring back a winning tradition to Atlanta and an exciting young core that will have fans tuning in to see what happens next.