The week’s B.S. Report talks about the Atlanta Braves woeful season

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – It’s somewhat funny how many fans of the Atlanta Braves cannot stomach the troubles the team is having right now. But if you think about it, many fans don’t remember the last time this happened.

You have to be at least in your mid-30s to remember the last time the Braves were struggling and were this bad. From 1985 through 1990, a six-year stretch, the Braves finished last four times and next-to-last twice. They were horrible. But if you’re really young, you weren’t around for all of that or were simply too young to remember.

Those bad years in the late-1980s set up a historic run of success, as the Braves won 14 straight division titles from 1991 through 2005. And you have to hope the same bad baseball we’re watching now will set the table for the same type of consistent success.

I know this is tough to believe, but the Braves are doing the right thing. They have torn down a team that was badly broken. They’re simply trying to fix it, and before you can run, you have to crawl. That’s what they are doing now.

Let them lose. They weren’t going to win anything anyway this season. The more they lose, the better draft pick they’ll have next June. That will be a chance to add another premium prospect – probably a pitcher – to a farm system that is becoming one of the best in baseball. They need as many good prospects as possible, just like they had back in the late-1980s.

And they are accumulating prospects, particularly pitchers. That’s how you build a consistent winner – with pitchers. That’s my philosophy, but then again, I was around when the Braves did this the last time. I watched how then-general manager Bobby Cox drafted pitchers every chance he got, and in every trade he made, he got a pitching prospect.

That’s what the current front office – led by John Hart and John Coppolella – is doing. They are building with pitchers. We’ve seen some come up already this year, like Matt Wisler and Mike Foltynewicz. We’ll see more next season. And the pipeline will hopefully provide pitchers every single year. That’s the plan.

But wait, you say, the Braves need hitters. That’s right. They do. They need hitters now and the farm system is not strong with hitters, either. So they need hitters for the future, as well. But the best way to get hitters is to trade pitchers, so the more arms you have, the better chance you have to not only find the right ones to keep, but to have enough to trade – much like the Braves did with Alex Wood last month when they sent him to the Dodgers.

So please be patient. This is a process. The Braves have plenty of work left to do. They are definitely not finished yet. But when they are finished, hopefully the results will be similar to what we saw in the 1990s – consistent success.