The Braves refuse to stand by and take it. And Coppolella is livid that no one is giving them the benefit of the doubt.
“There is a method to this madness,’’ Coppolella said. “Judge our trades in two to three years. Not now.’’
If you want to know the truth, even after jettisoning 40 players over the last 13 months, the Braves hope they’re not done trading. They’d love to move the bloated contracts of outfielders Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn. If someone makes the right offer for Cameron Maybin, he’s gone too.
But not, repeat not, Freeman.
“We want to win,’’ Coppolella said. “I don’t think anybody wants to lose. It’s painful. But we had one bad season, not three of four years.
“If we truly were going to tank, we wouldn’t have had Aybar come back in the trade. If we were trying to tank, we wouldn’t have signed (catcher) A.J. Pierzynski. If we were trying to tank, we would have traded Maybin at the deadline last year, and we had plenty of offers.
“We want to win. And we will win. I’m not under any delusions that we’ll win 110 games, but we’re not going to lose 95 games again. We will win more games than we did last year.’’
Yet, it’s this latest trade with Simmons that has created all of the unrest, with folks wondering if the Braves are deliberately trying to lose as many games as possible until they move into their new SunTrust Park in 2017.
The Braves hear you,but they insist they’ll be a better team with their two young pitchers on the mound than Simmons in the middle of their infield. They absolutely loved his defense, winning Wilson’s defensive player of the year, but they cringe at his offensive struggles, with the 13th-worst OPS in baseball last year.
“I get it, Simmons is real good with the glove,’’ Coppolella said. “Real good. But there’s more to it. We like our trade. That’s why we made it. We feel we got more talent back than we traded away. You can make an argument that we are actually a team that can win more games with Aybar.
“To us, it’s just like five years ago when the Royals traded away Zack Greinke. Everyone was saying, “What are they doing? How can you trade a 27-year-old Cy Young winner?’ Well, how did that work out for them?’’
The Royals received future All-Star center fielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar, MVP of the 2015 ALCS, and two pitching prospects. Now, after going 29 years between playoff appearances, they have won back-to-back American League pennants and are the reigning World Series champions.
“Or how about the Mets two-years ago when they traded their Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey to Toronto,’’ Coppolella said, “for a kid in Double-A and another in High-A.. How did that turn out?’’
Those kids turned out to be starter Noah Syndergaard and catcher Travis d’Arnaud, helping lead the Mets to the National League pennant last year.
“We’re not afraid of the criticism and taking the risk,’’ Coppolella said, “but we’re tired of it.’’
