The old cliché was that “hope springs eternal” for all baseball teams as they enter training camps, even for those clubs whose championship aspirations explode the bounds of credulity.
These days, some teams are more openly realistic.
For them, it’s “hope delayed”, as there are at least four teams that have tossed in the towel before they have taken their first shower.
The Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds have been shedding veterans and stockpiling prospects.
They are willing to tear up any chance at short-term success to build around cores of younger players who hopefully will develop into pennant-calibre teams down the road.
Hey, if the most notorious deliberate tank job of them all, the Houston Astros, could lose 111 games as recently as 2013 and become a play-off team by 2015, why can’t everybody?
That is the theory anyway.
So, off to do battle for fourth and fifth places in the National League East this season are the Braves and Phillies.
Jonathan Raymond: Asterisk or no asterisk: Barry Bonds belongs in the baseball Hall of Fame
Atlanta, who lost 95 games last year, traded away their best pitcher, Shelby Miller, to the Arizona Diamondbacks for rookie outfielder Ender Inciarte, Arizona’s top minor league starter Aaron Blair and the No 1 pick in the draft, shortstop Dansby Swanson.
The Braves also traded the most valuable defensive player in the sport, shortstop Andrelton Simmons, to the Los Angeles Angels, who sent over their top two pitching prospects, Sean Newcomb and Chris Ellis.
See you in the play-offs in 2018. Maybe.
The Phillies hope to join them.
Gone are 2008 championship stars Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Cole Hamel, as well as overpaid closer Jonathan Papelbon.
Breaking up that old gang should have been done years ago, but better late than never.
Philadelphia, losers of 99 games last season, will bank on novice starters Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff to become twin aces.
If kid third baseman Maikel Franco turns into a perennial All-Star, maybe the Phils have an anchor.
Fingers crossed.
Gregg Patton: Red Sox, reshaped into relevancy, and Cubs, on the cusp, are MLB's winter winners
Milwaukee and Cincinnati will compare their progress, or regress, together in the National League Central.
The Brewers start this year with fewer than half the players who were on the 25-man roster on Opening Day 2015.
That team lost 94 games.
But Milwaukee’s rebuilding remains half-baked, as they have only one truly notable prospect to brag about in shortstop Orlando Arcia.
Plus, they still are carrying around former Most Valuable Player Ryan Braun and catcher Jonathan Lucroy when they desperately needed to trade them for future building blocks.
The Reds lost 98 games in 2015 and no longer have ace Johnny Cueto, stellar closer Aroldis Chapman or slugging third baseman Todd Frazier.
The five rookies who finished the season in their rotation have the weight of the city on their throwing arms.
Good luck to them all.
If it doesn’t work out by the end of the decade, they can always start over.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
