Are the Surging Braves for Real After Decimating Roster in Offseason?

The second week of the 2015 Major League Baseball season is underway, and arguably the biggest surprise in the entire sport is the Atlanta Braves.

They enter play Wednesday at 6-2. In case you haven't checked the standings yet this early on, that gives Atlanta the best record in the National League East—a division that was supposed to be ruled by the Washington Nationals, the on-paper favorites—as well as in all of the Senior Circuit.

This is the very same Braves organization that, don't forget, embarked upon a tear-it-down-and-start-all-over rebuild this offseason under new president of baseball operations John Hart, who officially took over in October for the roundly criticized Frank Wren, who had been fired in September.

Naturally, that raises the question: Is this "new" and surprisingly surging Braves club for real after remaking the roster the past few months by removing many of the most talented players—or at least, those with the biggest names?

Or alternatively: Uh, what gives?

Dave Tulis/Associated Press

Having gone through so much turnover and with almost all of the focus centered on rebuilding for two or even three years down the line—the Braves open their new stadium in Cobb County in 2017, don't you know—can this team sustain a hot start that nobody saw coming?

Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Melvin Upton Jr.—also known as the entire starting outfield for the 2014 club—are gone, having been swapped in three separate trades this past offseason.

Fan favorite Evan Gattis, the burly slugger with the nearly unbelievable backstory, also no longer is a Brave.

Craig Kimbrel? The elite closer now can be described merely as the most recent—and perhaps the most painful—to be jettisoned.

It's been painful on the whole for Braves fans, many of whom didn't see this coming. Not after the team spent much of the 2013-14 offseason locking up several young talents long term, including first baseman Freddie Freeman, shortstop Andrelton Simmons, right-hander Julio Teheran and, yes, even Kimbrel.

Uncredited/Associated Press

But here's the motivation for the back-to-the-drawing-board approach, or "building this back the right way," as Hart said last September via Mark Bowman of MLB.com: Even with all of the players mentioned above, the Braves finished 79-83 last year, marking the first time since 2008 that they fell below .500.

We're talking about an organization that has been consistently good to great for the better part of two-plus decades, an organization that had made it to the postseason 17 times since 1991 and won more games than it lost in 21 of those 24 campaigns.

A big reason for the failure that was 2014? Atlanta's low-contact, high-strikeout offense, epitomized by two players who thankfully are no longer with the club.

The first is Dan Uggla, the second baseman Wren signed for $62 million in November 2010 only to mercifully cut him last July due to a .162 average and 27.6 strikeout percentage.

The second? Melvin "Don't Call Me B.J." Upton, who hit .198/.279/.314 with a whopping 324 whiffs in the first two of a five-year deal worth $72.25 million that Hart managed to pawn off on the San Diego Padres in the Kimbrel swap just prior to the start of this season.

John Bazemore/Associated Press/Associated Press

On top of that defunct-and-since-departed duo, the Braves also no longer have to worry about the swing-and-miss tendencies of Justin Upton (26.7 percent strikeouts) or Gattis (24.2 percent).

No wonder the Braves scored just 573 runs—or 3.5 per game—"good" for the second fewest in baseball.

It's a minuscule sample size, but so far in 2015, Atlanta has a 17.5 percent strikeout rate, which is fourth-best in the sport, compared to last year's 22.6 percent mark that was fourth-worst.

Hart's decision to construct a contact-making lineup has looked like a savvy one early on, given the 6-2 start and the 4.3 runs per game—an increase of nearly a full run over last year.

That said, let's not get carried away over eight games, either. After all, the team the Braves are tied with for best record in the NL is the Colorado Rockies, who were exactly nobody's pick to win the NL West or even be in the playoff hunt.

A different approach is a good idea when the old one clearly wasn't working, but this Braves bunch isn't more talented—and certainly isn't more experienced—than in recent years.

Expecting a team to head down the rebuilding path by trading away a batch of big-name players and also get better at the same time? That might well be asking too much.

Regardless, the future in Atlanta looks much better, mainly because Hart has gone about this do-over by actually and completely tearing it down, unlike, say, fellow NL East team the Philadelphia Phillies.

In trading away Heyward and Upton, who are free-agents-to-be, and Gattis and Kimbrel, among others, Hart has brought aboard lots of young, team-controlled talent like Shelby Miller, Jace Peterson and Cameron Maybin, as well as a number of intriguing, high-upside prospects, especially on the mound, including Matt Wisler, Mike Foltynewicz, Tyrell Jenkins, Manny Banuelos, Max Fried, Ricardo Sanchez and Arodys Vizcaino.

Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Atlanta also has the 14th overall draft pick and five of the first 75 in total come June, which will help even more with the rebuild.

Maybe the Atlanta Braves' hot start to 2015 means something. Maybe they'll be better than everyone expected, a pleasant surprise even after tearing it down.

But even if it's not, and the Braves' 6-2 record is just a fun early-season story that eventually sours, this is the start of what, hopefully, will be a much more real return to relevance—even contention—come 2017. Or maybe even slightly sooner.

Just not, in all likelihood, in 2015.

Statistics are accurate through Tuesday, April 14, and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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