The Braves aren’t going to go very far this year: that’s an assertion that’s unlikely to bite me six months from now. Both our Depth Charts projections and Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA forecast Atlanta failing to clear the 80-win threshold. The acquisition of Brandon Phillips over the weekend did little, if anything, to change that. Phillips is roundly projected to be just a touch over replacement level this season. The man he’s supplanting, Jace Peterson, is who you see a picture of when you look up “replacement level” in the baseball dictionary. Peterson has taken more than a thousand trips to the plate and played more than 2,000 innings in the field. He’s put up a career WAR of 0.4. Phillips needn’t do much to represent an upgrade.

That’s good, because (as just stated) Phillips probably isn’t going to represent much of an upgrade — a sentiment that basically other every club appears to share. Nor do new additions Bartolo Colon or R.A. Dickey, or Jaime Garcia appear set to turn the club around. The Braves have spent their winter loading up on veterans on one-year deals like these players, using them to round out a roster that has some desirable elements and other pieces that are less helpful. There’s unquestionably value in replacing bad players with somewhat competent ones.

Doing that isn’t enough to make the Braves contenders. They seem to understand this, of course. The Braves don’t appear to be banking on a postseason spot this year. They’re unlikely to compete with the Mets and Nationals in the NL East, and their projected high-70s win total puts them in position to have another nice draft. Even with all the Freddie Freeman in the world, the Braves are no match for the forces of superior baseball and sweet, sweet prospects.

What they do seem to have done is field a team that’s palatable enough to draw people into their new taxpayer-funded stadium. Because of that new stadium, the organization will attempt to pull of a difficult balancing act this year. Fans will need to be sold on the product currently on the field, and on what’s to come.

Freeman will bring people to the park and to their television sets, as will Julio Teheran, Matt Kemp and Dansby Swanson (more on him in a bit). Phillips, despite his crumbling value, isn’t that far removed from being a star and his name still carries power, especially on social media. Colon, as you may have heard, is a popular man.

Even Dickey, years after his improbable Cy Young win, offers some novelty due to his knuckleballing ways. The Braves have created a team that won’t entirely embarrass itself and, as currently constructed, could stumble its way to 80 wins with positive contributions from the prospects on the way. It’s unlikely, however, that the team will remain constructed as it currently is.

There’s a strong probability that both Colon and Garcia, the latter of whom is a capable pitcher when he’s healthy, will be exiting before July 31st. Bart can serve as a publicity sensation in the near future and as a return for a decent prospect or two at the deadline. Garcia offers some possible trade value, as might Dickey. Even Phillips, if he’s back to being the serviceable player he was in 2015, may be moved.

This is where Swanson comes in. He’s the future face of the franchise, the player who will hopefully combine with Freeman to lead Atlanta back to the postseason. He’ll be joined soon enough by the host of prospects knocking on the door down in Gwinnett. Should Phillips stumble, he’ll almost certainly be replaced by Ozzie Albies once the Super-2 deadline passes. Reliever A.J. Minter may open some eyes very soon. Sean Newcomb may poke his head above the surface before the season is out. The Braves aren’t going to win a ton of games, but they’ll at least provide something of a reason to watch all year, and Swanson is certainly a better bet than Colon to provide optimism for fans in 2018 and beyond.

What the Braves are doing here is, at the very least, providing a team that won’t constantly embarrass itself. There may only be three legitimately good position players in the starting lineup (Freeman, Swanson, and Ender Inciarte), but unlike, say, the Padres, the Braves won’t be unwatchable. That’s the least the team can do as they ask fans to file into a new stadium for which there was little demand and for which those fans will largely be paying via their tax dollars. The 2018 season will likely be a better one, and 2019 will be a better one after that. The Braves still have to play ball this year, though, and providing a palatable if mediocre team is probably a sound move. And it’s worth noting that they tried to do more than this, too. Atlanta was widely reported to be in on the Chris Sale sweepstakes before the Red Sox won. The team was also connected to Jose Quintana and Chris Archer at various points.

It seems to be an odd time in their contention cycle for the Braves to be seeking out such a deal, but it shows that Atlanta is actively trying to improve right now. Adding Sale would not have made them contenders; if anything, it would have made them a lesser version of Sale’s White Sox. Again, one can question the wisdom of that, but it’s better than putting a Padres-like team on the field and asking fans to show up to an expensive new ballpark to watch.

The Braves are on the right track. There’s little doubt of that. They’re positioned to have another quality draft this summer, and they’ll secure a few more prospects by trading some of their veterans. They’ll have the money and prospects to acquire premium players over the winter. They’re almost ready to be dangerous again. It’s good that they’re willing to at least pretend to look like they’re trying this year.