Alex Anthopoulos and Brian Snitker had a literal goldmine on their hands in 2018. They had a superstar 1B, 4 prospects that would become stars (Acuna, Albies, Riley and Contreras) and the top farm system in baseball with a bevy of pitching prospects. They had no bad contracts on the book, a brand new stadium and ownership that was willing to increase the cofers to spend.
They've now had 5 first round exits in 7 years. They've only advanced twice in the postseason. They are now 1-6 in elimination games. Nobody was better set up for the future other than the Astros in 2018 and while the words "squandered" "failed" and "bungled" are too harsh considering six division titles, two 100+ win seasons and a World Series, they have probably reach...30% of what this could have been? No reason they couldn't have gone on an Astros like run (7 ALCS appearances, 6 division titles, 4 pennants and 2 World Series titles from 2017-2023) or maybe a little lower ended like the Dodgers (2016-2022, 6 division titles, 4 100+ win seasons, 5 NLCS, 3 pennants, 1 World Series title). Instead, 5 first round exits, and other than in 2018, all in embarrassing fashion. The worst part is that they think this is some sort of an accomplishment. They truly believe that this organization is full-proof, the train is perfectly aligned on the tracks and everything is great! We won that one World Series in 2021, that proves what truly genius people we have in the building!
There's no pressure to change because the ownership doesn't care as long as we make the playoffs, the media doesn't care because they're all a bunch of cowardly sycophants, the fans do care but they're not a New York or Philadelphia type crowd that demands change. There's no pressure on them because they're happy being good...not great. They are going to parade the excuses out. Ya know, we ran into a hot team and we just had too many injuries and it was just too daunting at the end to try and turnaround and win that series. Instead of looking inwardly and having some damned accountability, it's just good old fashioned "ah shucks" bad luck. That's what is really infuriating about this. I would have gladly taken what happened or missing the postseason if I actually thought this would affect the leadership of the organization in any sort of negative way. But it won't. They will trudge on and make excuses internally while the rest of the baseball world passes them by. It's the Braves way.