The 2020 Atlanta Braves are full of hope — but what kind of team should we expect to see?

We’ve made it halfway through February and it looks like we’re going to survive yet another bleak Georgia winter.

Sure, the weather has been tolerable, even by our moderate standards. But we have to contend with something far more bitter and harsh than Nor’easters. While our friends up north can stay inside and enjoy basketball, we have the Atlanta Hawks and Georgia.

Ah, but spring training is near. Pitchers and catchers have reported to camps all over Florida and Arizona, with position players trickling in daily. All of them offer a splash of optimism — or, in some cases, apologies and heartfelt regret over getting caught taking the age-old art of sign-stealing to high tech depths.

Spring training hopefulness is a baseball tradition as deeply ingrained as ceremonial first pitches and the seventh inning stretch.

The Atlanta Braves, having taken on the personality of their leader Freddie Freeman, are as full of hope as always. Freeman said as much last month at Chop Fest.

“I know we had a really good team,” Freeman said. “Everybody knows we had a really good team. The hunger is real after winning back-to-back division titles and seeing your division opponent win a World Series last year. It’s our turn. We’ve got a really, really good team again. It’s our turn to take that next step.”

Freeman offered some valid reasons for his optimism.

“Our bullpen is solidified. Our lineup is deep. Our starting staff, we went out and got Cole Hamels. Folty (Mike Foltynewicz) I think is going to be the Folty of 2018. He looked great at the end of the year so hopefully he builds on that. (Mike) Soroka, (Max) Fried, all our guys in the minor leagues. We’ve got some young guns that are coming so I don’t think we’re lacking. I think we’ve got a real good chance. I thought we had a good shot last year, just ultimately didn’t end up the way we wanted it to. But this year I think we have a real good chance to win this whole thing.”

Granted, Freeman offered this assessment before the club had officially lost Josh Donaldson to the Twins. But that was also before signing Marcell Ozuna to play left field and, more importantly, protect Freeman in the lineup.

These 2020 Braves are a bit hard to read, especially just yet. They’ve lost Donaldson’s production and swagger, Julio Teheran’s underappreciated reliability and Brian McCann’s veteran leadership. Then came the less than encouraging news that Hamels had injured his shoulder working out in Texas and likely will start the season on the injured list. Hamels and Braves management insist this is just an untimely setback, nothing to be overly concerned about.

Even if Hamels is healthy and resembles the pitcher who was effective for two-thirds of last season, the starting rotation still has questions. Just which Folty will the Braves get this season? Did that disastrous 10-run inning in Game 5 of last year’s NLDS against St. Louis leave any scars in his already questionable psyche?

Will Fried continue to progress or might the hitters force him to make adjustments?

The options for the fifth starter are Felix Hernandez, who in the last couple of seasons has done nothing to resemble the man who won 150 games over an 11-year stretch in Seattle, and Sean Newcomb, who bombed the last time he was given a spot in the rotation.

But the Braves have won back-to-back NL East titles despite having holes in the rotation. They had nine pitchers make multiple starts last year, including 28 combined by Kevin Gausman (16), Newcomb, Bryse Wilson and Kyle Wright (four each). Yet they still won 97 games.

The lineup isn’t without questions, either. Ender Inciarte, once an All-Star, was unproductive last season. Johan Camargo and Austin Riley will share duties at third base. Both struggled through long stretches last year. Shortstop Dansby Swanson has yet to put together a complete productive season.

But again, they won 97 games last year despite all of that, and despite a bullpen that at one point was horrendous. Now the bullpen, with the addition of Will Smith, figures to actually be a strength with Mark Melancon, Chris Martin, Shane Greene and Darren O’Day available from Day One.

The Braves are a team whose sum is greater than its parts. Baseball Prospectus issues its PECOTA projections every year. Last year, the Braves were projected to win 84 games. They won 97. Two years before, the projection was only 76 wins. They won 90. So it should concern no one that the PECOTA projection this year is 83 wins. The Iowa Caucus is more relevant than the PECOTA.

So I’ll side with Freeman’s optimism until they prove otherwise.