Headed up to Disney Saturday to catch the Braves first full squad workout. There's not much scouting to do during batting practice, group stretching and infield/outfield drills at less than full speed but I'll recap what I saw while there.
Showed up early and caught some guys including top prospect Dansby Swanson taking hacks in the batting cages just beyond right center field. You always hear all the "best shape of my life" quotes out of Spring Training but some guys were notably in better shape including Dansby who looks as though he put on a little more muscle over the offseason. That could be that I hadn't seen him up close since last Spring Training but Rio Ruiz was another guy who definitely was in tip top shape and appears ready to show the club that he's ready for the show full time as a potential platoon partner with Adonis Garcia at the hot corner.
Big River!
My wife brought her newer camera and took about 200 photos which was awesome. I posted a bunch more over on my twitter account if your interested @ProspectsBraves
Chase d'Arnaud is great with the fans, baseball needs more guys like him. My son loved it and even made it on the Braves Facebook page. Pretty cool
Dansby contemplating if he's going to sign my card or not
New starting pitcher Jaime Garcia with his impeccable beard.
2016 Braves MILB Player of the year Dustin Peterson.
New 3rd base coach Ron Washington and prospect Travis Demeritte
The full squad
#2 Braves Prospect and consensus Top 15 Prospect in the game Ozzie Albies who wasn't throwing as he's still recovering from a broken elbow in the Southern League playoffs last year.
Freddie Freeman and Matt Kemp don't just hit back to back in the lineup (they combined for 69 homeruns last season) they seem to be good friends as well.
My daughter got this ball signed by Braves President and former GM John Schuerholz, that makes back to back Spring Trainings with a ball signed by a Hall of Famer!
Demeritte
AJ Minter aka the Terminator
Max Fried
Super jealous of this little excursion of yours. Dansby seem like a nice enough guy???
ReplyDeleteI hope Chase can continue to carve out a career with the Braves. He definitely has a unique skillset. Of course when push comes to shove you have to hit and he struggled with the Pirates. If he can continue to build on last year then he could probably be a useful piece on the bench because he has such great positional flexibility. Of course the issue will be that the Braves have a great system and he will likely get pushed out at some point.
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