He’s entering his fourth year in the majors, but really this is the first time Jason Heyward has had what could be considered a normal offseason.

 Before his 2010 rookie year in 2010, he was just 20 years old with no big-league experience and only 50 games (208 plate appearances) above the Class-A level, including just three games at Triple-A. The 2009 Baseball American minor league player of the year, Heyward hurt his back in the first week of the Arizona Fall League and was pulled out and brought home. No one knew what to expect in the spring and it wasn’t a certainty that he’d be on the big-league club.

 Before his 2011 season, Heyward spent part of the offseason resting the sore thumb that had marred an otherwise-brilliant rookie season and kept him out of the All-Star game, after he’d been voted a starter in fan balloting.

 And then before last season, Heyward spent the offseason overhauling a lot of things, from his body – he dropped about 20 pounds, down to 235 – to his swing. His production had plummeted from .277/.393/.456 with 52 extra-base hits (18 homers) as a rookie to .227/.319/.389 with 34 extra-base hits (14 homers) in an injury-plagued second season, when a nagging shoulder affected his swing for much of the season and got him into some bad habits at the plate.

 He spent last offseason breaking down and reworking his swing, first with his private hitting instructor in the fall, then with Chipper Jones and new Braves hitting coaches Greg Walker and assistant Scott Fletcher from the start of the new year into spring training. It was the third straight season that Heyward had a new Braves hitting coach (or coaches, in this case).

 His shorter swing and better use of his hands helped Heyward bounce back with an outstanding season in 2012, hitting .269/.335/.479 with career-bests in extra-base hits (63), doubles (30), triples (six), homers (27), RBIs (82), stolen bases (21) and runs (93), and his streamlined physique helped him win his first Gold Glove.

  “I expected J-Hey to win -- J-Hey dominated right field this year,” Chipper said in November. “You don’t see a right fielder with his blend of speed and arm strength, and accuracy is something he’s worked on this year. His routes, his angles have gotten a ton better. I dare say that [Gold Glove voting] was probably a landslide….

  “He’s had some arm strength, but he struggled with his accuracy. His accuracy took a positive turn this year. That was nice to see.”

  Now it’s Year 4 for Heyward, and with the retirement of Jones and departures of David Ross (free agency) and Martin Prado, it’s Heyward, believe it or not, who’ll likely have the most time in a Braves uniform among the Opening Day starting position players. The only way he wouldn’t is if Brian McCann makes it back sooner than expected from shoulder surgery, which is likely to keep him out of the lineup for at least a week at the outset.

  For Heyward, experience and good health have made this the least-stressful offseason he’s had in years. He could get back in the batting cage and go to work getting reps and prepping for the season, not starting from scratch or wondering if his thumb or shoulder were fully healed.

 “I didn’t have to go look for what I’m trying to feel for,” is how he puts the situation with his swing this offseason, compared to the previous winter. “I know how it’s supposed to feel. For me, doing those things day-in and day-out and repeating them is the biggest thing. The more you can make those adjustments, the faster you make them, the better of you’ll be.”

  Heyward was at Turner Field last week on the first day of the voluntary early pitching program, the only non-catcher in the batting cage that morning. This was a couple of days before the Braves traded for outfielder Justin Upton, the acquisition that Heyward had been hoping they’d make after signing his brother B.J. Upton back in November.

  Heyward and B.J. had already talked and texted a bunch of times, getting to know each other. Heyward was the only Brave who came out for B.J.’s press conference in November, and he happily texted Justin to welcome him as soon as he heard the deal went down.

  “I’m excited to play baseball,” Heyward said last week, even before the second Upton was added to the “Up, Up and a Hey” outfield. “I like the down time that you get in the offseason, but it’s always exciting to have that itch getting ready to go to spring training, and I can’t leave soon enough to go to Florida now.”

  Justin Upton won the Fielding Bible Award as the majors’ best defensive right fielder in 2011, finishing just ahead of Heyward. Heyward won the award this season, along with the NL Gold Glove.

  Justin will move to left field and the two gifted corner outfielders will flank B.J., who is thought to be a much better defensive player by Heyward and Braves officials than some metric stats indicate. B.J. replaces Michael Bourn, a former two-time Gold Glove winner and 2012 All-Star who left as a free agent.

  “You had one center fielder in Michael Bourn, and you don’t lose a step there having B.J.,” Heyward said. “And you get a little bit stronger arm from B.J., as far as what I’ve seen. And a right-handed bat and some playoff experience as well; that’s what’s huge there.”

  The Braves have one of the two or three best outfields in baseball, with only Anaheim and Washington fielding what could be considered comparable units. Speed and range could give the Braves an edge defensively, at least.

  It doesn’t take much of an imagination to envision the Braves’ Uptons and Heyward combining for 90-100 doubles, 80-90 homers, 240-250 RBIs and 70-80 stolen bases. Just check out their individual highs during the past three seasons:

   - B.J.’s best in that span -- 38 doubles, 28 HRs, 81 RBIs, 42 SBs (not in same season)

   - Justin’s: 39 doubles, 31 HRs, 88 RBIs, 21 SBs (all in 2011)

   - Heyward’s: 30 doubles, 27 HRs, 82 RBIs, 21 SBs (all in 2012)

 Oh, and someone asked me the other day why Upton was considerd a lock for the No. 3 spot over Heyward, because Fredi Gonzalez has already said he’s leaning toward batting Andrelton Simmons first, Heyward second and Justin third, followed by McCann and B.J.

  Besides the fact that batting Heyward second gives Gonzalez the righty/lefty/righty/lefty order he prefers, look at the career stats for both hitters in the 3-hole: J.Upton  .286/.364/.485 in 1756 ABs; Heyward .244/.320/.418 in 402 ABs.

 • McCann on the rebound: Count Braves bullpen coach Eddie Perez among those of us who believe Brian McCann is going to come back strong this season.

  McCann had right-shoulder surgery Oct. 16 to repair a torn labrum, an injury that bothered him for most of a career-worst 2012 season, when his six-year streak of All-Star appearances was snapped. McCann kept playing despite the injury because he didn’t want to leave the team in a lurch and force David Ross  into the everyday lineup for several months without a strong backup.

  “I’m very sure that [McCann] is going to have an unbelievable season this year,” said Perez, who was a backup catcher for most of 11 seasons in the majors, and a guy who was still behind the plate at age 37 in 2005.

  “He’s going to come back. You look at the numbers from last year,” Perez said of McCann, who hit .230 with 20 homers, 67 RBIs, a .300 OBP and .399 slugging percentage. “They were bad for him, but not for most catchers. People said, ‘He had a bad year.’ Well, considering he had a bad shoulder, and he played through it…”

  While .230/.300/.399 with 20 homers and 67 RBIs wouldn’t be a bad year for some catchers, it was awful for the National League’s best-hitting catcher of the past decade. Before last year, McCann had a .286 career average with 136 homers, a .358 OBP and .486 slugging percentage, and had 87 or more RBIs in four of six seasons.

  McCann had a torn labrum and kept partially dislocating his shoulder on swings. It made it impossible to get full extension on his swing for much of the season without discomfort, and he also had increasing amounts of knife-like pain when he missed a pitch or got out ahead of a change-up or breaking ball and tried to hold up.

  When he went in McCann’s shoulder, Dr. Xavier Duralde found a tear worse than expected. He did a posterior superior labral tear repair, in which all the ligaments that attach to the labrum are secured back to the socket, stabilizing that part of the joint. Rehab was expected to require at least six months,  but McCann recently told team officials he feels the best he’s felt in years and hopes to be back Opening Day or soon thereafter.

 "It’s getting better and better, and that’s all I can ask for," McCann said Thursday. "I’m just listening to what everybody telling me, sticking with the plan, and when they tell me I can go, I'm going to go. I'm not going to skip any steps [in the rehab plan]."

  The Braves hope McCann can return sometime in early April, but say they won’t bring him back until doctors clear him and he plays enough at game speed to be comfortable. They are prepared to use veteran Gerald Laird, an offseason free-agent signee, for a couple of weeks or however long McCann is out at the start of the season. (Ross left as a free agent after getting a bigger-than-anyone-expected, two-year, $6.2 million offer from the Red Sox.) 

   The Braves want to make sure not to rush him back or do anything that might contribute to a setback for McCann, whose return to form could be a key for a lineup that added the Upton brothers and has the potential to be one of the league’s best if McCann and/or Dan Uggla has a strong year.

 “I think this year he’s going to be healthy,” said Perez, who talked to McCann at Turner Field recently. “I saw him last week and he looks really good. He’s going to put up some numbers. And I’m not going to be surprised. I’m sure he’s going to have an unbelievable season.”

  The Braves picked up the $13 million option on McCann’s contract for 2013, and recently agreed with him and his agent to put off any potential contract talks until after the season, though Wren said the team won’t rule out in-season discussions with him.

  McCann’s future with the Braves beyond 2013 is uncertain, since the team’s top position-player prospect is a catcher, Christian Bethancourt, and they need to see how he develops in 2013 and decide if Bethancourt if close to being major-league ready.

  While Bethancourt has a phenomenal arm and can shut down opponents’ running game, he still hasn’t proven he can hit higher-level pitching. He was one of the youngest players (age 20) in Double-A last season and was slowed by injuries (an early hamstring pull and a late-season broken hand).

  That said, his .243 average with two homers and a puny .566 OPS in 288 plate appearances still raised some eyebrows.

  The Braves might also take a look at intriguing, raw slugger Evan Gattis behind the plate, after moving him to left field early last season in order to hasten his potential path to the majors. He’s already 26 but has only 933 plate appearances in the minors and hasn’t played above Double-A, having been out of baseball for four years.

  Gattis can hit, no doubt. He has a .308 average with 44 homers, a .374 OBP and .546 slugging (.920 OPS) in three minor league seasons, and this offseason in the Venezuelan winter league he hit .303 with a .960 OPS and tied for the league lead with 16 homers in 195 at-bats – 50 fewer at-bats than either of the other two home run co-leaders.

  Gattis is probably still not more than serviceable behind the plate, although he’s worked hard at his catching and game-calling skills. The Braves will need to see him catch more this spring before determining whether he could help them in the backup catching role behind Laird if McCann starts the season on the DL.

  Once McCann returns, there’s been some discussion of having Gattis as a bench player who can play some in left field, provide a big right-handed bat off the bench and serve as a third catcher.

  But make no mistake, what the Braves need most from the catching position this year is a healthy McCann. A lot of people seem to forget, he’s still only 28 (29 on Feb. 20). And until McCann strained an oblique muscle in his side in late July 2011, no catcher in baseball had put up numbers comparable over the past several seasons.

 McCann admits now that he came back too soon from that oblique strain, struggling for the rest of the season and getting into bad habits when he tried to protect his side. The next season, at about the same time he worked through a flaw in his swing and got his extension back, the shoulder began barking and he had a whole new issue to deal with.

  Consider this: Before that oblique strain in late July 2011, McCann had a .291 career batting average with a .361 OBP and .492 slugging percentage in 845 games, including a .306 average with 18 homers, a .375 OBP and .514 slugging percentage in his first 91 games in that 2011 season.

   Since returning from a DL stint for the oblique strain, he’s hit .219, a .298 OBP and .386 slugging percentage in 158 games (572 at-bats).

 “He’s the best hitting catcher, and I’ll keep saying that to anybody,” Perez said. “And he’s not a bad [defensive] catcher. He’s getting better and better, and last year he had his best year throwing. People don’t realize that. I have to know because that’s what we do every day during spring training. He threw better than ever, and did it with a hurt shoulder.”

 • Bossman in the house: Manny Upton is the father of B.J. and Justin, and he’s also the original “Bossman,” the nickname he had and which led to oldest son Melvin Emanuel getting tabbed with “B.J.” as a child, short for “Bossman Junior.” (We’re not making this up; I wrote about it in this blog in December.)

  Anyway, you can expect to see Manny and wife Yvonne at a lot of Braves home games this season. It’s a short flight from their home in Norfolk, Va., and B.J. got them tickets near the Braves dugout soon after he signed with Atlanta. Now, with Justin traded from Arizona to Atlanta, Mr. and Mrs. Upton won’t even have to worry about making long flights to Phoenix. They can see both sons at once.

  "B.J. got seats. He was nice to us," Bossman said of Bossman Junior. "So we're right where Mom can holler at him when he's on deck. And she will holler at him.”

  By the way, if you meet Manny and shake his hand, be prepared. The former Norfolk State football and baseball star has a vice-like grip. I see where the sons got their strength.

  • Eddie Perez on the seven-player J.Upton/Prado trade: “People talk about Prado leaving. I’m from Venezuela [as is Prado], so everybody’s calling me and saying, what do you think? I say, look, man, to get some good players you’ve got to give up something good. We gave up one of the best, but we got some players back. I like it.”

• OK, let’s close this with a tune from The Black Keys, off their brilliant 2002 debut album The Big Come Up. You can hear it by clicking here. Back then they were just a two-piece blues-rock band that we thought we’d always call one of the most underrated bands that ever lived. Then they got huge. But at the risk of sounding like a music snob, I liked their earlier stuff even more than the ubiquitous tracks off their past couple of hit albums.

“I’LL BE YOUR MAN” by The Black Keys

 Need a new love, yeah I'm ready
Want my time, yeah I'm willing yeah
'Cause I'm the one who's gonna show
When there's nobody

I'll be your man, yeah I'll be your man
Time get tough, oh they get tougher
Hold on to me, I got you darling yeah
'Cause I'm the one who's gonna show
When there's nobody

I'll be your man
I'll be your man, yeah

River is deep, yeah I'm swimming
Mountain is high, I'm gonna climb, climb, climb
Yeah, I'm the one who's gonna show
When there's nobody

I'll be your man
I'll be your man, yeah

I'll be your man
I'll be your man, alright!