After the Braves’ first workout Wednesday for pitchers and catchers, first-year Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos met with reporters to discuss the opening of camp and what he and his staff will be looking for and considering in roster decisions.
Here’s part of that interview.
On getting to know all of the players in camp, since he only became GM in November:
“We meet with each player one-on-one, try to get it done before the games start (next week). I’m anxious for that as well. That’s when you really start to connect with guys. Even some of my early conversations have been impressive, just from first impressions -- makeup, character, what they’re like. (The start of spring training) is good – bullpens, deliveries, arm actions. Normally it gets old, but because it’s new (for him as the team’s new GM) it’s never going to get old. I can’t get enough of this stuff.”
With so many free agents still unsigned, do you get a sense this is the team you're going to have or could you still make a move or two?
“We’re still talking. We have a small depth add (Braves announced signing of catcher Chris Stewart after Anthopoulos spoke). Beyond that, we’re still going to stay engaged. Yeah, it’s unique with the number of (free agents) still out there when camp is starting. I think like we talked about with the (Matt) Kemp deal, we spent a good chunk of our offseason money in that deal. There’s a certain amount now that we’re going to work with, so that’s going to limit what aisles we shop in. Unless, like I mentioned before, we’re going to go multi-year on a guy and backload.”
"Yeah, I'm just anxious to get a feel for these guys, get a feel for the players. I know I can't fast forward, it's just going to take time. Even last night leaving the complex, I'm driving just thinking about being new to an organization and how many different departments you still want to delve into and examine. And again you have to just basically let the calendar dictate all that stuff because you can't get it all done at once. But no doubt, getting a chance to see players in games is going to matter.
“I’ve been through enough spring trainings to know that you don’t want to weigh spring training too much. But you definitely don’t want to weigh the early parts of spring training. In the last 10 days or so, last two weeks, at least the evaluations become a little bit more real.”
On pitcher Chase Whitley possibly getting chance to start, not necessarily limited to bullpen:
“He has a desire to at least explore starting, and we told him, as long as there’s no concerns getting him stretched out, it’s done correctly, we’ll look to do that if we can. Again, we’re not necessarily locked into that, but we would do our best to try to accommodate that. Whether that means he gets to three innings, to four innings, I mean, that might change after we see a little bit, it might change with some of the other guys we’re developing. But if we can, we’re going to at least try early on to get him some more innings.”
On top prospect Ronald Acuna being among the earliest arriving position players (Acuna reported Wednesday, four days before position players are due in):
“It’s always good. We know spring training is long, but the fact that guys take ownership of their careers and want to show up early, get to work and be around – it’s certainly a good thing. You love to see it across the board. So for someone like that to want to do that, speaks volumes about him.”
More on meeting with players:
“We’ll have (individual player) meetings with the manager and myself and the respective coach, and we’ll just talk about what the expectations are. And that’s why we’d like to try to get them done before the games start. If they spill into the games a little bit until we get through all the guys, it happens. The message is more of a ‘Hey, this is where you stand’ as an organization -- if you signed a minor league deal this is what was promised or this is what the expectations were, this is your chances to make the club.
“We want everyone to know where they stand coming into camp. For better or worse, if it’s a difficult conversation let’s have it early. And there might be some things that we want them to work on. Guys that we know are on the team, we might say, look, you’ve got a chance here to work on some things. Maybe it’s a right-right change-up, maybe it’s doing something defensively, maybe getting some reps at other (positions).
“Guys that are competing (for jobs), it’s a little harder to do that, to ask them to do something that they’re uncomfortable with. So it all depends, but the goal is for guys when they come out of those meetings, like it or not they know where they stand in the organization’s eyes going into camp, what the expectations are.”
On roster decisions and how being out of minor league options (options mean a player can be sent down without going through waivers) can affect those decisions:
“Guys that are out of options, they’ve been through it. And guys with options, we tell them ahead of time, you have options, so the bar is set higher for you. You might have a great camp, but because you have options and some other guys does not, you might be better but we’re taking not the best team opening day, but we need the best team over six months. And hopefully seven months. But part of (creating) depth is, there might be times where the out-of-options guy is going to get the nod, and those kids, those guys that are out of options, they’ve had that conversation (in past years) where they were guys with options going down. But we’ll be very transparent with all that.”
