LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The Braves have about a dozen more players in camp than usual, and about half of approximately 65 who'll participate in the Braves' first full-squad workout Thursday are new to the organization. That should make for an even busier first day for manager Fredi Gonzalez and his coaches.
“It’s going to be fun,” Gonzalez said Wednesday after the fifth day of pitchers-and-catchers workouts. “All those fields back there are going to be like an ant farm. Guys are going to be going everywhere. It’s going to be chaos, but it’s going to be controlled chaos. Tt’s going to be fun, it really is. I’m looking forward to it.
“It’s a night, for me, of unrest, sleeplessness, like the first day of school. (Before you) address your team, give them the message you want, go over some other stuff.”
If the forecast for the Orlando area holds up, thunderstorms Thursday could force the Braves to move workouts into the limited space in the covered batting cages beyond left field. There’s not enough room there for 65 players to conduct their regularly scheduled workout, but the Braves will make do if they have to.
Besides, they’ve still got just over six weeks of spring training ahead of them before breaking camp and heading to Miami to open the regular season April 6.
There are about a dozen more in camp than usual because the Braves quickly signed some free agents to major league contracts or minor league deals with spring-training invitations. Some wouldn’t have been signed if the Braves had known for sure they’d be able to get many of the others who signed later in the offseason.
“I like to have a camp with about 52, 55 guys,” said John Hart, Braves president of baseball operations. “But we looked at it thoroughly before the winter, before a lot of the moves we made, we said we really need some protection and some support. So we jumped out on some guys in October or early November that we gave major league invites, because we just didn’t have a lot of protection at the time.
“So I think therefore we have a little bit more of an expanded camp, and that’s OK. We’re OK with that.”
There are also some young prospects in camp with no chance of making the opening-day roster. Some players are here because plenty of catchers are needed in the opening weeks of camps, and others were invited as a reward or because team officials wanted them to be around veteran players for a few weeks.
“There are guys that can hit .800 and they’re (still) going to go to their respective teams – Double-A, A-ball, that kind of stuff,” Gonzalez said, the smiled and cited as an example: “Tanner Murphy, the catcher, 19 years old? I don’t think he’s going to make the club.”
