LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The Braves’ dynamic trio has left the building, but no one doubts that middle infielders Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson and center fielder Mallex Smith will be back before too long.
Those three were among five spring-training roster cuts made Friday by the Braves, who optioned Smith to Triple-A and reassigned Albies, Swanson and pitching prospects Aaron Blair and Lucas Sims to minor league camp.
“The day’s also coming when they’re going to be back to us, it’s a matter of time,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of the position players sent down Friday. “And that’s the message I sent all three of them. I said you guys are close to playing in the big leagues. You’re just going to go out and get some at-bats, get some games under your belt. But I feel comfortable if we need any of those three guys, they can help us. It’s just a matter of getting a little bit more seasoning.”
Smith was the only one of the five on the 40-man major league roster, thus the only one to require the use of an option to send him to the minors. The moves left the Braves with 41 players on the spring-training roster.
Smith, 22, likely will be joined at Triple-A Gwinnett by Blair and perhaps Sims. Albies, who turned 19 in January, and Swanson, 22, is each expected play shortstop for a different minor league affiliate — possibly Double-A Mississippi and high Single-A Carolina — so the Braves can evaluate and determine which should move to second base eventually.
Albies hit .371 (13-for-35) with a home run and two stolen bases in 16 games while playing shortstop and second base. Swanson also split time at those positions and hit .300 (9-for-30) with three doubles, a triple and three RBIs in 16 games.
“It was great,” Albies said of his first major-league camp. “To learn the game better — it feels good.”
Smith created a buzz early, particularly with his four extra-base hits in his first start including two triples in the first inning. Then Albies and Swanson became the talk of camp among Braves officials, coaches and teammates and reinforced their status as the middle-infield duo for the future, perhaps as soon as 2017.
Asked if the experience had given him more confidence that he’ll be ready soon for the majors, Albies smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Closer than I was before.”
Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft out of Vanderbilt, impressed with his all-around skills, maturity, and simply how comfortable he seemed in his first big-league camp and with a new organization. The Braves acquired the former Marietta High star from the Diamondbacks in a December trade for Shelby Miller.
“Leave an impression, have fun doing it, just get to know everybody,” Swanson said of what he’d hoped to accomplish in his first camp, which he did. “I think the biggest thing was just to understand that being yourself is, like, the biggest key.”
Smith, 22, hit .346 (9-for-26) with seven extra-base hits (three triples, one home run) in 15 games. Though he still needs some refinement and better strike-zone recognition, he displayed undeniable skills including blazing speed.
“They’re special kids,” Gonzalez said of the trio of position players. “Usually — not always but usually — one of the veteran guys gets upset because one of the young kids is not behaving the way they should be behaving as a young kid. I never got one complaint (about that trio) from our veteran guys. As a matter of fact, I got people telling me that these guys behave like we want them to — they come in, listen, talk, that type of thing.”
Minor league teams started their spring-training games Friday, but Gonzalez was asked whether he wanted to keep the exciting position-player prospects in major league camp even longer.
“I begged,” he said, laughing. “They let me have them a week later than they wanted to. But I told them, hey, they’re not playing (minor league) games yet, and they’re getting at-bats here. They said, yeah, you’re right.
“I say this jokingly all the times — there’s times where I couldn’t wait to get the veteran guys out of there so I could plug those guys in there and watch them play.”
