Braves second baseman Jace Peterson has been watching new shortstop Erick Aybar and is eager to get to work with his new double-play partner.
The Braves traded shortstop Andrelton Simmons to the Los Angeles Angels for Aybar and pitching prospects Chris Ellis and Sean Newcomb in November.
“I’ve gotten to see (Aybar) play over the last few years just from me growing up,” Peterson said Saturday during FanFest at Turner Field. “I’ve been watching him for a long time. I’m excited to play with him. I think him and Simmons do a lot of things similar. I watched him a ton, and obviously I played with (Simmons) last year. So I think it’s something that we’ll have to get to spring training and work on, continue to take reps, turn double plays, take ground balls together and kind of get a feel for each other. But I don’t think it should be a problem at all.”
Peterson heads into his second season. He’ll be the starter at second base. He grinded through an up-and-down first season, playing for much of the year with a partially torn tendon in his right thumb. He wore a hard cast on the thumb for a month and a half during the offseason and said it feels better.
“I learned it’s a long season and you have to kind of just ride it out,” Peterson said. “I think last year I got myself in trouble in different cases. I think that I grew a lot last year in the season. I just took this offseason and got better and focused on stuff in the cage, a bunch of hitting drills, bunch of throwing drills, bunch of defensive drills. I feel ready and excited.”
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