The Braves will play spring training games after just four days of full-squad workouts. Drastic times call for somewhat drastic measures, or as much so as manager Brian Snitker is willing to get.
He extended the first full-squad workout well past 1 p.m. Monday – about an hour longer than usual – and also had hitters face pitchers in live batting practice, something that legendary manager Bobby Cox did for many years but a practice that Cox successor Fredi Gonzalez ended.
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“We’re crunched with time really,” said Snitker, whose Braves open the Grapefrut League schedule Friday against the Mets at Port St. Lucie, Fla. “We have to accelerate a little bit and probably do more than we would on a given (first) day because we play Friday.
“I don’t care how good a shape they’re in, until they get out here and stand around and get the volume of throwing and activity that they get, it still takes a while to get used to it; you’re going to be sore. That’s part of the process. We’ll be fine but we’ll have to do things a little different this year. Started live (batting practice) today, which we have to do to prepare for the start of the games. Amping things up a little bit.”
Most modern managers wait at least a few days to let hitters take batting practice against coaches before throwing them into the fire of mid- to upper-90 mph fastballs, since most spent the offseason working out and hitting balls off a tee or soft-tossed. Snitker followed suit last year in his first spring training as Braves manager, but on Monday he had hitters facing the likes of Julio Teheran, Brandon McCarthy and Kyle Wright.
Predictably, few hitters were able to catch up to fastballs and make solid contact, with the notable exception of No. 1 prospect Ronald Acuna, who hit plenty of pitches hard including deep fly balls off veteran reliever Sam Freeman.
Since the Braves’ first three games Friday through Sunday are bus rides of more than two hours, Snitker doesn’t plan to take any of his established veteran players and probably not many other starting position players. The Braves will play the Mets on Friday, return to Orlando after the game, then bus to West Palm Beach for games against the Astros on Saturday and the Nationals on Sunday, spending Saturday night at a hotel rather than go back-and-forth.
“Probably not even taking those (established) guys with me this weekend,” Snitker said of his plans to have young players and prospects play the first three games. “There’s a core group of guys that will probably stay back (at training camp) and continue to work and continue to do spring training workouts. There will be some younger guys that, they’ve got to go play. That’s the way it is.
“But some of those guys that been doing this for a while, then I’m going to be a little leery of getting them out there too soon.”
Snitker said his message during a team meeting in center field Monday morning before the workout was to take advantage of the opportunity that many players would have to earn a spot this spring and be a part of what the Braves believe can be a pivotal season in their rebuild.
“It’s a little different camp. It’s a young camp, exciting,” Snitker said. “I told them about how excited I was. I said we went through a lot of change in the offseason; I didn’t have to elaborate. We have some new faces running around here. We’re being introduced to the analytics side of the game now, and there’s a lot of information for these guys. It’s going to be presented to them in a good way and they can do with it (what they want). …
“There’s a lot of change here; things might be different, it might be a different camp, there’s different people running it. But it’s all for the positive and it’s all headed in a good way. It’s like I told them, 27 years ago I saw how this process works. I was a part of it. And I said we’re headed in the right direction and it’s an exciting time to be an Atlanta Brave right now.”
Asked to elaborate on the comment being part of it 27 years ago for the Braves’ worst-to-first season, Snitker said: “We built this thing from within, and I was there at the ground floor of that and saw, that’s how you do it. The strength of our minor leagues was a big part, then obviously (general manager) John (Schuerholz) did a great job supplementing what we had coming through the minor leagues.
“I think there’s a lot of similarities now and then, that’s kind of what I meant.”
