LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – With more than half of spring training completed and opening day just over three weeks away, the Braves report card is incomplete on Dan Uggla and B.J. Upton, veteran hitters trying to bounce back from career-worst performances last season.
Upton was 4-for-20 (.200) with two doubles and a .238 on-base percentage in seven games before Saturday, when the center fielder was a late scratch from the split-squad lineup against Miami due to sickness. Jose Constanza replaced him and batted second, where Upton has hit in a majority of his at-bats this spring.
Upton has one walk and eight strikeouts this spring, including five strikeouts in nine at-bats over his past three games.
“We’re seeing some fundamentally good swings and then we’re seeing some spins,” Braves hitting coach Greg Walker said of Upton, who had too much movement in the batter’s box last season when he set career lows in average (.186), on-base percentage (.268) and slugging percentage (.289), matched his full-season low of nine homers, and struck out 151 times in 391 at-bats.
It was his first season with the Braves after signing a five-year, $75.25 million contract, the largest free-agent deal in franchise history.
Upton, 29, eliminated a lot of the hip, leg and head movement in his stance during the offseason, with a goal of getting back to the far simpler swing he had years ago with the Tampa Bay. He hit .300 with a .386 OBP and 24 homers in 2007 in his first full season in 2007, and .273 with a .383 OBP and nine homers in 2008.
Generally speaking, he’s looked better in batting practice than in the games.
“He does some different things in the game than he doesn’t do in BP,” Walker said. “He knows what he’s trying to do, and in the games we’re getting about a third of them that are really good, and then about two-thirds of them he’s spinning. He seems to be getting better and better. We’re trying to get his bad-posture spin out of it.
“I’m encouraged. We need more than what we’ve got so far, but he’s headed in the right direction, I think.”
Uggla is 4-for-17 (.235) with four singles, five walks and seven strikeouts. After collecting three hits and three walks in nine plate appearances in his first three games, he has one hit and two walks in 16 plate appearances over his past five games, including 0-for-3 with two strikeouts Saturday against Washington.
“When he came into camp everything was great,” Walker said. “Then he lost it for two or three days. And then he got it back (Thursday) at the end of the game — he got a base hit and took a walk.
“He just needs to be aggressive getting in the right position, swing the bat and be on time. And that’s what he’s fighting to do. And he’d kind of gone back to his under-across swing. But he got it back (Thursday).”
After having Friday off, Uggla’s progress Thursday didn’t carry over to his next game Saturday.
Uggla is still owed about $26 million in 2014-2015, the last two years of his five-year contract extension. Barring an unexpected trade in the next three weeks, he’ll be the Braves’ opening-day second baseman and have a chance to show he can still be a productive lineup regular.
But at some point — presumably earlier than last season, when he wasn’t benched until September despite his season-long struggles — he’ll need to show improvement, or the Braves could consider other options and perhaps turn to second-base prospect Tommy La Stella.
Uggla’s batting-practice sessions have impressed since the first day he reported early to spring training nearly four weeks ago.
“His pregame work is unbelievable,” Walker said. “I mean, he’s as fundamentally sound in pregame work as anybody. Anybody.”
