LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The Braves’ spring-training clubhouse is jam-packed with 70 players, some of whom have zero chance of making the opening-day roster.
So why did guys like elite shortstop Ozzie Albies and outfield prospect Braxton Davidson, each just 19 years old and with no chance of breaking camp with the major league team, get invited to camp when it was already going to be overcrowded this spring?
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez was asked that question specifically about Davidson, a first-round pick in the 2014 draft. But his answer could apply indirectly to Albies and plenty of other youngsters who are in major league camp for the first weeks of spring training.
“Just the experience of being around major league players, and a major league atmosphere at spring training,” Gonzalez said. “It’s got to help (Davidson), Here’s another guy that made himself better (during the offseason), so you run him out there. Obviously he’s not going to make the club, but why not give him the experience? We’ve always done that.
“We always seem to (invite) one or two young guys who aren’t going to make the club, to give them a little experience. Not so much that they’re going to get too cocky or too comfortable when they get sent down (to minor league camp), but just enough to go, ‘OK, this is what major league camp is about. When I come back in a year, or maybe late August or September’ – not that I’m saying he’s going to do that, but some other guys (might) – then they say, ‘OK, this is the way I behave, this is the way they do stuff in the big leagues.’”
