Both the Braves and first-round draft pick Sean Gilmartin were pleased that they reached agreement on a contract a month before the Aug. 15 deadline, so Gilmartin can get his Braves career started with plenty of minor league season left.
Gilmartin, the left-hander from Florida State and the 28th overall pick in the June draft, signed for $1.13 million, right at the recommended slot for his pick. The Braves announced the signing Friday.
“I couldn’t be more happy,” said Gilmartin, who arrived at the Braves complex in Orlando on Friday to begin his throwing program. “... I wanted to get out and play. My intent was to get drafted this year and play as quick as possible and get myself affiliated with minor league baseball, get a feel for it, so I have a better idea going into next year what to expect and how to handle myself.”
The Braves expect Gilmartin to get in six or seven starts before the season is out. With the workload he had pitching for Florida State, he likely would have rested to this point anyway.
“I think that’s going to be perfect,” Braves general manager Frank Wren said. “To allow him to rest up from the heavy workload this spring and go out and get some meaningful innings in before the end of the season to move him along in the process.”
Gilmartin, 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, from Moorpark, Calif., was first-team All-ACC for FSU. He went 12-1 with a 1.83 ERA to tie for the ACC lead in the wins as a junior. He struck out 122 and walked only 20 in 113 1/3 innings.
Light work for Jones
Only six days removed from arthroscopic knee surgery, Chipper Jones was on the field Friday afternoon running light sprints, throwing and fielding ground balls.
Such is life on the two-week recovery track. Jones hopes to return for the Pirates series that starts July 25.
“That’s a lot, six days post op, but I want to know what I can do,” Jones said Friday. “If it’s sore tomorrow, we’ll back off a little bit tomorrow, then go at it again on Sunday.”
Jones also took 25 swings left-handed off a tee without any problems. Afterward he said his knee felt sluggish, but it was nothing unexpected.
“I’ve got that heavy leg feeling like my right leg weighs five more pounds than my left leg, which is normal,” Jones said. “The biggest thing is going to be how we respond tomorrow and if we’re able to go out and do it again.”
Vizcaino to bullpen
The Braves are moving elite pitching prospect Arodys Vizcaino from the starting rotation to the bullpen at Double-A Mississippi, but not because they plan to make him a reliever.
Wren said the Braves want to limit Vizcaino’s innings in the second half of the season, since he already has pitched more innings (87) in 17 starts than in any of his first three minor league seasons with the Yankees and Braves.
Vizcaino, 20, totaled a career-high 85 1/3 innings in 17 starts last season and missed much of the second half with a partially torn elbow ligament that healed without surgery.
Vizcaino, the No. 16 prospect in Baseball America’s midseason Top 50 list, has posted a 3.21 ERA with 90 strikeouts and 25 walks in 87 innings in high Single-A Lynchburg and Double-A.
“We have guidelines, not rigid guidelines, but suggested inning totals each year for all our pitchers,” Wren said. “He was getting close where, if he continued to start, he was going to push up against those. And we wanted to slow him down.
“He’ll relieve for a while, see how it goes, then make a decision on what happens next.
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