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Dansby Swanson

Braves Place Dansby Swanson On 10-Day DL

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The Braves have placed shortstop Dansby Swanson on the 10-day DL with left wrist inflammation, per a team announcement. He’ll be replaced by outfielder Preston Tucker, who was only just optioned way earlier today.

It doesn’t seem as if the move was made out of concern that Swanson has suffered a significant injury. Manager Brian Snitker suggested today that the belief is Swanson’s wrist is “structurally sound,” per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (via Twitter).

That’s generally good news, then, for the Braves. The team’s encouraging overall start has been matched — and driven, in no small part — by Swanson’s own first month. Coming off of a rough 2017 effort at the plate, he was something of a question mark entering the current campaign.

To this point, Swanson has fulfilled the promise he showed as a former first overall draft pick who sprined through the minors. He’s off to a .289/.336/.430 start through 122 plate appearances, with two home runs and two stolen bases. Defensive metrics are also smiling on Swanson’s efforts in the field after awarding him marginal grades in 2017.

That said, Swanson still has some issues to overcome on the offensive side. He has benefited thus far from a .388 batting average on balls in play that’s sure to decline. Swanson has thus far taken a more aggressive approach than in the past, with his swing rate (48.5%) and swinging-strike rate (11.2%) both easily topping his prior levels. He’s drawing walks in just 5.7% of his plate appearances, well shy of the 10.7% rate he carried last year, while going down on strikeouts more than ever before (26.2%). It remains to be seen how things will shake out as pitchers react to this changed approach and Swanson, in turn, responds.

As for Tucker, he was eligible to return in advance of the usual 10-day waiting period since he was replacing an injured player. It’s fair to wonder, though, whether he’ll remain on the MLB roster for long. There isn’t a rush for another infielder — Johan Camargo can slide to short, with Charlie Culberson and Ryan Flaherty still available off the bench — but the organization had already decided it preferred an alignment that did not include Tucker. He could head back to Gwinnett when Swanson is activated, if not sooner — if, say, the Braves decide to promote just-claimed utilityman Philip Gosselin.

NL East Notes: Robles, Walker, Swanson

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Some items from around the NL East…

  • The Nationals optioned outfielder Victor Robles to Triple-A today, a move that came as little surprise given that the club didn’t want to keep Robles on the big league bench rather than gaining valuable everyday experience in the minors.  Robles, a consensus top-six prospect in baseball, bypassed Triple-A entirely last season when he was called up by the Nats for 13 September games (plus a spot on the NLDS roster).  Washington is already set in the outfield with Bryce Harper, Michael Taylor, and Adam Eaton, leaving Robles without a clear path to playing time.  He’ll begin 2018 getting his first taste of Triple-A ball and one would expect he’ll again return to the Nats roster this season, though the exact timing could be in question depending on if the Nationals want to manage Robles’ service time.
  • Neil Walker kept the idea of a return to the Mets open until the team signed Todd Frazier, Walker tells Brendan Kuty of NJ Advance Media.  The infielder and the Mets “just kept in touch about interest levels, so on and so forth,” Walker said.  “They were just checking in to see if I was willing to come back and things like that. I certainly was.  But, really, when Frazier came in, we kind of felt like it wasn’t a possibility.”  The Mets were known to be exploring a wide range of options at second and third base, ranging from everyday players to utility options, and they eventually struck on both fronts by re-signing Jose Reyes for a backup role and signing Frazier for more or less everyday duties at the hot corner.  Walker ended up signing with New York’s other team, inking a one-year $4MM deal with the Yankees
  • Dansby Swanson’s first full MLB season didn’t go as planned, as the Braves shortstop and former first overall pick struggled to a .232/.312/.324 slash line over 551 and was even briefly demoted back to Triple-A.  Despite the lack of results, Swanson told ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick that he is looking at his 2017 as a learning opportunity.  “Just because last year didn’t go as planned, it doesn’t mean that this year won’t,” Swanson said.  “We all struggle at points in our lives.  I’m grateful it happened early, because you can build off that and learn your lessons and move forward.  I don’t even look at it as failure.  I look at it as growth.”  Still just 24 years old, Swanson has been working on his fielding and has adopted a new positioning of his hands on the bat as he looks to break out as Atlanta’s everyday shortstop.

Braves To Option Dansby Swanson

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The Braves are sending shortstop Dansby Swanson down to Triple-A Gwinnett to receive everyday at-bats as they look to break him out of a lengthy slump, tweets Mark Bowman of MLB.com.

[Related: Updated Atlanta Braves depth chart]

The No. 1 overall pick by the Diamondbacks in the 2015 draft, Swanson was traded to the Braves alongside Ender Inciarte and Aaron Blair in the widely panned Shelby Miller trade. After just 529 minor league plate appearances, he burst onto the scene with a .302/.361/.442 batting line through 145 plate appearances late in the 2016 season.

Swanson got off to a terrible start to the season but righted the ship from early May through July 1, hitting .282/.352/.420 with a dozen doubles and four homers through 196 plate appearances. Unfortunately, he’d fallen into a brutal 2-for-40 slump and begun to lose some playing time to the hotter-hitting Johan Camargo.

By all accounts, Swanson is still largely viewed as the shortstop of the future in Atlanta despite what can be described, at best, as an up and down 2017 campaign. He’s yet to take a full season’s worth of plate appearances in the Majors or in the minors, so at 23 years of age Swanson should hardly be considered any kind of lost cause. In all likelihood, Swanson will get another chance to prove himself at the Major League level later this season after working to sort out some kinks in a lower-pressure environment.

From a service time standpoint, he’s currently just nine days away from reaching a full year, so it’s exceedingly likely that he’ll still end up with one-plus year of service this offseason. That’d still leave him on pace to be eligible for arbitration upon completion of the 2019 season and eligible for free agency in the 2022-23 offseason.

Draft Notes: Lewis, McKay, Day 2, Gore, Greene, Wright, Beck

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No. 1 overall draft pick Royce Lewis will take his physical with the Twins soon, tweets Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There aren’t expected to be any hangups in negotiations, per Berardino, who notes that the industry expectation is for Lewis to receive a bonus north of Dansby Swanson’s $6.5MM bonus from the 2015 draft. The top pick in the draft came with a slot value of $7.7MM, and MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger wrote this week that Lewis could sign for around $1MM less than that sum. That’d put his bonus in the $6.5MM to $6.7MM range, saving the Twins anywhere from $1MM to $1.2MM from the slot value. FanRag’s Jon Heyman pegs the expected value at “just a tick over” $6.7MM. Rays top pick Brendan McKay, meanwhile, is expected to sign for somewhere between $7MM and $7.2MM, according to Berardino. That’d be the largest bonus ever given to a college player under the current draft structure, surpassing Kris Bryant’s $6.7MM sum.

More notes on the draft…

  • The Twins “crushed” Day 2 of the draft, MLB.com’s Jim Callis opines. Adding high school right-hander Blayne Enlow, a potential first-round talent that dropped due to a strong commitment to LSU, kicked off a day in which Minnesota selected five players that ranked inside MLB.com’s top 200 draft prospects. Enlow, Callis writes, has the best curveball in the draft as well as a fastball that has touched 94 mph and has room to grow as his projectable frame grows. Callis also lauds the White Sox, Dodgers, Red Sox and Brewers for the talent they secured in rounds three through 10. ESPN’s Keith Law agrees that the Twins did quite well to land Enlow with the No. 76 pick and also gives quite a bit of praise to the Athletics, who landed a first-round talent (in his estimation) with the 81st pick by taking shortstop Nick Allen. Law opines that the undersized Allen, who is listed at 5’8″, would’ve been a top 10 pick if he were three inches taller.
  • FanRag’s Jon Heyman provides some insight into the progress being made with the top five picks in the draft. The Padres, according to Heyman, are expected to sign No. 3 overall pick MacKenzie Gore, a high school left-hander, for the full slot value of $6,668,100. Reds top pick Hunter Greene, meanwhile, is expected to sign for a deal “close” to the $7,193,200 slot value of his No. 2 overall selection, per Heyman. (Also of note for Reds fans: Heyman spoke to a rival exec who heaped praise on the Reds’ draft, opining that they “won the draft by far.”) And the Braves look to be going well over slot to sign Vanderbilt right-hander Kyle Wright, as Heyman reports that they’re discussing a deal worth close to $7MM, while the No. 5 slot carries a value of $5,707,300. Of course, Wright was long rumored to be a potential No. 1 overall pick, so it stands to reason that he’d come with a fairly sizable price tag.
  • Baseball America’s John Manuel reported yesterday that Stanford right-hander Tristan Beck, a potential first-round talent that missed the 2017 season due to a stress fracture in his lower back, will not sign and plans to head back to Stanford (Twitter link). That didn’t stop the Yankees from drafting him late (29th round), though New York would obviously need to give him a massive bonus in order to convince him to forgo a return to college, as a healthy Beck would do quite well in next year’s draft. The Yankees may not have the leftover money even to make a legitimate effort to sign Beck, though he makes for a nice contingency plan if the team unexpectedly finds itself with some extra pool money to play with.

NL East Notes: Fernandez, Phillies, Medlen, Braves

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Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald details the efforts by Major League Baseball and the Marlins to set up a fund for the infant daughter of deceased star Jose Fernandez. As Jackson explains, the money appears to have flowed from an insurance company to the league, then on to the team and into a trust for her benefit. Those interested in the specifics should read the exhaustively reported piece.

Here’s more from the NL East:

  • Phillies GM Matt Klentak sat down for an interesting chat with Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, which you can watch or read about right here. It’s certainly worth a full look for Phils’ fans, as Klentak discusses the team’s woeful performance in May. He emphasized a need to remain patient and keep the focus on the future, but acknowledged the disappointment. As for two particularly important players, Klentak says the team wants to let them work things out at the major league level. There are “reasons to believe” that Maikel Franco will bust out of his slump, he says, and the organization is “committed to giving Maikel more time to get out of this.” And center fielder Odubel Herrera is still a valuable contributor in the field, Klentak notes, explaining that his struggles at the plate may be due to the fact that he is currently “not taking pitches as well as he used to.”
  • Righty Kris Medlen is still working on a comeback attempt with the Braves, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. Medlen has moved up to the Double-A level and says he feels good physically after dealing with a host of arm problems and redeveloping his mechanics to compensate. The 31-year-old has allowed six earned runs on 16 hits while striking out ten batters and issuing six walks over 15 2/3 total innings through three starts. He last turned in a full and productive MLB season back in 2013 with the Braves.
  • Of more immediate concern to the Braves, the current big league club is struggling with its glovework, as O’Brien also reports. Even putting aside one horrific inning on Tuesday, Atlanta has allowed a ton of unearned runs. Metrics are split on the overall performance of the Braves fielders: UZR grades them rather well in spite of the miscues, while Defensive Runs Saved values the unit in the bottom ten leaguewide. Young shortstop Dansby Swanson has already racked up 11 errors, though both grading systems still see him as an average performer at short.

NL West Notes: Gonzalez, Hill, Arroyo, Morse, Hwang, Stewart

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Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is dealing with what he has described as a case of tennis elbow, as Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times reports. The veteran says that he suffered the malady due to an active offseason workout program. While he’s set to be shut down for about two weeks, Gonzalez says he expects to be back to full strength after some rest. Chase Utley is expected to see some time in camp at first, McCullough notes, as the team prepares in the event that Gonzalez does end up missing some time early.

Here’s more from the NL West:

  • The Giants may have the game’s most interesting aggregation of veterans competing for limited bench roles in camp, as Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News writes. “No promises, no guarantees,” GM Bobby Evans said of the signing of Aaron Hill. “Just creating competition. We’ll see how it plays out.” If there is a drawback to the large number of competitors, it’s probably the lack of reps available to young players — particularly top prospect Christian Arroyo. However, as Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area writes, GM Bobby Evans says that the organization already feels confident that Arroyo is capable of handling the bat at the major league level, suggesting that the club doesn’t need a long look this spring to determine his timeline.
  • As Baggarly notes, the right-handed-hitting Hill is competing to some extent not only with the array of infielders, but also players such as Michael Morse for a role as a righty bench bat. Morse returned to San Francisco after unexpectedly hammering out a deal at Hunter Pence’s wedding — an interesting story that also comes via Baggarly. Perhaps the single most intriguing player in camp, though, is Korean infielder Jae-gyun Hwang. As Baggarly also writes, agent Han Lee says that the KBO star is committed to pitting himself against MLB pitching. “A lot of people assume if he doesn’t make it, he’s just going to run back to Korea, but that’s not his mentality,” says Lee. “I’ve told him it’s very much possible he could start at Sacramento, and if that’s the case, he’ll just have to work his way up.”
  • Former Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart discussed his tenure in a recent appearance on MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM (audio link). Stewart expressed disappointment with the fact that he wasn’t given a longer leash in Arizona, suggesting he hadn’t received a “true opportunity to do the job.” That said, he acknowledged the error behind one of the moves that perhaps helped spell the end of his time in Arizona — the infamous deal that sent Dansby Swanson, Ender Inciarte, and Aaron Blair to the Braves for Shelby Miller. “My gut that whole time said that I should not move Dansby Swanson,” he said, though he stressed that he still believes in Miller. “If anything, maybe substituting [him] with another player” would have been something he would like to “have a redo” on, said Stewart.

NL East Notes: Klentak, Marlins, Swanson, Mets

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Some news from around the NL East…

  • Phillies GM Matt Klentak said his team is looking at adding another hitter or reliever, though neither move is a necessity, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki writes.  The hitter is likely to be a reserve outfielder, as the Phillies want to see what they have in their young outfielders as they continue their rebuilding process.  “We continue to prioritize roster flexibility and payroll flexibility so players that are in position to sign shorter term contracts are going to be more appealing to us,” Klentak said.
  • The Marlins have assembled their bullpen based on talent, fit and availability, without any specific regard to balance between left-handers and right-handers.  As a result, MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro notes, Miami could head into 2017 with an entirely right-handed relief corps.  Hunter Cervenka and Elvis Araujo are the only southpaw relievers on the Marlins’ 40-man roster and either could potentially win a job in Spring Training, though both pitchers are way down depth chart at this point.
  • Dansby Swanson is “as close to untouchable as any Brave right now,” David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, as John Hart and John Coppolella are both very impressed by the young shortstop’s on-field talents and off-the-field intangibles.  “I don’t think you can put any playables or comparisons on him, I just know we’re better with him, and the whole is greater than the parts. This is a special guy that makes people around him better,” Coppolella said.  The White Sox reportedly wanted Swanson as part of a Chris Sale trade package earlier this offseason but the Braves refused to part with the former first overall draft pick.
  • The Mets are known to be shopping outfielders, though MLB.com’s Mike Petriello notes that even if New York deals one of Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson or Michael Conforto, it still creates an issue since neither Granderson or Conforto project as a good defensive center fielder.  Petriello instead proposes that the Mets could move two outfielders (either the two veterans, or Conforto with one of Granderson or Bruce to garner a bigger trade return) and then acquire an actual center fielder to properly fill the job.

Rotation Rumblings: Gray, Duffy, Astros, Pirates, Fister

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The Braves are reportedly still in the mix for Chris Sale, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the Atlanta also made a run at Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray but found Oakland’s asking price to be prohibitive (Twitter link). Oakland did not ask for Dansby Swanson to be included in the deal, but Atlanta still felt the A’s were asking for too much in return.

A few more notes on the market for starting pitchers…

  • The Royals are gauging interest in left-hander Danny Duffy, reports MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter). Duffy had a breakout campaign this past season, tossing 179 2/3 innings with a 3.51 ERA, 9.4 K/9, 2.1 BB/9 and a 36.4 percent ground-ball rate. As Morosi points out, he could make sense for a team looking to augment its rotation but unwilling to part with the talent required to land someone like Chris Sale or Chris Archer. Duffy, however, is a free agent next winter, so he’d be a short-term upgrade rather than a long-term solution like those other names.
  • The Astros are more likely to trade for rotation help than they are to pursue the remaining free agents on the market, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney. Houston isn’t in on right-hander Ivan Nova and likely considers him to be too expensive, per Olney. The Astros are reportedly open to moving either Collin McHugh or Mike Fiers as they seek to create some roster/payroll flexibility, as Olney’s colleague, Jayson Stark, reported earlier today.
  • Pirates officials are set to meet with free agent lefty Derek Holland at some point this week at the Winter Meetings, reports Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (on Twitter). The Bucs have been linked to H0lland on multiple occasions this winter as the former Ranger looks to rebuild his stock with a healthy 2017 campaign.
  • The Marlins are showing some interest in right-hander Doug Fister, tweets FanRag’s Jon Heyman, but adding an established closer is the team’s No. 1 priority at the moment. This isn’t the first time Miami has been connected to Fister, but that fact that they’re still interested after adding Edinson Volquez to the mix is notable.

Latest On Chris Sale’s Trade Market

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5:45pm: Rangers GM Jon Daniels told reporters (including Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) that his team isn’t looking at the trades like the blockbuster that brought Cole Hamels to Texas in 2015, which would seem to confirm that the Rangers indeed aren’t in on Sale right now.

SUNDAY, 1:40pm: Mark Bowman of MLB.com joins Heyman in reporting that the Braves aren’t willing to give up Swanson, whom the White Sox covet. Discussions between the two teams aren’t leading anywhere as a result (Twitter link). While it won’t surrender Swanson, Atlanta would consider parting with Albies, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter).

10:51am: The Braves have deemed Swanson untouchable in trade talks, while the Nationals have likely done the same with shortstop/center fielder Trea Turner, reports Heyman.

SATURDAY: The Braves have already added three starting pitchers in Bartolo Colon, R.A. Dickey and Jaime Garcia early this offseason, and they’re now trying to swing a trade with the White Sox for ace Chris Sale, according to Fanrag’s Jon Heyman. However, there’s competition in the form of the Astros, Nationals, Red Sox, Rangers and Dodgers, writes Heyman, who notes that Los Angeles is lagging behind because it’s hesitant to deal any of its top prospects.

The Dodgers are more focused on bolstering their rotation through free agency than trades, tweets FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, which aligns with a report from earlier Saturday that they have a deal in place to re-sign left-hander Rich Hill. Contrary to Heyman, Rosenthal relays that the Astros and Rangers are out on Sale at the White Sox’s current asking price. And while the Red Sox are involved, they’re also reluctant to meet Chicago’s demands (Twitter link).

After agreeing to sign outfielder/designated hitter Carlos Beltran on Saturday, Astros owner Jim Crane told Mark Berman of FOX 26 that the team will go into the winter meetings seeking pitching, but it’s unlikely to make any “big moves” (Twitter link). That would seem to rule out a Sale acquisition for Houston.

Based on reports from Heyman and Rosenthal, both the Braves and National League East rival Nats – who are continuing their discussions with the Pirates regarding center fielder Andrew McCutchen, per Rosenthal – are among the front-runners for Sale.

It’s unlikely the Braves would include prized young shortstop Dansby Swanson in a trade, Heyman suggests, but the belief is that they have the pieces to make a deal happen. Atlanta has major league trade chips in center fielder Ender Inciarte and right-hander Mike Foltynewicz, not to mention a well-regarded prospect pool that features the likes of middle infielder Ozzie Albies, southpaws Sean Newcomb and Kolby Allard, and righties Mike Soroka and Touki Toussaint. Baseball America included all five of those players in its Midseason Top 100 prospects list.

Coppolella On Swanson, Free Agency, Manager

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Braves GM John Coppolella was a guest on Buster Olney’s podcast at ESPN.com today (audio link) and discussed a number of topics, including the timing of Dansby Swanson’s promotion, his expectations for free agency, what to expect from SunTrust Park, the health of prospect Ozzie Albies and the team’s managerial vacancy heading into the offseason. The entire interview is about 12 minutes in length and is well worth a listen in its entirety, but a couple of highlights from the interview stand out.

Asked about the unorthodox timing of Swanson’s promotion to the Majors, Coppolella plainly stated that service time doesn’t factor into the team’s decision-making that often. (Notably, he pointed to the decision to have Jason Heyward on his Opening Day roster back in 2010 rather than keep him in the minors for three weeks to delay his free agency, and he pointed to Atlanta winning the Wild Card by a lone game that season as a beneficial outcome.) The Braves were in negotiations with the Tigers on August’s Erick Aybar trade, and when discussing the possibility of trading another player who was performing well at the time (Aybar hit .313/.361/.424 in the month preceding the trade), it was team president John Hart who made the suggestion to call up Swanson in his place. While Coppolella originally felt the move might be premature, vice chairman John Schuerholz quickly agreed, and as the trio talked it over, an agreement was reached to promote Swanson. The results, of course, have been excellent, as Swanson is hitting .313/.364/.424 through his first 110 big league plate appearances (a bizarrely similar line to the one Aybar produced between the All-Star break and the trade to Detroit).

Swanson joins a growing core of position players that have helped the Braves move from the worst-hitting team in baseball in the first half to one of the best in the second half (by measure of wRC+), as Coppolella pointed out (with a tip of the cap to Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan). Swanson, Ender Inciarte, Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis, Matt Kemp and Adonis Garcia have all performed quite well in the season’s second half, leading Coppolella to once again state that his focus figures to be on pitching this winter.

“We have more money now than we’ve had in any of the 10 years that I’ve been a part of the Braves,” said Coppolella. “Our biggest needs are going to be starting pitchers. We have a lot of good young starters, guys with great arms, guys that we still really like. They have been somewhat force-fed into opportunities because of guys getting hurt and/or traded. So part of what we want to do is get guys that are more stable — not that we’re going to write off any of our young arms, we still like all them very much — but if we could add two veteran starting pitchers, that would really help our team.”

Another focal point for the Braves early in the offseason will be determining who will manage the team on a full-time basis in 2017 and beyond. Coppolella was quick to heap praise onto interim skipper Brian Snitker for the job that he’s done since Fredi Gonzalez’s firing, explaining that all he’s done is improve his own chances at shedding the interim label. However, the Braves will still conduct a search to determine the best candidate.

“Brian couldn’t have done any better,” Coppolella tells Olney. “…It’d be easy for this team, knowing that they’re not going to the playoffs, to just kind of go through the motions. That has not happened. These guys are playing hard every night. They’re doing great things every night, and that’s a big tribute to Brian as well as to this whole staff. … We’ll end up seeing which way it turns out. If he ends up being the guy — we aren’t set that he wont be, we aren’t set that he won’t be — we just feel that we owe it to our players, to our organization to at the very least talk to a few people without the Braves to see what they have to offer.”

Again, Braves fans will want to check out the entire segment, as Coppolella offers insights into the decision-processes, preliminary testing that has been done on wind patterns in an effort to gauge how SunTrust Park will play, and the strides that have been taken by Freeman in all facets of his game this season.

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