Atlanta Braves Trim Spring Roster, Ponder Camp Battles
By Fred Owens
Early Wednesday, the Atlanta Braves announced a reassignment of four players from their spring training roster; no decision yet on rotation or third base.
According to this Tweet from The Athletic’s David O’Brien, the Atlanta Braves optioned lefty pitchers Tucker Davidson and Phil Pfeifer, catcher William Contreras, and outfielder Cristian Pache to the AAA Gwinnett Stripers.
Sending those players to AAA isn’t unexpected, none were going to break into a Major League roster already full to overflowing with talent.
Alan wrote about the original 13-player cut a week ago. The Braves followed those cuts by optioning lefty reliever A.J. Minter and righty flame thrower Chad Sobotka to Gwinnett Stripers Monday.
According to Mark Bowman’s Wednesday morning post, the Atlanta Braves now have 48 players in big league camp. That matches with my list, but two players are, apparently, wandering around unattached.
On Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves transactions page announced the assignment of shortstop AJ Graffanino to Atlanta Braves, and Wednesday morning announced the same move for righty Troy Bacon.
There’s probably an administrative reason for those moves, but I haven’t seen anyone address it
Atlanta Braves camp battles
As most of us know, the Atlanta Braves have a competition going on for at least one rotation spot, third base, and the final seat on the bench.
In the previously linked post, Bowman speculates that Shea Langeliers’ performance this spring might push him ahead of Contreras in the race to earn the starting catcher role. If Langeliers hits, the race is over.
He’s a superior defensive catcher with a pop time better than most Major League catchers today. His experience handling the Vanderbilt staff, and calling his own game, created the on-field presence manager Brian Snitker talked about after watching him catch Felix Hernandez.
"The kid has been very impressive all spring, the way he has handled himself,” Snitker said. “I’m just excited to watch him play. He was a pretty polished kid when we got him [out of Baylor University]. He does it the right way.”"
So far this spring Langeliers is batting .455/.500/.727/1.227, but the sample size is so tiny it means little. Contreras is batting .250/.400/.250/.650 so far in an even smaller sample size.
The extra playing time given to Langeliers, he’s played in three more games than Contreras and has twice the plate appearances, may indicate the Baylor grad is already in the lead.