We are just one week away from Spring Training starting for the Atlanta Braves. Use this as a guide for dates and attendance information.
It’s been another long offseason for the Atlanta Braves who came up just short in 2020, and then fans had to wait three months for Alex Anthopoulos to make a big splash in free agency bringing back Marcell Ozuna.
But now the time has come, the trucks have left the station and are heading down to Florida to prepare for Spring Training.
Or at least, that’s the plan for now. With COVID, and the situation in Florida, things could change at any moment.
But here is what we know for now about how spring training will work for the Braves and fans.
Braves Report Dates:
Pitchers and catchers are expected to report at CoolToday Park in North Port, Fla. on Thursday, Feb. 18. Most likely they will actually arrive the day before to begin going through COVID protocols.
The team’s first full-squad workout will happen on Tuesday, Feb. 23.
Recently agreed upon health and safety protocols (paid subscription required) will make things a little different.
Spring training will be rolled out in three phases to help keep players and staff socially distanced.
The Roster
On Friday teams will need to announce the 75 players and staff members that they will be taking to Spring Training.
Teams can add and remove players to that list throughout, but can never exceed the maximum amount of 75 players and 75 staff members.
How Braves Games Will Work
Games early in spring training could be as short as five innings. From March 14 on games could either be nine innings or seven innings depending on the players available that day.
The league is currently working on a new schedule for spring training where teams in southeast Florida will exclusively play each other, while the east coast teams play each other.
MLB in process of finalizing revised Grapefruit League schedule, placing teams in separate “pods” on east and west coasts of Florida, sources tell me and @MattGelb. West-coast teams in FL will play 28 games and east-coast teams 24, making up rest with intrasquad-type matchups.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 8, 2021
Rosenthal followed up that tweet by saying that teams “will handle any adjustments necessary with tickets.”
So if you already had your spring training trip planned, you might want to reconsider.
Another thing to note for fans potentially attending games, the back fields will be off-limits. I know that’s a bummer as that’s where most fans usually go to get an up-close look at their favorite players and maybe grab an autograph.
Of course, as of now we don’t know if fans will even be allowed to attend spring training games. The way things are going in Florida I kind of doubt it, but I hope some fans are allowed in.
As we get more information with the updated schedule and fan attendance we’ll be sure to share that with you here at Tomahawk Take.