soroka probably not ready until end of april and even that seems a bit optimistic. even when he does come back though this feels like a season you need crazy depth in the rotation. getting through 162 is going to be a slog. not sure how many innings you can expect from anderson. morton and smyly should be able to eat some and fried pitched 165 in 2019 but there’s a lot of innings on the table.
I have a similar feeling about pitching depth this year. Expanding the workload back to normal after a brief season is probably going to fuck some people up.
just ran some figures through my model and we’ll need ~180 innings from someone(s) other than fried/morton/roka/anderson/smyly
The end of April is only 2 times through the rotation with 5 guys. He's currently doing his normal throwing routines. He's been throwing off a mound for a month and a half. He just can't run. So he's not going to be crazy behind like it's an arm injury where he has to start from scratch.
You have to be 100% certain that he is capable of fielding his position and coming off the mound with as close to zero risk for re-injury as you can get. Once he can do that, he should pitch. He can literally go up to the plate and swing three times after the ball has reached a he catcher’s mitt to avoid baserunning. He can’t avoid fielding.
Yeah, I understand that. But we just need to clear that hurdle and he'll be ready. The biggest part of his preparation is throwing & he's able to go through his normal process. Being able to field is a big part of playing, but it's not really a big part of his ST program.
We don’t have enough starting pitching to compete with the Dodgers in the NLCS and people bitched. We add starting pitching and bring back the same lineup and believe it or not - still bitching.
And important thing to remember is that we have Coach Chipper working with Big River. When Riley first came up, Chipper predicted he’d be a 40+ homer guy
I'm fine with it. he seems like a guy we should use similar to the dodgers using their bench. There's no reason he can't get 12-15 starts at LF, 3B, SS, 2B. I'm sure he can catch, let him play 1B so Fred doesn't play 162. (Do we have a back-up 1B?). Give a lot of guys a day off here and there. Do it strategically vs tough match ups since he's a switch hitter. Might be too much for Snit to handle though
Like Fred taking his time and coming in late to ST. Will help him limit consecutive games played from now until the playoffs and he'll be ready
Yeah. That box score yesterday. Whoof. 10 runs on 17 hits while earning 0 on 1 ourselves against the Pirates. Smyly’s line is reminiscent of Tommy Milone and Robbie Erlin. What the hell did the team get into on Monday night? Damn. Also, safe to say Harris has passed Waters? Sure looks like it. Especially with DOB's latest article.
I'm glad AA decided we had to hang on to Waters. Look forward to see his ranking rot away. This isn't Fantasy Baseball, we need players in the minors much more than acquiring talent. Stupid fucking Padres
https://theathletic.com/2439006/2021/03/10/michael-harris-atlanta-braves/ This is the part I was talking about: "He’s come so far, so fast, that there will be increased speculation of whether he might even leapfrog Braves outfield prospect Drew Waters, 22, who was No. 32 in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list entering spring training. Waters has seen his progress slowed by too many strikeouts in the minor leagues, including 164 strikeouts with 39 walks in 573 plate appearances in 2019 at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Where once it had just been assumed that Waters would eventually join Acuña and rookie Cristian Pache in a Braves outfield that might thrive together for many years, there are some observers who think Harris might be the third member of that long-term talented outfield." Spoiler How local product Michael Harris is turning heads with the Braves this spring Braves outfield prospect Michael Harris’ stock is about to spike among a group of people who make a living evaluating and ranking baseball talent for various publications. But several years ago, the kid already convinced one former Braves Gold Glove winner that he was not just a future big leaguer, but the kind that doesn’t come around often. “All I can say as a former player is, he’s different,” said Marquis Grissom, a former All-Star center fielder who played 17 seasons with six teams, including two with the Braves in 1995-1996, winning Gold Gloves both of those years and a World Series ring in 1995. “And the last time I saw a player when I said he was different, that was Chipper Jones, that was Barry Bonds, that was Gary Sheffield, that was Jim Thome. “All the great players, they’re different. And that’s what Mike Harris is — he’s different.” Grissom first saw Harris as a skinny 15-year-old in the RBI youth baseball program in Atlanta. It didn’t take long for Grissom to recognize he practically oozed talent, and soon Harris was playing in the baseball association that Grissom founded and operates in South Atlanta, a program that recently had four players selected in one year in the MLB Draft. Grissom became a coach and mentor. Harris was a third-round pick by the Braves in 2019 out of Stockbridge High School in Henry County, just south of Atlanta. And he’s made such a favorable impression early in spring training that Braves manager Brian Snitker penciled him in the starting lineup for a Grapefruit League road game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday, one day before Harris’ 20th birthday. It might have been the only time this year that Rays super prospect Wander Franco wasn’t the youngest player on the field. Alas, the game was rained out and Snitker didn’t get to see what Harris might do with a few at-bats, instead of the late appearances he’d be limited to in four of the Braves’ first seven games, in which Harris was 2-for-5 with a pair of singles. “I was excited about Michael getting out there, honestly,” Snitker said before Sunday’s home game, when the Braves used their projected Opening Day lineup. “He’s going to get backed up a day or so now, again. But that’s OK.” Snitker added: “He’s a very impressive player, I’m gonna tell you that. That’s kind of what they look like.” After the team’s day off Monday, Harris walked in the ninth inning in his only plate appearance in Tuesday’s 10-0 loss to the Pirates, giving him a .500 OBP in a small but nonetheless impressive sample this spring. “From what I’ve seen he’s a tremendous ballplayer, and I’m glad he’s kind of getting a shot here in spring training,” Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. said through an interpreter. “And I wouldn’t be surprised to see him soon in the big leagues.” Harris said of his first big-league spring training, “I’m really enjoying it. I just go out there and have fun every day and believe in the things I know I can do. And really don’t try to think too much, just do what I know I can do and have fun.” Grissom, 53, coached Harris in summer ball, then worked him out along with several other minor leaguers five days a week during baseball’s three-and-a-half-month shutdown last year at a makeshift training camp that he and others constructed on property he owns in Fayetteville, Ga., 20 miles south of Atlanta. He has seen as much of Harris’ development as anyone. “This is just me talking, but I’ve been knowing the kid for the last six or seven years, and he’s ready,” Grissom said. “And when I say he’s ready, he’s ready. We’ve got three good outfielders, four good outfielders right now in Atlanta. But this kid is ready.” A former third-round pick himself, Grissom was selected by the Montreal Expos in 1988 out of Florida A&M and debuted 14 months later at age 22. He knows full well the pressures of playing at the major-league level for a youngster with so little minor-league experience, not to mention one who’s trying to make it with the hometown team that he grew up cheering for. That said, Grissom doesn’t shy from stating his expectations of Harris, doesn’t try to undersell the kid’s potential or preach patience, even if patience is what baseball people like to preach more than anything else when it comes to most prospects. Harris, to him, isn’t like most prospects. And if Harris is ready, or at least getting close, Grissom had plenty to do with it. “I started playing with them in 10th grade in the fall, and they became my summer team until the draft,” Harris said. “I really learned a lot from that team, with (Grissom) being a coach, his brother Antonio Grissom, Marvin Freeman — we had a lot of other coaches come through. Even after travel ball, these last two offseasons I was working out with (Grissom). “Even when we didn’t have the season last year, I was working out with him until I got called to the alternate site. He’s really given me a lot of information and insight on the game that I soaked in. Before each workout it would probably be like a 30-minute talk about the mental part of the game, how to go about different situations. And sometimes just about life, not even about baseball. “I can talk to him about anything. He really helped me a lot.” Under normal circumstances what Acuña said — and what Grissom said — about Harris being ready might seem unrealistic, considering Harris has played a mere 53 games of pro ball (31 in the Gulf Coast Rookie League, 22 at low Single-A Rome, all in the summer after he was drafted in 2019). But the past year has been anything but normal. If the 2020 minor-league season hadn’t been canceled, Harris would’ve made it at least to high Single A. And he didn’t just come off the bench in both of the Braves’ exhibition games against the Marlins at Truist Park a few days before the 2020 season opener, he got a hit, drove in a run, displayed his plus-speed and scored a run. He’d been at Stockbridge High barely a year earlier, but Harris looked preternaturally calm against a major-league opponent in those games, as he has each time he’s played this spring. In his first Grapefruit League game, he came off the bench and singled in his first at-bat, then darted to second moments late on a would-be stolen base (he was called out but appeared to be safe). “He’s got great power, great speed,” said Grissom, a .272 career hitter who had 227 home runs and 429 stolen bases, leading the majors in steals in consecutive years with 76 in 1991 and 78 in 1992. “He’s grown tremendously. He’s grown mentally, and he’s put on a little weight. Back then when he was 15, 16, and even 17, you probably didn’t see a muscle on his body. But we got some training in the last two or three years where he’s developed his lower half. “His hamstring, butt muscles and groin muscles — the legs and the core are the key, and you just try to drill that home to him early in his career, at 16, to take care of that lower half and let it do the work for him as a player.” Harris showed advanced strike-zone recognition in one at-bat last week by fouling off three consecutive pitches with the count 1-2, then taking a ball before a sharply hit groundout. When he got back to the dugout, teammates and coaches gave him fist bumps and pats on the back for what is known in the game as a “professional at-bat” regardless of outcome. “I think I’ve just always been protective with two strikes, pretty much my whole life,” Harris said. “I don’t really like to strike out, so I get more protective until I get the pitch I want. I really just try to stay alive until I get the pitch I want because I don’t like striking out.” When baseball’s shutdown was ending last summer, Harris was surprised and thrilled to get an invitation to be part of the Braves’ taxi squad at the Gwinnett alternate site, even though Grissom had told him it might happen. The Braves knew he wouldn’t play in 2020, but they wanted to make sure that some of their top prospects had a place to continue developing rather than sit out the entire season with no games. After seeing what Harris had done the previous year and hearing about how hard he worked during the shutdown, the Braves invited him. With so many gyms and baseball fields closed during the pandemic, Harris was like so many other minor leaguers who had to find a place to stay in shape. That’s where his old coach came through, making an offer to Harris and others who played in Grissom’s baseball program before they were drafted. Grissom and Lou Collier, another former major leaguer from Atlanta, said they would train them if the players were serious about it. “I had a 35-acre piece of property that’s about 20 acres wide open,” Grissom said. “We had uphill training. I built me a bullpen on the property so my son and other pitchers could come over and get their bullpen. I made me a semi-infield where we ran the bases and took a few ground balls. We couldn’t get out on any fields; all the fields were shut down. So I made it makeshift out of a piece of property, and we trained every day. And we could stay our distance, we could wear our masks. We made do with what we had. “I opened it for a lot of kids in our program, but mainly for those top guys who were at that moment where they were going from high school to college or from college to the minor leagues. Those guys that needed it right away.” This was no idyllic setting or state-of-the-art training center. Far from it. This was a DIY training under the hot sun, and a 30-minute commute for most of the players and coaches. Grissom wanted a place to train his son, Marquis Jr., who plays at Georgia Tech and had his season canceled. Then Grissom thought, let’s see if some of other guys want in, too. And then see how committed they really were. “I had (Harris) and my son and Lou Collier’s son, and I was out there actually trying to break them,” Grissom said. “I wanted to see how tough they were. I wanted to see what they had in them. Just because we don’t have baseball at the major-league level or minor-league level, or high school or college level, I wanted to see, what are you guys willing to put in? “And when I tell you I gave it to them for three months straight and they took it, those three guys took it. And all of a sudden Lawrence Butler came over, from the Oakland Athletics, and he took it. So just to see those guys take on that challenge at that time in their careers, where there was no baseball and they’re willing to put that kind of work in — I knew right away Mike and Lawrence and those guys had changed as players. They were committed and they were willing to put the work in and sacrifice to be the best player they could be. “I said, ‘Well if you guys are going to commute out here to do this, don’t come out here and half-ass do it, because I ain’t going to waste my time doing it. But if you’re willing to commit and get in shape and come out here and learn the game, I’m all in.’ And right off the bat, they committed, and me and Lou Collier, we trained those guys for those three months.” The work paid off at the alternate site for Harris, who was easily the youngest Brave there. He made the most of a chance to impress everyone from general manager Alex Anthopoulos and assistant GM of player development Ben Sestanovich to veteran outfielder Nick Markakis. Markakis spent two weeks at the site, after briefly opting out of the season and then deciding to play. When Markakis was activated and joined the Braves, he gave Snitker unsolicited glowing reviews of Harris. This spring, Snitker has seen exactly why Markakis was so high on the youngster. Harris hasn’t been rated among baseball’s top 100 prospects or the Braves’ top 10 but surely is about to make both lists. The buzz is increasing around Harris, a 6-foot, 195-pound blend of fast-twitch muscles and baseball acumen, with an arm that threw fastballs at up to 93 mph when he pitched for Stockbridge High and Grissom’s summer team. “He pitched all three or four years, and was probably my No. 1 pitcher and my No. 1 hitter,” Grissom said. “And we had a lot of hitters at that time. And he still was my No. 1 hitter, even though we had three or four guys get drafted along with him or the year before him. But he stood out with his speed, his arm, his power, baseball IQ and just his love for the game. That’s what got my interest and when I knew he was going to be something special, just his love for the game.” One year before Harris was drafted in the third round by the Braves, Grissom had four players from his summer program drafted: Butler was a sixth-round pick by Oakland, Cabrera Weaver went to the White Sox in the seventh round, Kelvin Smith to Detroit in the 20th round, and Lyndon Weaver was a 40th-round pick by Oakland, though he elected to play college ball at Eastern Kentucky. “Those guys could hit,” Grissom said. “Looking at the guys that were a little bit more developed, more mature, and had the ability to grow at a faster rate, I would say. (Harris) was not much better than those guys, but being able to get it and hone it in, and challenge himself each and every day — that was Mike Harris. Those other guys were pretty special too, but Mike was just a little bit different.” In addition to that 91-93 mph heater, Harris threw a curveball that he said was his strikeout pitch, and he also had a changeup. Some MLB teams had more draft interest in him as a pitcher than as an outfielder. “For the draft I was pretty open to either one,” he said. “But on the inside I really knew I wanted to be an outfielder and try to play every day. I’m not the type to want to sit and wait on my turn (to pitch) every week. I would rather compete every day. Just play every day and compete.” Snitker gets excited when he pencils in to the lineup the name of a player who’s surging during the season, but also when he has a chance to see a young player doing particularly well. As a longtime minor-league manager, he knows all about player development, and relishes seeing a youngster make such profound progress that his career trajectory is altered, the arc shifting upward. That’s what it feels like now for those who’ve watched Harris this spring and those who also saw him last year at the Braves’ alternate training site. He was the only teen at the camp, holding his own against top prospects and plenty of much older players either on rehab or trying to get back to the big leagues. Each day he faced pitchers such as former All-Star pitcher Mike Foltynewicz, Sean Newcomb and prospects including Kyle Muller, Tucker Davidson and Ian Anderson before his call to the majors, where 22-year-old Anderson posted a 1.95 ERA in six regular-season starts and was even better in the postseason, going 2-0 with a 0.96 ERA in four starts. “I took a lot out of it,” Harris said. “I got to talk to (Markakis). I had good conversations with (Charlie) Culberson. I mean, all the guys that came down there, they’re all cool guys. So they talk to you, tell you a lot about the game. You just ask them a question, they’ll answer it. I really just learned by watching them and what they do and how they go about certain things. Yeah, I really took a lot out of that.” As bad as it was for so many minor leaguers to have nowhere to play last year and to have a lost season in terms of development, Harris was one of the few players who might actually have benefited from it by facing such better competition at the alternate site than he would have seen in Single A. “Yeah, I actually said that the other day to someone,” Harris said. “I said, ‘I don’t like COVID, but the opportunity right there really kind of gave me a boost, instead of a regular season.” After he was drafted in 2019, Harris scorched with a .349 average, .917 OPS and 11 extra-base hits (three triples, two homers) in 119 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast Rookie League, then slipped to a .183 average and .501 OPS competing against older players after the promotion to low-A Rome. When the season ended, he had made adjustments and was hitting balls hard, even if his final stat line didn’t show it. Some 18 months later, that seems so long ago and largely irrelevant because Harris, with his skills and his approach at the plate, is showing he’s probably not far from being ready. He’s come so far, so fast, that there will be increased speculation of whether he might even leapfrog Braves outfield prospect Drew Waters, 22, who was No. 32 in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list entering spring training. Waters has seen his progress slowed by too many strikeouts in the minor leagues, including 164 strikeouts with 39 walks in 573 plate appearances in 2019 at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Where once it had just been assumed that Waters would eventually join Acuña and rookie Cristian Pache in a Braves outfield that might thrive together for many years, there are some observers who think Harris might be the third member of that long-term talented outfield. Grissom has thought about what kind of outfield the Braves could have with Harris and Acuña at the corners flanking Pache. “Ooh-wee. Ooo-wee,” Grissom said. “During the last two or three years, we were working out, and he loves the Braves and got drafted by the Braves, that’s where he wanted to play. And I told him, ‘Hey, man, look what’s out there. You’ve got to be as good as those guys or better. Either run one of them out of there, or you’re going to have to go somewhere else and take your skills.’ And he owned up to the challenge. “He got better and better and better. I just wanted him to make sure he had that killer instinct in him to, you know — once you get this, it’s tough as hell to get there, man, but it’s tough as hell to stay there. Once you understand that, that you’ve got to stay there and you’ve got to stay out of the training room. Every little tip I could give to him, I gave him, and I pounded it in the last three years, to make sure he understands: When you get that opportunity, son, you’ve got to take advantage of it.” Harris clearly wasn’t comfortable with the question, but when asked a few days ago if he could envision himself playing alongside Acuña and Pache, he said, “I mean, yes. But I’ve just got to go out there and do what I do, and whatever happens, happens.”
Spoiler Braves outfield prospect Michael Harris’ stock is about to spike among a group of people who make a living evaluating and ranking baseball talent for various publications. But several years ago, the kid already convinced one former Braves Gold Glove winner that he was not just a future big leaguer, but the kind that doesn’t come around often. “All I can say as a former player is, he’s different,” said Marquis Grissom, a former All-Star center fielder who played 17 seasons with six teams, including two with the Braves in 1995-1996, winning Gold Gloves both of those years and a World Series ring in 1995. “And the last time I saw a player when I said he was different, that was Chipper Jones, that was Barry Bonds, that was Gary Sheffield, that was Jim Thome. “All the great players, they’re different. And that’s what Mike Harris is — he’s different.” Grissom first saw Harris as a skinny 15-year-old in the RBI youth baseball program in Atlanta. It didn’t take long for Grissom to recognize he practically oozed talent, and soon Harris was playing in the baseball association that Grissom founded and operates in South Atlanta, a program that recently had four players selected in one year in the MLB Draft. Grissom became a coach and mentor. Harris was a third-round pick by the Braves in 2019 out of Stockbridge High School in Henry County, just south of Atlanta. And he’s made such a favorable impression early in spring training that Braves manager Brian Snitker penciled him in the starting lineup for a Grapefruit League road game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday, one day before Harris’ 20th birthday. It might have been the only time this year that Rays super prospect Wander Franco wasn’t the youngest player on the field. Alas, the game was rained out and Snitker didn’t get to see what Harris might do with a few at-bats, instead of the late appearances he’d be limited to in four of the Braves’ first seven games, in which Harris was 2-for-5 with a pair of singles. “I was excited about Michael getting out there, honestly,” Snitker said before Sunday’s home game, when the Braves used their projected Opening Day lineup. “He’s going to get backed up a day or so now, again. But that’s OK.” Snitker added: “He’s a very impressive player, I’m gonna tell you that. That’s kind of what they look like.” After the team’s day off Monday, Harris walked in the ninth inning in his only plate appearance in Tuesday’s 10-0 loss to the Pirates, giving him a .500 OBP in a small but nonetheless impressive sample this spring. “From what I’ve seen he’s a tremendous ballplayer, and I’m glad he’s kind of getting a shot here in spring training,” Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. said through an interpreter. “And I wouldn’t be surprised to see him soon in the big leagues.” Harris said of his first big-league spring training, “I’m really enjoying it. I just go out there and have fun every day and believe in the things I know I can do. And really don’t try to think too much, just do what I know I can do and have fun.” Grissom, 53, coached Harris in summer ball, then worked him out along with several other minor leaguers five days a week during baseball’s three-and-a-half-month shutdown last year at a makeshift training camp that he and others constructed on property he owns in Fayetteville, Ga., 20 miles south of Atlanta. He has seen as much of Harris’ development as anyone. “This is just me talking, but I’ve been knowing the kid for the last six or seven years, and he’s ready,” Grissom said. “And when I say he’s ready, he’s ready. We’ve got three good outfielders, four good outfielders right now in Atlanta. But this kid is ready.” A former third-round pick himself, Grissom was selected by the Montreal Expos in 1988 out of Florida A&M and debuted 14 months later at age 22. He knows full well the pressures of playing at the major-league level for a youngster with so little minor-league experience, not to mention one who’s trying to make it with the hometown team that he grew up cheering for. That said, Grissom doesn’t shy from stating his expectations of Harris, doesn’t try to undersell the kid’s potential or preach patience, even if patience is what baseball people like to preach more than anything else when it comes to most prospects. Harris, to him, isn’t like most prospects. And if Harris is ready, or at least getting close, Grissom had plenty to do with it. “I started playing with them in 10th grade in the fall, and they became my summer team until the draft,” Harris said. “I really learned a lot from that team, with (Grissom) being a coach, his brother Antonio Grissom, Marvin Freeman — we had a lot of other coaches come through. Even after travel ball, these last two offseasons I was working out with (Grissom). “Even when we didn’t have the season last year, I was working out with him until I got called to the alternate site. He’s really given me a lot of information and insight on the game that I soaked in. Before each workout it would probably be like a 30-minute talk about the mental part of the game, how to go about different situations. And sometimes just about life, not even about baseball. “I can talk to him about anything. He really helped me a lot.” Under normal circumstances what Acuña said — and what Grissom said — about Harris being ready might seem unrealistic, considering Harris has played a mere 53 games of pro ball (31 in the Gulf Coast Rookie League, 22 at low Single-A Rome, all in the summer after he was drafted in 2019). But the past year has been anything but normal. If the 2020 minor-league season hadn’t been canceled, Harris would’ve made it at least to high Single A. And he didn’t just come off the bench in both of the Braves’ exhibition games against the Marlins at Truist Park a few days before the 2020 season opener, he got a hit, drove in a run, displayed his plus-speed and scored a run. He’d been at Stockbridge High barely a year earlier, but Harris looked preternaturally calm against a major-league opponent in those games, as he has each time he’s played this spring. In his first Grapefruit League game, he came off the bench and singled in his first at-bat, then darted to second moments late on a would-be stolen base (he was called out but appeared to be safe). “He’s got great power, great speed,” said Grissom, a .272 career hitter who had 227 home runs and 429 stolen bases, leading the majors in steals in consecutive years with 76 in 1991 and 78 in 1992. “He’s grown tremendously. He’s grown mentally, and he’s put on a little weight. Back then when he was 15, 16, and even 17, you probably didn’t see a muscle on his body. But we got some training in the last two or three years where he’s developed his lower half. “His hamstring, butt muscles and groin muscles — the legs and the core are the key, and you just try to drill that home to him early in his career, at 16, to take care of that lower half and let it do the work for him as a player.” Harris showed advanced strike-zone recognition in one at-bat last week by fouling off three consecutive pitches with the count 1-2, then taking a ball before a sharply hit groundout. When he got back to the dugout, teammates and coaches gave him fist bumps and pats on the back for what is known in the game as a “professional at-bat” regardless of outcome. “I think I’ve just always been protective with two strikes, pretty much my whole life,” Harris said. “I don’t really like to strike out, so I get more protective until I get the pitch I want. I really just try to stay alive until I get the pitch I want because I don’t like striking out.” When baseball’s shutdown was ending last summer, Harris was surprised and thrilled to get an invitation to be part of the Braves’ taxi squad at the Gwinnett alternate site, even though Grissom had told him it might happen. The Braves knew he wouldn’t play in 2020, but they wanted to make sure that some of their top prospects had a place to continue developing rather than sit out the entire season with no games. After seeing what Harris had done the previous year and hearing about how hard he worked during the shutdown, the Braves invited him. With so many gyms and baseball fields closed during the pandemic, Harris was like so many other minor leaguers who had to find a place to stay in shape. That’s where his old coach came through, making an offer to Harris and others who played in Grissom’s baseball program before they were drafted. Grissom and Lou Collier, another former major leaguer from Atlanta, said they would train them if the players were serious about it. “I had a 35-acre piece of property that’s about 20 acres wide open,” Grissom said. “We had uphill training. I built me a bullpen on the property so my son and other pitchers could come over and get their bullpen. I made me a semi-infield where we ran the bases and took a few ground balls. We couldn’t get out on any fields; all the fields were shut down. So I made it makeshift out of a piece of property, and we trained every day. And we could stay our distance, we could wear our masks. We made do with what we had. “I opened it for a lot of kids in our program, but mainly for those top guys who were at that moment where they were going from high school to college or from college to the minor leagues. Those guys that needed it right away.” This was no idyllic setting or state-of-the-art training center. Far from it. This was a DIY training under the hot sun, and a 30-minute commute for most of the players and coaches. Grissom wanted a place to train his son, Marquis Jr., who plays at Georgia Tech and had his season canceled. Then Grissom thought, let’s see if some of other guys want in, too. And then see how committed they really were. “I had (Harris) and my son and Lou Collier’s son, and I was out there actually trying to break them,” Grissom said. “I wanted to see how tough they were. I wanted to see what they had in them. Just because we don’t have baseball at the major-league level or minor-league level, or high school or college level, I wanted to see, what are you guys willing to put in? “And when I tell you I gave it to them for three months straight and they took it, those three guys took it. And all of a sudden Lawrence Butler came over, from the Oakland Athletics, and he took it. So just to see those guys take on that challenge at that time in their careers, where there was no baseball and they’re willing to put that kind of work in — I knew right away Mike and Lawrence and those guys had changed as players. They were committed and they were willing to put the work in and sacrifice to be the best player they could be. “I said, ‘Well if you guys are going to commute out here to do this, don’t come out here and half-ass do it, because I ain’t going to waste my time doing it. But if you’re willing to commit and get in shape and come out here and learn the game, I’m all in.’ And right off the bat, they committed, and me and Lou Collier, we trained those guys for those three months.” The work paid off at the alternate site for Harris, who was easily the youngest Brave there. He made the most of a chance to impress everyone from general manager Alex Anthopoulos and assistant GM of player development Ben Sestanovich to veteran outfielder Nick Markakis. Markakis spent two weeks at the site, after briefly opting out of the season and then deciding to play. When Markakis was activated and joined the Braves, he gave Snitker unsolicited glowing reviews of Harris. This spring, Snitker has seen exactly why Markakis was so high on the youngster. Harris hasn’t been rated among baseball’s top 100 prospects or the Braves’ top 10 but surely is about to make both lists. The buzz is increasing around Harris, a 6-foot, 195-pound blend of fast-twitch muscles and baseball acumen, with an arm that threw fastballs at up to 93 mph when he pitched for Stockbridge High and Grissom’s summer team. “He pitched all three or four years, and was probably my No. 1 pitcher and my No. 1 hitter,” Grissom said. “And we had a lot of hitters at that time. And he still was my No. 1 hitter, even though we had three or four guys get drafted along with him or the year before him. But he stood out with his speed, his arm, his power, baseball IQ and just his love for the game. That’s what got my interest and when I knew he was going to be something special, just his love for the game.” One year before Harris was drafted in the third round by the Braves, Grissom had four players from his summer program drafted: Butler was a sixth-round pick by Oakland, Cabrera Weaver went to the White Sox in the seventh round, Kelvin Smith to Detroit in the 20th round, and Lyndon Weaver was a 40th-round pick by Oakland, though he elected to play college ball at Eastern Kentucky. “Those guys could hit,” Grissom said. “Looking at the guys that were a little bit more developed, more mature, and had the ability to grow at a faster rate, I would say. (Harris) was not much better than those guys, but being able to get it and hone it in, and challenge himself each and every day — that was Mike Harris. Those other guys were pretty special too, but Mike was just a little bit different.” In addition to that 91-93 mph heater, Harris threw a curveball that he said was his strikeout pitch, and he also had a changeup. Some MLB teams had more draft interest in him as a pitcher than as an outfielder. “For the draft I was pretty open to either one,” he said. “But on the inside I really knew I wanted to be an outfielder and try to play every day. I’m not the type to want to sit and wait on my turn (to pitch) every week. I would rather compete every day. Just play every day and compete.” Snitker gets excited when he pencils in to the lineup the name of a player who’s surging during the season, but also when he has a chance to see a young player doing particularly well. As a longtime minor-league manager, he knows all about player development, and relishes seeing a youngster make such profound progress that his career trajectory is altered, the arc shifting upward. That’s what it feels like now for those who’ve watched Harris this spring and those who also saw him last year at the Braves’ alternate training site. He was the only teen at the camp, holding his own against top prospects and plenty of much older players either on rehab or trying to get back to the big leagues. Each day he faced pitchers such as former All-Star pitcher Mike Foltynewicz, Sean Newcomb and prospects including Kyle Muller, Tucker Davidson and Ian Anderson before his call to the majors, where 22-year-old Anderson posted a 1.95 ERA in six regular-season starts and was even better in the postseason, going 2-0 with a 0.96 ERA in four starts. “I took a lot out of it,” Harris said. “I got to talk to (Markakis). I had good conversations with (Charlie) Culberson. I mean, all the guys that came down there, they’re all cool guys. So they talk to you, tell you a lot about the game. You just ask them a question, they’ll answer it. I really just learned by watching them and what they do and how they go about certain things. Yeah, I really took a lot out of that.” As bad as it was for so many minor leaguers to have nowhere to play last year and to have a lost season in terms of development, Harris was one of the few players who might actually have benefited from it by facing such better competition at the alternate site than he would have seen in Single A. “Yeah, I actually said that the other day to someone,” Harris said. “I said, ‘I don’t like COVID, but the opportunity right there really kind of gave me a boost, instead of a regular season.” After he was drafted in 2019, Harris scorched with a .349 average, .917 OPS and 11 extra-base hits (three triples, two homers) in 119 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast Rookie League, then slipped to a .183 average and .501 OPS competing against older players after the promotion to low-A Rome. When the season ended, he had made adjustments and was hitting balls hard, even if his final stat line didn’t show it. Some 18 months later, that seems so long ago and largely irrelevant because Harris, with his skills and his approach at the plate, is showing he’s probably not far from being ready. He’s come so far, so fast, that there will be increased speculation of whether he might even leapfrog Braves outfield prospect Drew Waters, 22, who was No. 32 in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list entering spring training. Waters has seen his progress slowed by too many strikeouts in the minor leagues, including 164 strikeouts with 39 walks in 573 plate appearances in 2019 at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Where once it had just been assumed that Waters would eventually join Acuña and rookie Cristian Pache in a Braves outfield that might thrive together for many years, there are some observers who think Harris might be the third member of that long-term talented outfield. Grissom has thought about what kind of outfield the Braves could have with Harris and Acuña at the corners flanking Pache. “Ooh-wee. Ooo-wee,” Grissom said. “During the last two or three years, we were working out, and he loves the Braves and got drafted by the Braves, that’s where he wanted to play. And I told him, ‘Hey, man, look what’s out there. You’ve got to be as good as those guys or better. Either run one of them out of there, or you’re going to have to go somewhere else and take your skills.’ And he owned up to the challenge. “He got better and better and better. I just wanted him to make sure he had that killer instinct in him to, you know — once you get this, it’s tough as hell to get there, man, but it’s tough as hell to stay there. Once you understand that, that you’ve got to stay there and you’ve got to stay out of the training room. Every little tip I could give to him, I gave him, and I pounded it in the last three years, to make sure he understands: When you get that opportunity, son, you’ve got to take advantage of it.” Harris clearly wasn’t comfortable with the question, but when asked a few days ago if he could envision himself playing alongside Acuña and Pache, he said, “I mean, yes. But I’ve just got to go out there and do what I do, and whatever happens, happens.”
In case y’all haven’t heard it already. Here’s the link to Chris Dimino’s Mad Dog interview. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/greg-mad-dog-the-professor-maddux/id1493970390?i=1000512101710
My fellow steamers...whatchall doing for Braves games? Can't by MLB tv unless you use a VPN. I'm not sure how I'd use a VPN with my smart TV I remember they came to a deal two years ago right as the season started. Maybe a week in. Praying that happens. Also need my ATL UTD
I got ATT streaming to watch Hawks games. It’s a little clunkier than YouTubeTV but no major complaints so far. It’s more expensive though.