Atlanta Braves Ozzie Albies Not Cleared, To Miss More Time “He’ll Be A Little Behind”
By Jeff Schafer
Braves Albies Not Cleared For Full Activity
Tuesday, February 14th marked the day that the Atlanta Braves pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report to Orlando, Florida to begin the Spring Training season. Many reports floated around yesterday of who all positional player-wise has already shown up as well….one of which was Ozzie Albies.
The, now, 20-year-old has been trying to recover this offseason from a pretty serious elbow injury which happened just five months ago.
On September 7, 2016, while playing for the Mississippi Braves (Double-A) Albies swung at a pitch that was a little high and in on his hands. He fouled the ball softly off towards the third base side, but immediately you could see he was in pain. He grabbed his right elbow and began walking towards the bench. Just like that, his season was cut short.
Albies met with Dr. James Andrews following the game and was diagnosed with an elbow fracture. He had the surgery to repair the fractured olecranon bone on the tip of his right elbow and the rehab process was on.
Not Cleared For Full Activities
Two weeks ago, Albies posted a video of himself in the cages taking some swings off a tee. It looked as he was going at maybe 50%, but swinging the bat was surely a positive sign.
Positive sign, yes, but he’s still not 100%.
Braves manager Brian Snitker talked with reporters yesterday and said Albies is …
"He had the surgery and he’s on a rehab program, pretty much. “It’ll be a few weeks before he’s in games. He’s going through the process and they have a program mapped out for him, so he’ll be a little behind. But the biggest thing is just getting him healthy and not trying to rush him."
Albies is an exciting player to watch and one of our top prospects, but this is absolutely the right path. Braves shouldn’t rush him back to the game…like I said up top, it’s only been just over five months since this injury happened.
The Braves have Jace Peterson and now Brandon Phillips for the second base job and once (if he returns) Sean Rodriguez returns, they’ll have him as well. Even if Albies was healthy on this date, it would take a fantastic Spring Training for the Braves to start him in Atlanta for the 2017 campaign. It’s been almost a guarantee that he starts the year with the Gwinnett Braves.
Would I love to see Albies playing in the 2017 Spring Training? 100%, absolutely. But only if he’s at 100% health-wise and it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.
Thanks to 92.9 The Game’s Grant McAuley, we got a see a glimpse of Albies yesterday. In the video below, Albies will be to your right. He’s throwing and hitting, but not going full speed. The doctors should — and need to — take it slow with him.
AJC’s David O’Brien posted yesterday that he thinks Albies will “miss about half of the Grapefruit League schedule in spring training.”
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The 5’9″ 160 pound second baseman will soon be on the field, but we’ll have to wait just a little longer. Be patient my friends.