Atlanta Braves set their initial 60-player roster
Here’s the new Atlanta Braves depth chart – “Summer of 2020” style.
Today’s the day in which MLB teams were to announce their initial 60-man roster. Announced via multiple sources, the Atlanta Braves have some interesting choices on theirs.
Just that phrase “60-man roster” should be enough to make one do a double-take. But like many other things this Summer, we’re going to have to get used to a lot of unique things so that we’ll have baseball.
The concept of a 60-man list — essentially a 30-man active roster at the outset, plus another 30 in the so-called “taxi squad” — is baseball’s way to keep teams viable in the event that this dreaded virus suddenly rolls through a clubhouse.
When this (ir)regular season begins, the active roster will consist of 30 players. After two weeks, that count drops to 28, and then down to 26 after the fourth week.
There will be a special Injured List for COVID-19 cases: one that has an open-ended minimum stay that’s dependent entirely on the player’s health and contagion risk. The big issue is that if you get one player infected, you’ll almost certainly have more, and that can rip the core out of a club in a hurry.
That brings us to the Atlanta Braves group of “In Case of Emergency Break Glass” players. These, plus the initial group of thirty active players form this announced group of sixty:
INFIELDERS (12)
- Ozzie Albies
- Freddie Freeman
- Dansby Swanson
- Johan Camargo
- Austin Riley
- Adeiny Hechavarria
- Charlie Culberson
- Yangervis Solarte
- Yonder Alonso
- Pete Kozma
- Peter O’Brien
- Braden Shewmake
OUTFIELDERS (7)
- Ronald Acuna Jr
- Ender Inciarte
- Nick Markakis
- Marcel Ozuna
- Adam Duvall
- Cristian Pache
- Drew Waters
CATCHERS (7)
- Travis d’Arnaud
- Tyler Flowers
- Alex Jackson
- Shea Langeliers
- William Contreras
- Logan Brown
- Jonathan Morales
PITCHERS (30)
- Starters: Soroka, Hamels, Fried, Newcomb, Foltynewicz, (King Felix) Hernandez, Wright, Anderson (8)
- Relievers: Will Smith, Minter, Greene, Melancon, Martin, (Luke) Jackson, O’Day (7)
Also:
- Tucker Davidson
- Grant Dayton
- Jasseel De La Cruz
- Tyler Matzek
- Kyle Muller
- Philip Pfeifer
- Chris Rusin
- Jared Shuster
- Chad Sobotka
- Josh Tomlin
- Touki Toussaint
- Jacob Webb
- Patrick Weigel
- Bryse Wilson
- Huascar Ynoa
The astute among you will realize that these lists combine to only 56 players. That’s fine: changes can be made, and there’s a real chance that somebody is going to be either underperforming or hurt or infected or … something … so we won’t get too bent out of shape about the number at this point.
A reminder: the normal 40-man roster rules will still apply… so activating players from the taxi squad might require a shuffle to allow that to happen. Currently, Atlanta has 39 names on their 40-list, as pitcher Jeremy Walker was added to the 60-day Injured List on Friday (essentially a season-ending injury).
Of note is the catcher count at seven: the biggest chore facing teams over this short schedule for Spring Training 2.0 is in getting all of these pitchers ready to roll.
Since Atlanta will be doing their workouts in Georgia and not down at North Port, that presents a bit of a resource problem: not enough mounds.
The Braves will likely use space at Russellville or perhaps nearby colleges to help out, but you’ve still got to have enough catchers to go around, too. That still works out to seven-or-eight pitchers per catcher, but that might be enough when including a bullpen coach, perhaps).
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In any event, this is a roster set up for “next man up” depth. Feel free to comment on your view of these initial choices, but let’s just hope that everybody can stay healthy for the duration.