in BASEBALL, MLB Major League Baseball

Braves’ Dansby Swanson is Living the Dream

Swanson is on the fast-track to the pros with the Braves.

Not many people get to become a professional baseball player and even fewer get to play for their favorite team. Thanks to an offseason trade between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Atlanta Braves, shortstop Dansby Swanson gets to do both.

Swanson, the 2015 No. 1 overall pick, made his Smokies Park debut Wednesday night with the Mississippi Braves. With a flurry of media attention, I got the chance to talk to him before the game.

Swanson, from Marietta, Ga., spent his entire childhood rooting for the Atlanta Braves and third baseman Chipper Jones. Now he’s the top-ranked prospect in their farm system.

“I grew up 35 minutes from the stadium,” Swanson said. “It was pretty neat. Anytime you’re able to play for the team you grew up watching. They dominated the NL East for years so it was a special feeling. The inner kid in you comes out.”

It’s no accident Swanson has moved up the ranks to the minor league ranks to Double-A less than a calendar year after being drafted.  Starting the season with the Carolina Mudcats in High-A, Swanson hit .333 with 10 RBIs, 12 doubles and a home run. In just 19 games with Mississippi his average is .292 with 11 RBIs to go with his three home runs, one triple and four doubles. As of today he’s riding a seven-game hitting streak.

“You can never complain when you do this for a living,” Swanson said. “The staff has been great and helped me feel comfortable in what I’m doing and I’m learning. The biggest thing is to learn each day.”

Swanson is part of a young group of budding stars for the Atlanta Braves organization, something they’ve been lacking in recent years. Swanson was the No. 17-ranked prospect in all of baseball according to Baseball America. He’s the top-ranked of seven Braves prospect on the publication’s Top 100 list.

Swanson and his fellow prospects feel they have the potential to put the Braves back into contention.

“Whenever you have an opportunity to create something special with an organization, you want that,” Swanson said. “The guys we have right now are working hard to get where they want to be. We have to have faith in that and do the best we can.”

Swanson is back in Tennessee this week, playing a five-game series with the Braves against the Tennessee Smokies. While at Vanderbilt Swanson won a national title and was named the College World Series Most Valuable Player. The performance on the big stage not only got him drafted No. 1, but got him a $6.5 million signing bonus.

“It’s always great being in Tennessee,” Swanson said. “The air is a little bit fresher here. I’m going to enjoy it.”

Still, getting traded came as a shock to Swanson, whose career already began the wrong way. In a practice game after getting drafted he took a pitch to the face that delayed his minor league debut. Getting traded to the Braves was easier to take.

“I was at dinner with my girlfriend and people from Nike,” Swanson said. “I like in Nashville and the winter meetings were in Nashville, so I was literally 10 minutes down the street from where the trade went down. In the beginning I didn’t know what to think. I gave myself a week to let the emotions die down. I had to look at it in perspective as an opportunity and not the emotional highs.”

Notebook: A couple of seasons ago I interviewed Brian Jordan, the former outfielder for the Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals. He currently works as a pre-game analyst for the Braves and he told me, in no uncertain terms, the Braves had nobody of note coming up in the minor leagues. The same can’t be said today. The Braves not only have Swanson in Double-A, but Ozzie Albies, who got promoted last month to the Triple-A Gwinnet Braves. While Swanson is going to be a star, Albies already is one. At just 19 years-old he’s holding his own in Triple-A batting .247 after opening the season with a .360 batting average in Double-A in Mississippi.

 

Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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