Atlanta Braves GM pays visit to Mississippi

Here on the Gulf Coast we talk a lot of Biloxi Shuckers baseball, but how about a little bit of love for the ATL with spring training right around the corner.

The Braves are in the midst of a busy off-season after last year’s early playoff exit in the NLDS at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Part of that hectic winter includes signing the former Cardinal Marcell Ozuna to a one year free agent deal to replace that middle-of-the-lineup power bat in the wake of Josh Donaldson’s departure to the Minnesota Twins.

The Braves also picked up King Felix Hernandez from Seattle to bolster the rotation, giving the reigning champions of the NL East a lot of hope heading into 2020 according to General Manager Alex Anthopoulos, who was the keynote speaker at an event in Jackson last night. “It’s been a busy offseason for us. We had a lot of free agents so we had a lot of work to get done. We’re glad with the moves we were able to make. The division is going to be tough. I think the NL East is the only division in baseball last year that had four teams .500 and above. It felt like everybody got better. The Marlins are starting to build towards getting back to winning and they added some pieces and all of the other teams are trying to get back to the playoffs, so it’s going to be a grind and going to be a challenge but we like the way the club looks going into spring.”

Braves pitchers and catchers report first to spring training on February 12^th with the position players not too far behind on the 17^th.