Atlanta Braves news and links: Do the Mets have their eyes on Arodys Vizcaino?

BRAVES NEWS

Adam Walker joins the Braves

The Braves made an organizational depth move by claiming outfielder Adam Walker off waivers from the Orioles. He’s been added to the 40-man roster as well, and I’d say that there’s an outside shot that we could see him at the major league level at some point in this upcoming season as a bench bat. He’s proven himself to be a pretty good hitter at the Triple-A level, but strikeouts are definitely a concern — he had a 38% K-rate in Triple-A last season. Yikes.

Are the Mets in on Arodys Vizcaino?

The Mets are currently searching for a late-inning reliever, and while names like Sergio Romo, Jerry Blevins, and Joe Smith are floating around, another name that came out of nowhere was Arodys Vizcaino. Sure, the Braves have traded with the Mets on multiple occasions recently (mostly because the Mets love them some Kelly Johnson), but this would be a different story. It’s plausible, but not probable in my opinion.

Will Ozzie Albies debut in the near future?

Highly-touted second base prospect Ozzie Albies was one of 20 non-roster invitees to spring training this year, but the Braves aren’t just bringing him in for a look — apparently they expect him to compete for a starting job. That got Zach Dillard of Fox Sports South wondering if it’s time for the Albies Era to get underway?

The Braves expressed confidence that Albies, despite his recent injury, will be 100 percent by camp and ready to compete for the starting job on Opening Day.

Atlanta could choose to be patient with Albies early on — much in the same way the organization slow-played Mike Foltynewicz’s transition into last season’s rotation — citing his age, elbow injury or the need for further refinement in the International League.

Regardless, it would be a surprise not to see the young infielder make his MLB debut before the All-Star break. He’s all but guaranteed to be be the first Braves player to break into the majors before his 21st birthday since Julio Teheran and Arodys Vizcaino both debuted during the 2011 season.

Three Braves appear in Keith Law’s latest prospect rankings

Keith Law has been releasing his prospect rankings list bit bit by this week, and once again, there was a decent amount of Braves representation on his list. This time, three Braves made it ont his list from the 40-21 range: The aforementioned Ozzie Albies, Kolby Allard, and Ronald Acuna. It’s very interesting to see Acuna in the rankings, and Eric noted that he’s starting to become “en vogue” when it comes to various prospect lists around baseball. Either way, it’s exciting to see these guys making the lists, and surely there’s more to come as Law continues running down his rankings.

MLB NEWS

Mariners make yet another trade during this offseason

Hey look, Jerry Dipoto is at it once again! Granted, it wasn’t really a big move that the Mariners made yesterday — all they did was pick up Dillon Overton from the Oakland A’s — but it shows that Seattle still isn’t done wheeling and dealing yet. In other Seattle news, they’ve already decided that Felix Hernandez will be their Opening Day starter for 2017.

What are the Mets doing with Michael Conforto?

The Mets currently have a bit of a surplus in their outfield, and after they decided to roll with Jay Bruce as their starting right fielder for the time being, that’s left Michael Conforto out in the cold. Unless he has a maginifcient spring training performance, he won’t be seeing much time in right field for New York to stat the season, and that has the crew at Beyond the Box Score very confused and disappointed with the Mets.

The worst part is how obvious their miscalculation has become. With few opportunities to see major league lefties, and even fewer good opportunities, under his belt, Terry Collins relegated Conforto to an irregular platoon role in some sort of doomed appeal to the gods of “going for it.”

This sounds like a fairly common mistake – overreacting to the struggles of a young hitter in the heat of a contending season. But, in fact, the Mets are mucking this up in a way that is virtually unmatched in contemporary baseball.