Atlanta Braves beat writer Dave O’Brien joined Dukes & Bell to talk about spring training with the guys which is only two weeks away and is Vaughn Grissom ready to step into Dansby Swanson’s spot?
When asked about realistic expectations for Grissom.
“I mean if you look at the stats, he was like, you know, terrific when he first came up for about a month and then really slumped after that,” O’Brien said. “And I think it was a classic case of a rookie that teams adjusted to nobody knew anything about him when he came up and he got fastballs to hit, he raked, then teams found his weakness exploited it, whatever that was. So now it's a matter of him making adjustments and he will, he's a smart kid, , but he's being asked to do that last year as a 21 year old playing and playing a position that, you know, he played in the minors. Yeah, but he, you know, he second base was not his primary position, he's a shortstop. So he's actually going back to his more customary position playing it at particularly levels different, but you're not gonna, you're not gonna get a better preparation that spending, you know, 3.5 weeks with Ron Washington over the course of the winter, working one on one, not like he's working with five guys, he's working like you would in a regular workout, he's working just with him.”
O’Brien talked about one thing Grissom has to do to be successful at shortstop.
Grissom is a really good athlete and I think I, I think he could surprise some people. I think he could be really good over there and offensively he's got terrific bat to ball skills. And we saw that when he first came up and hit that home run on the first night, but I think he’s gonna be fine. I think a lot of people are really concerned about it, maybe overly concerned just because of the way he struggled down the stretch, but I think he’ll be fine. He’s gotta focus all the time, that’s the thing he’s trying to get to do because Dansby told me this last year, he loves him, Grissom when he first come up said ‘I love the kid.’ And I asked him about shortstop he said ‘he’s gotta focus more’ he loses his focus, I think it’s just being such a young talented player that he could get by with natural talent sometimes and skate by in the minor leagues and still rake and get on base and the majors he can’t afford to do that, take a pitch off here and there.”