Swanson highlights bright future for Braves

ATLANTA — If you’re keeping score, Day 2 for Dansby Swanson in the Major Leagues was Thursday at Turner Field, and the whole scene was slightly less frantic than Day 1 on Wednesday, when much of the world — well, at least the portion from his hometown of nearby Marietta, Ga. — came to see everything involved with the Braves’ designated face of the future.

I’ve seen this before around here. So has Eddie Perez, the former backup catcher and longtime coach for the Braves. He shook his head before rattling off more than a decade worth of memories involving guys from the Atlanta area making their debuts with the franchise while creating expectations stretching from the earth to the farthest solar system.

Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Jason Heyward. There also were those other Georgian-born players joining Francoeur and McCann among the dozen rookies in 2005 known as the Baby Braves. Talk about an Atlanta love fest: They played their first Major League games that season during the team’s improbable run to another National League East title.

Now it’s Swanson, 22, who went from playing shortstop for the Mississippi Braves of the Double-A Southern League earlier in the week to starting at the same position a few days later for the organization of a record 14 consecutive division championships and recent Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Bobby Cox.

You know — the team of Swanson’s not-so-distant adolescence. It sounds overwhelming.

“Yeah, but when it comes to [Swanson], this is very different. I mean, it’s very, very different,” Perez said of the No. 1 overall pick by the Diamondbacks in the 2015 Draft. Swanson eventually came to the Braves during a multiplayer trade in December, and the attention exploded around Swanson, especially when you combine the homecoming element with the fact that he was considered a key player for a rebuilding Braves franchise.

Francoeur, McCann, Heyward and those others were part of Braves teams seeking to remain elite, but even though these Braves aren’t those Braves, Swanson still is producing the same outside vibes as his predecessors.

“There is a difference, because I was worried about the attention around Francoeur, and I was worried about Heyward, who threw his first [ceremonial] pitch before his first game to Hank Aaron,” Perez said. “But with this kid, I’m not worried, because Swanson is a very smart guy. Even when all of the attention was on him Wednesday …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com