NASHVILLE – When the Braves had a chance to get not just a very good starting-pitcher prospect (Aaron Blair) and Gold Glove-caliber outfielder (Ender Inciarte) for Shelby Miller, but also Dansby Swanson, the Marietta kid and the No. 1 pick in the draft just six months ago, they pulled the trigger on the deal Tuesday.
Swanson, after an outstanding junior season at Vanderbilt — .335 with a .423 OBP, .623 slugging percentage, 15 homers, 24 doubles, six triples, 16 steals – signed for a $6.5 million bonus as the top pick in the draft. The Braves knew that Swanson wouldn’t be available when they picked seventh, but their top amateur scouting officials, Roy Clark and Brian Bridges, had seen Swanson for years and knew the potential impact he could have on a franchise.
On Tuesday, the Braves got Swanson without having to pay any of that bonus. He could be their shortstop — or second baseman — by some point in the 2017 season, or 2018 at the latest.
They took advantage of the Diamondbacks’ desire to win now and organizational depth at shortstop, and exploited a recent rule change – until this year, teams couldn’t trade picks from the previous draft.
“Aaron Blair is a starter that we think is very close to the major leagues, even above some of our other upside guys like (Sean) Newcomb or (Lucas) Sims and other guys we like a lot,” Braves president of baseball operations John Hart said. “We think Aaron Blair’s a special guy. And obviously because of the new rule change, we were able to take the No. 1 pick (in the 2015 draft) in Dansby Swanson, a local kid that played at Vanderbilt, a center-of-the-diamond player with not only a lot of tools and a guy we like, but this is a also a special makeup kind of a guy.”
Coppolella has long praised the Braves’ 2015 draft, the team’s first since Bridges took over as scouting director. And in a way, Tuesday’s trade felt like an extension or addendum to that draft.
“I’ll put our 2015 draft up against anybody, and we’ve been hit on a lot of those players in that draft,” Coppolella said, “hit” referring to trade interest the Braves have gotten from teams on picks made by Atlanta in the draft. “And that’s a big credit to Roy and Brian Bridges. And those two men played a big part in this trade, too. They were really in on who this player (Swanson) was because he was from our area and they knew who this player was, where he was from and what he could do. That was a big part of this trade for us.”
Hart added, “For us, we looked at it and said, we’re going to have five years of control of Inciarte, who’s a quality center fielder. We’re going to have six years of control over Aaron Blair. And we’re going to have six years of control over Dansby Swanson. We think all of these guys are start players who are going to play for us. So we ended up getting, in effect, six, six and five – we got 17 years of control of three players we liked. You weigh the ability to build something special that’s special, that your fans are going to be excited about, that your fan base can rally around, and that you can win with.
“And it didn’t hurt that Dansby Swanson was born and raised and played five minutes from our new ballpark and was an all-world guy at Vanderbilt and was the No. 1 pick in the draft, that our (scouts) loved. How painful do you think that was, to have the No. 1 pick in the draft and trade him? But when you’re sitting there and saying, ‘We have a chance to put a ring on, and this guy can take us there,’ those are the hard calls that clubs have to make. And we forced clubs to make those decisions, because we were very comfortable staying with Shelby Miller.”
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