Forrest Wall Is Trying To Mash His Way to a Bench Job
There's one way to ensure that the Atlanta Braves put you on the Opening Day roster:
Don't give them a reason to leave you off.
Braves outfielder Forrest Wall, competing for the backup outfield job with non-roster invitees Jordan Luplow and Eli White and offseason trade acquisition J.P. Martinez, is doing everything he can to prove he deserves the 4th outfielder job.
Through his first four games in Grapefruit League action, Wall is 5-9 with three homers, three runs scored, and eight RBIs.
It's a slashline of .556/.600/1.556 for the outfielder.
Wall, who spent a few months on the major league roster late last season and stole five bases in six tries, reportedly wants to show he's more than a "speed and defense" guy.
And the Braves were keen to help him, with David O'Brien of The Athletic ($) reporting that Atlanta sent hitting coordinator Chris Antariksa and rookie-ball hitting coach Steve Wilkerson to Wall's Palm Harbor, FL home over the offseason to work with the lefty.
“I would just say there were some things that I didn’t know that I was doing that, were, I guess, incorrect moves,” Wall said to O'Brien about the adjustments he made with the pair of Braves hitting coaches who visited him a few times this offseason. “We were just able to clean those up. But it was kind of from the outside in. I didn’t know I was doing those things. And so it was helpful to hear from these guys. … It’s been feeling pretty good.”
As we've discussed before in our Opening Day roster projection, the bench roles are up in the air behind catcher Travis d'Arnaud and infielder Luis Guillorme. Wall's seemingly buoyed by president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos' comments that "speed would play a factor" in one of the spots - Wall set a Gwinnett record with 52 stolen bases in his 60 attempts last year in only 90 games and was five of six in his brief MLB cameo.
But Wall's not the only candidate with speed - Luke Williams was a perfect four for four in stolen bases last season at the major league level between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta, racking up 32 steals in 38 attempts combined between Atlanta and LA's major and minor leagues last year. Offseason trade acquisition J.P. Martinez stole 41 bags in 45 chances in the Texas Rangers minor league system last year, as well, and hit .297 while playing all three outfield spots, to boot.
The configuration of the bench will be probably the best question (outside of the 5th starter) between now and Opening Day.
