A head pops up behind the doorway of a small interview room set up for the National League's early front-runner for rookie of the year.
"Is now a bad time?" a polite voice asks.
The voice belongs to Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson, who appears just as eager to accommodate the crew producing the interview, as he is to do it. He carries himself with confidence but not quite the bravado of a Bryce Harper or Matt Harvey. It's the subtle self-assuredness of a young man who's already had a great deal of success but knows much more could be on the way.
Like Harper, Swanson is a young face of a franchise in the National League East. He was also taken first overall, but by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015. Unlike Harper, Swanson was traded to the Braves just six months to the day he was drafted first out of Vanderbilt.
The move was unexpected but not unprecedented. Swanson became only the third top-overall pick to be traded before his major league debut and the first since Adrian Gonzalez in 2003.
"You feel not worthless, but you're like, am I not good enough for what you needed?'" Swanson says, leaning back in his chair. "People think this is the greatest thing ever for you, but no one knows what it's like to get traded. A lot of emotions went through my head, and I kind of told myself give yourself a week, week-and-a-half for it to digest and don't think about it."
Swanson remained true to his word. Despite receiving 250 text messages and close to 85 calls, there was only one person Swanson immediately got in touch with -- his father.
"He called and asked me, 'Have you heard? I just want to make sure you heard, but I don't want to talk about it. We'll talk about it later,'" Cooter Swanson says. "And that was it."
Cooter, a former collegiate baseball player, says in order to understand why his son struggled with being traded, you have to understand his upbringing. Athletics run in the Swanson family. Dansby's mother played tennis and basketball in college, and both his brother and sister played baseball and softball respectively at the collegiate level. "Team is a big thing to our family," Cooter says. "We all played team sports. When he was drafted by the Diamondbacks, we went out there, and they tell you what they want from you. Dansby is all in. If that's what you want, and he fits that bill, he's all in. As far as he's concerned, he thinks he's going to play for the Diamondbacks until he retires. So, it's like a slap in the face to him. He's very trusting, and all of a sudden that's out the window."
So Dansby did what he says he always does in times of stress or uncertainty: He played basketball.
"It's been my first love. It's always been my favorite sport, I'm just a little too short to make a career out of it," Swanson says with a laugh. "So baseball is what I ultimately chose.
He's a Nashville resident in the offseason, so Swanson found clarity shooting hoops at the Vanderbilt gym.
"I told him, it's like you have this girlfriend you think is great, and then all of a sudden she dumps you," Cooter says. "But the great thing is you have this fantastic girl over here who does want you. So it's not like you're out in the cold. Have to get over the first one and move onto the second one."
Which just so happened to be the right one, geographically speaking. Swanson grew up in Marietta, Georgia, fewer than 15 miles from the Braves' new SunTrust Stadium. He hasn't gone far from his roots either. This offseason he purchased a home near his family and, as a lifelong Falcons fan, is putting old Georgia Dome seats in it.
But wearing his Braves jersey for the first time is where hometown fandom met reality.
"It didn't really sink in," Swanson says of his major league debut. "I was still going about my business and trying to play. When I put it on to go out, it was kind of an emotional moment because it's something I always dreamed of -- to get to the major leagues. But I had the chance to do it right down the street from where I grew up."
However, the proximity to home turned out to be an early concern for those closest to Swanson.
"The Braves part of it was great," Cooter says. "But we've lived here our whole lives and know thousands of people. Expectations are going to be put on him just because he's home."
"I tell people I was drawn to the Braves unit. They won the division every year. Coming into the year, you didn't say what kind of year is Chipper Jones going to have? You said the Braves are going to win the division again. I was immediately drawn to winning."Dansby Swanson
That didn't seem to affect him. In the final 38 games of last season, Swanson hit .302 with 3 home runs and 17 RBIs.
"I had the most fun ever," Swanson says. "I was hoping the season didn't have to end." In fact, a big reason Swanson was able to fully recover from back stiffness this spring was because he didn't feel the need to rush recovery after performing so well last year.
To further that point, Braves manager Brian Snitker says he's glad the club called up Swanson when they did as opposed to waiting for this year's opening day roster.
"Towards the end of last year you could see he started running the infield," Snitker says. "I'd bring a reliever in, and you could see him running through scenarios. I saw him moving players -- already taking control. He wasn't trying either. He was just being himself."
When you ask Swanson about himself, he's quick to deflect. Instead, he directs attention to his teammates, like Bartolo Colon, who's already had an impact on the 23-year-old.
"He'll come up and give you a fist bump every day," Swanson says. "Bartolo is the same guy every day. We always look at leadership as the one guy dragging the guys behind. But with this group there are a lot of pieces. You've got [Matt] Kemp, [Nick] Markakis has been around for a long time, and Brandon [Phillips] is the best defensive second baseman to play the game."
The Mets and Nationals have dominated the division for the last three years with a stable of young arms. Swanson thinks with the Atlanta veterans' proven consistency, the Braves are closer than people think. The long-term goal is to create sustained success like the Braves had in the '90s.
"I tell people I was drawn to the Braves' unit," Swanson says. "They won the division every year. Coming into the year, you didn't say, what kind of year is Chipper Jones going to have? You said the Braves are going to win the division again. I was immediately drawn to winning."
Swanson is still a rising star, but his personality reminds his manager of that golden era.
"He fits right in there with the guys back in the day, when all the flags were getting put up in that stadium," Snitker says. "A lot of people also say he reminds them of [Derek] Jeter, that kind of player, in how he handles himself."
Comparisons to a future Hall of Famer and the weight of a city's hopes on your shoulders can weigh on even the strongest of personalities.
Yet Swanson reiterates he's not fazed by it.
"If I go about it the right way, the results will come," Swanson says. "If you always lived your life by outside expectations than you probably wouldn't be where you are now."
Where Swanson is now, according to those who know him best, isn't that far off from where he started -- on the baseball diamonds of Marietta.
"To his friends around here," Cooter says. "He's just Dansby."