CLEARWATER, Fla. – Who knows the secret? Who Mariano Rivera Womens Jersey knows the secret to unlocking the mystery that is Hector Olivera? Defected from Cuba in September of 2014. Signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers last May for $62 million. Then traded away abruptly last July to the Atlanta Braves. Traded away after just 19 minor league games. Traded away in a complicated three-team deal that required the Dodgers, essentially, to eat nearly half of Olivera’s contract and left the Braves on the hook for only about $33 million of it. Traded away for reasons no one has ever fully explained. But whatever the Dodgers thought of Olivera, he’s now a puzzle for the Braves to solve. And who knows the secret? Who knows the secret to solving that puzzle? Well, here’s a thought: It’s possible no one knows better than his manager. Long before Hector Olivera became Jordan Clarkson Womens Jersey a Brave, Fredi Gonzalez established a connection with him. And now, all these months later, the Braves need that connection to pay dividends. Back in January of 2015, when Olivera was still a man without a team and, for all intents and purposes, a man without a country, the Braves manager flew to the Dominican Republic to pay him a visit. So what was he doing there? He was there, Gonzalez said Friday, because “the guy is 30 years old -- 29 years old at the time. And we’re considering investing a lot of money in him. So we’ve got to make sure what kind of guy this guy is.” Gonzalez had already been to the Dominican twice that winter -- once to take a look at a number of Cuban defectors who were working out, a second time for a showcase just by Olivera. But this third time? This time was just “to talk,” Gonzalez said. “And I ended up talking with him,” the manager remembered, “for quite a long time.” Asked Friday what struck him Derick Brassard Womens Jersey about Olivera, Gonzalez replied, with zero hesitation: “His maturity, obviously, because he was 29 years old. And he wasn’t talking about getting race cars and stuff like that. “We talked about how many games he played in Cuba,” the manager went on. “You know, he only played three or four times a week. But he goes, `You know, Fredi, the stuff that I’ve got to go through to play three or four times a week, it’s almost the equivalent of playing 160 games a year. I’ve got to wash my uniform. I’ve got to drive 2 ½ hours to practice. There’s no food.’” But the conversation kept going. Gonzalez asked “about what would happen in certain situations, what kind of guy you are when you’re 0-for-30, or 0-for-27.” He was assured Olivera could handle it. Gonzalez asked how Olivera treated umpires -- and was told: “You can look at the record. I’ve never been thrown out of a game.” Gonzalez remembers it all http://www.authenticbruinsshop.com/authentic-17-milan-lucic-jersey.html vividly -- in part because he had to cancel his birthday party to take this trip. But he knew this was something he had to do, because these are the types of questions a manager has to ask. And the type of questions an organization has to answer.