In the opposite clubhouse Saturday, Jansen, who has emerged as the Dodgers’ closer over the past two seasons, smiled broadly when the subject of Simmons came up. They are two years apart, and they first played together along with Gregorius, a shortstop for the Arizona Diamondbacks, in a pee wee league. Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela, was barely a blip on the baseball map until 1996, when Andruw Jones, then a precocious 19-year-old Braves outfielder from the island, hit two home runs in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees. Soon, children everywhere on Curaçao began playing the game. Curaçao regularly played in the Little League World Series, and now its players are regularly finding their way to professional baseball.

The native tongue is Papiamento, a Creole-Portuguese dialect that is confined mostly to Curaçao and its Caribbean neighbors Aruba and Bonaire, and in small pockets of West Africa. English is taught in fifth and sixth grade, Spanish in seventh and eighth. Many also pick up Dutch — the nation of Curaçao is a constituent country of the Netherlands — and some French.

And so, when a teenager from Curaçao arrives in rookie ball, it may be a new world of small towns and long bus rides, but at least he can chat with his Latino teammates, take coaching in English and order dinner off a menu.

“There’s not the same learning curve of the kids from the Dominican or Venezuela,” Braves General Manager Frank Wren said. “I don’t have anything scientific — it’s very subjective — but we all realize that as kids acquire language skills and a comfort level, and they understand instruction better, their ability to adapt and progress in the minor leagues is accelerated.”

Less than two years after Simmons signed, he was in Atlanta. And though he batted a modest .248 this season, Simmons hit 17 home runs and struck out in just 8 percent of his plate appearances. His manager says Simmons is capable of driving in 100 runs or winning a batting crown.

“I don’t want to put a ceiling on him,” Gonzalez said.

Yet where Simmons truly shines is with a glove in his hand. His throws are not only strong, but effortless. Besides broad range, he displays the footwork of a soccer player around second base. Most noticeable, though, are his hands. Simmons delicately collects ground balls in his size 11 ¼ glove, with “God Given” stitched on it, and gets the ball in and out of his throwing hand with the quickness of a three-card Monte dealer.

But it is the instincts that go with those skills that set him apart. Once, Simmons lunged to glove a grounder up the middle. Off balance, he reached behind his back with his right hand to take the ball out of his glove, and contorted his body to throw the runner out at first.