The Braves watched Dansby Swanson depart in free agency this winter. They’ll enter the season with something of a question mark at shortstop for the first time in six years as a result.
As things stand, shortstop looks like a two-man battle between young infielder Vaughn Grissom and utilityman Orlando Arcia. Grissom, 22, is seemingly the organization’s shortstop of the future. He has just 41 MLB games under his belt and comes with some questions about his ability to handle the position defensively, as many prospect evaluators have suggested he’d be a better fit for second base or left field. Arcia has a much longer MLB track record but owns a modest .243/.295/.369 line in just under 2200 career plate appearances.
Veteran shortstop Elvis Andrus remains unsigned and would seem a viable fit on paper for a win-now Atlanta team in a competitive division. There’s no indication the Braves have explored the possibility of adding a stopgap shortstop, though. Atlanta has placed a decent amount of trust in their highly-touted young players in recent seasons, and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos expressed optimism about the in-house candidates over the weekend.
Anthopoulos acknowledged that some have defensive concerns with Grissom but noted that well-respected infield coach Ron Washington has offered strong reviews on his offseason work. “I can see how the scouting community might have questions about Vaughn. I had questions about Vaughn when I first saw him,” Anthopoulos said (link via Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). “And I’ve been wrong plenty of times. The difference is we have a guy in Ron Washington who’s unbelievable with this stuff. He wouldn’t just say something to say it. … And, look, we don’t know how Vaughn’s going to hit. He’s got to earn the job. Orlando Arcia can do it, too. But Wash really believes in Vaughn. We believe in Vaughn, too, but we’re going to go with who we think the expert in that area is, and I don’t know anybody better in the game than Ron.”
Certainly, the Braves would love for Grissom to seize the position out of the gate. The right-handed hitter impressed during his first crack of major league action, hitting .291/.353/.440 with five home runs over 156 plate appearances. He showed an aggressive approach but quality bat-to-ball skills. Grissom played mostly second base with Ozzie Albies injured last season, with public defensive metrics painting him a couple runs below average in 347 innings of work.
Albies will be back at the keystone, while Austin Riley has third base secured. The only non-shortstop position in the lineup that’s unsettled is left field, where a hodgepodge of players led by Eddie Rosario look to be competing for reps. Skipper Brian Snitker stressed over the weekend that Grissom wouldn’t factor into the corner outfield during exhibition play, with the club viewing him solely as an infielder (via David O’Brien of the Athletic).
The 28-year-old Arcia is a lower-upside veteran fallback. He’s coming off the best offensive showing of his career in a part-time role, hitting .244/.316/.416 with nine homers through 234 trips to the plate. That was the first above-average slash line of his seven big league seasons. Arcia made hard contact at a career-high 42.5% clip to collect 18 extra-base hits over 68 games. It was a nice year for the 28-year-old to at least put himself in the mix for the shortstop position if Grissom falters, although his modest career track record at the plate raises questions about whether he could maintain his 2022 production over a full year of everyday shortstop reps.
With as good as the Rest of the Braves lineup is they can stand to let Grissom take the job and develop into the role. It’s not like Swanson set the world on fire out of the gate, let the kid play
Maybe it’s just me, or those with too little talent to make it, but I’d give the Jays a massive hometown discount if I had the Abilities Swanson does. Players association can suk it, I’d sign the rest of my career with a few million a season or whatever would get approved by MLB, 15 year 200? Sure where do I sign.
He won a WS with his hometown team, but wouldn’t you want 3, 5, 7? Help build a dynasty.
Worst case sign a big AAV 3 year deal ATL couldn’t say no to, just to try and win 1 more with your hometown team, the one you rooted for growing up!
Give the team options in case I stink up the place for a few years, I’d have collected a lottery winnings twice or three times over anyway by that time.
I’d willingly retire near the end if I dropped off substantially and negotiate a new Front Office deal of some kind to stick around the organization till I die, however I could contribute
Don’t know why more players aren’t of a similar mindset, you see a few pop up and they never really pan out, the ones who give discounts get vilified by everyone else.
I love baseball, but hate it at the same time.
Have some self-respect, man. Baseball franchises are just companies in the end. You really think owners “appreciate” it when players take below market deals? They just call that player a sucker and add a new wing onto their mansion with the extra revenue.
Legends never die… Chipper is the #1 hero in Atlanta and always will be. He could have gone to NYY and been on the team that won 3 straight, but he chose to stay in Atlanta. After what Freeman went through, you would think so players would think about the benefits of sticking around. Cano got his contract money but lost tens of millions in media deals that he wouldve had by staying with his first team.
I feel the same as you, thanks for saying it. How much money does a person need to live. Thank you for saying it Jaysfan
I notice that you bootlicking losers never say “I wish the owners would just pay the players fairly instead of colluding to artificially deflate salaries. They are already billionaires, how much money do they need?” You are truly pathetic
Lighten up Francis
Difference is Swanson never had question marks regarding his defense. You can let the offense develop, but the defense needs to be there day one for a SS.
That’s not really true. Swanson was below average defensively his first few seasons in MLB. He developed himself into an elite defender.
Swanson was below average defensively to start, but no one questioned he had the talent to play SS. That’s the difference. The skill was always there.
I don’t know if Grissom has that ceiling to grow defensively. At the very least, people don’t seem to think he does like they did with Swanson.
Side note, why aren’t the Braves considering sliding Albies to SS at this point? Does no one remember there was a big debate between Swanson or Albies being the SS when they were coming up? Albies profiles much better at SS than Grissom and moving him to 2B might take some pressure off him to develop better defensively.
Just another very obvious move to me the Braves are too incompetent to make. There really is no hope for this team with its awful decision making abilities.
And I don’t know why some of you above think the lineup is good enough to not be worried about the offense from that position. We already have the worst corner outfield in baseball and it’s back for another round of that. We also downgraded the catcher offense from Contreras to Murphy (no matter what your thoughts are long term, you can’t deny Contreras outhit Murphy last year… so it’s a going to be a drop off in that spot for 2023… Braves homers will probably come in here coping though instead of being honest about the offensive value Contreras delivered in 2022).
Is the offense really as good as some of you think? If SS ends up unproductive offensively it likely creates two automatic outs to pair with that OF out. Hard to win when you completely give away 2 innings of at bats.
Albies doesn’t have the arm for SS.
Murphy will have better offensive numbers in the Braves line up.
What are you talking about?? Questioning the decision making of the Braves? Almost everyone talking about the next many years has the Braves one of the likeliest to contend for the foreseeable future. We have most of our starting team locked up for years to come. Players want to be in Atlanta for so many reasons. I am proud to be a life long Braves fan and looking very much forward to what the future holds. AA and other “decision makers” keep doing your thing!!
I think they are certainly a dangerous team, even without Swanson.
– Olson is overrated, but still a very good hitter. He should be better this year.
– Riley is a legit force.
– Albies is good when healthy.
– Acuna is elite when healthy.
– Harris III appears to be the real deal.
– Murphy, while not as good a hitter as Contreras, is a much better defender and is still a quality stick.
The offensive core is about as good as anyone. Maybe not the best in baseball, but still around that upper tier.
Albies broke his elbow and switched to that sidearm fling that he does to take pressure off of it. I don’t think they want to move him back to SS.
Dropoff from Contreras to murphy? That can’t be more false. Murphy was in a god aweful Oakland lineup and still put up decent offensive numbers with 66 rbis. Now put him in atlantas lineup with protection and more rbis opportunities and he could hit 100. Also to say that the offense isn’t that great bc of SS and lf is insane. Hard to win? So what your saying is there are teams who have 9 FOR SURE ABs through there entire lineup? You have zero knowledge of anything.
Put Murphy in the Atlanta lineup for a full season and tell me he won’t be just as good as Contreras.
Murphy will have better offensive numbers in the Braves lineup because…. ????
Sorry but you had your shot with that when Olson was acquired. And Olson did not have better numbers here. Trying to double down on the same argument for Murphy is pretty weak.
There’s no evidence to suggest his numbers will be better in Atlanta. If anything Olson is evidence that he won’t have better numbers here. All you have are hopes and dreams the numbers will be better. Expecting that they will be or should be is absolutely foolish and proven to be foolish just this past year making it all the more laughable so many of you default to the same explanation for why he’ll improve offensively.
Here we go again. From a bad Oakland offense to the Braves means he MUST have much better offensive numbers
Yet none of that was true with Olson transitioning. Oh but it’s different this time, huh? Please stop talking if that’s your rationale for why Murphy will magically level up offensively.
You literally have about as direct of a comparison as you can get with an All-Star A’s hitter making the exact same transition and seeing no noticeable improvement. How on Earth you conclude Murphy’s offense will magically bounce up is baffling.
Yet again here we go. Put Murphy in the better lineup is the only reason he will be better is a bad argument.
Explain Olson not getting better and maybe you can make a case for Murphy. Most of you just can’t deal with reality so you use the same argument that didn’t pan out just this past year…. Like wtf… how can you go back to the same logic after seeing it not hold true so recently????
Maybe if you wouldn’t post the same thing every 3 minutes someone could respond to your post
See what’s more rediculous in your argument then anything is saying the offense “isn’t that good” bc if SS is unproductive then that’s “two automatic outs”. Name one single MLB team that 1-9 does not have a single hole in the lineup?? This offense stands to be one of the elite in baseball and to base that off two spots is ridiculous.
I wonder if ATL wouldn’t benefit from engaging SD in a Kim trade if they feel they need a SS at some point. They can also consider Andrus who shouldn’t be expensive and would benefit the younger players learning the position.
YC, I’d love them to go get Kim and move Grissom to Left. You improve your infield defense and bring in a decent bat while improving your OF offense in the process.
They have a deep enough lineup to go defense first at SS, so I think Arcia and Grissom would have to be really abysmal for them to make any sort of trade at the position. I think the two of them more than likely get a full year’s audition.
I am just commenting in hopes my good friend Nashville Jeff Bridges comes along at 5am and gives me a like.
I been hearing all off season they love Grissom and think he can stick at short. Ron would know better than just about anybody.
Rsox is correct. Dansby took awhile to be a star. One thing I do really like about Grissom is he has good power already and I can see him adding more size to his frame and getting even better in that department. Nice thing about defense is that can be improved with reps and Washington is a good guy to help in that area.
As far as Arcia goes he had nearly 200 pa in 2020, as well and put up an almost identical OPS as he did last season, granted last year was league wide a down offensive season, so his OPS+ has him better in 2022, he still had almost a league average batting line in 2020 so we are talking about 2 out of 3 seasons with similar production. He was quite a quality defender when he first came up but has taken a step back. He has more potential than people credit him. He was given up on pretty early as an everyday player for Milwaukee, though understandably as they gave him a chance and he didn’t hit.
The only time it felt Arcia could hit was against the dodgers in the playoffs
Rafael Furcal took awhile for his defense to develop too.
Yea but he always had the cannon arm.
Furcal was only 18, I mean 22, when he came up.
Grissom has a good arm (though not a cannon like Furcal had). His arm is rated a 55 on the scouting scale, which is good.
I think the braves should sign Elvis Andrus. He could tutor/mentor Grissom into the SS position.
Agreed. I can’t believe he hasn’t been picked up by one of the several SS-needy teams yet. But with their youth, it seems Elvis could only help the Braves at this point.
Tutoring the IF is Ron Washington’s job.
Elvis has Costello value but is demanding a Pressley price tag.
Agree on Andrus comments. But for some of the others I find it hilarious how some forget the early years of Swanson. People were ready to run him out of town because he wasn’t the superstar #1 pick of the draft, instant success impact player. Players are called up earlier now and there is a adjustment period to MLB talent. AA made the right move by not paying retail at 25+ mil a year for a guy who’s dominant tool is the glove. Let’s see how that bat plays in the Cubs lineup.
What about Jose Iglesias?
That would make for an Iglesiating glut.
Braves already have Raisel.
Braves are over the CBT luxury tax already so doubt they want to add much more before the season starts. Braves always trade for players at the deadline so am sure they want to keep some payroll in reserve for that.
Guys like Andrus are just too expensive for the Braves at this point imo. He’d cost probably $7M+ for one year.
No mention of Braden Shewmake… if I’m placing bets he’s gonna get some starts at SS this year.
I’m a Braves fan and don’t see the lineup as “deep”
Elite – Acuña
Above Average – Murphy, Olson, Albies, Riley
Remember Harris has a lot of value from defense but his offense really shouldn’t be looked at as a solid anything since this will technically be his sophomore season and he could regress.
Left field and DH with Rosario and Ozuna looks to be very questionable for at least the first half of the season (we know Snit isn’t going to bench a guy in May).
Add in this SS situation and you have 5 bats you know are good and 4 you don’t honestly know what will happen
Does Harris fall in the “good” category. Because he just won (or runner up) rookie of the year and you don’t win that being a bad hitter
Does Harris fall in the “good” category. Didn’t he just win ROTY