After being shelved for a bit due to a cortisone injection in his pitching shoulder, Kyle Wright made his debut today, and it wasn’t great (not that I was expecting great). In 2.2 innings, Wright gave up 4 runs on 5 hits, including 2 home runs and a double. He was then pulled mid-hitter (likely due to a strict pitch count limit, but it’s at least worth noting).
It was his first start of the spring and results matter very little, but after his outing, he was interviewed and his answers made me a little squidgy.
I don’t doubt that Wright felt fine and I’m not worried about his velocity, but what worries me is that he had a brilliant 2022 so why would he tweak mechanics? Therein lies my worry.
Matt Olson is Barry Bonds‘ing Out Here! Updated OPS’s
Matt Olson went deep for the 6th time of the spring and is now carrying a 1.597 OPS, besting Barry Bonds’ best by .175 points. Take that, jughead. All the Braves regulars seem to be swinging the at well and here are some updated OPS numbers:
- Ozzie Albies: .885
- Matt Olson: 1.597
- Austin Riley: .968
- Travis D’Arnaud: .549
- Michael Harris II: .871
- Marcell Ozuna: .872
- Eddie Rosario: .389 (played well in WBC)
- Vaughn Grissom: .829
- Braden Shewmake: .834
- Sean Murphy: .530
- Sam Hilliard: .979
- Orlando Arcia: .727
AJ Smith-Shawver Makes Spring Debut
A pitching prospect that has a lot of Braves prospect gurus all hot and bothered made his spring debut today. AJ Smith Shawver threw 2 innings of 0 run ball. He gave up 2 singles and 2 walks while striking out 3. He’s only 20 and definitely looks like a fast riser if he can keep his walks down.
Updated Braves Roster Predictions
Starting Pitchers
After watching today, I just can’t put faith that Kyle Wright will break the season in the bigs. I think he starts the year on the IL and we see 2 new starting pitchers break camp on the team.
SP (5): Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton, Jared Shuster, Dylan Dodd
Relief Pitchers
Jackson Stephens was on a split contract, but had to be removed from the 40-man roster. He could have become a free agent, but he likely has a fairly large (and guaranteed) chunk of change coming his way at Gwinnett and that would have not been guaranteed if he had opted out. With that being said, there are going to be 40-man spots open and the back end of the bullpen could change before Opening Day. But for now…
RP (8): Raisel Iglesias, A.J. Minter, Collin McHugh, Kirby Yates, Lucas Luetge, Joe Jimenez, Dylan Lee, Nick Anderson
Catchers
There’s no guesswork when it comes to the catching. Alex Anthopoulos has a type and now he was 2 that fit his mold.
C (2): Travis D’Arnaud and Sean Murphy
Infielders
When Austin Riley covered 1B last year for the one game Matt Olson sat, it was disastrous. Now, Brian Snitker can deploy Sean Murphy at 1B should Olson need a day of field rest. Unless Vaughn Grissom gets multiple SS starts in a row from here on out, the educated guess is that Braden Shewmake has the upper hand (let it be know that Shewmake played 2B today, as well). There’s a 2nd guess, and it’s slightly less educated, but Shewmake would be trade bait, and the Braves could be shopping outside their aisle for a SS to start the year. We shall see. Unless Vaughn Grissom gets multiple SS starts in a row from here on out, the educated guess is that Braden Shewmake has the upper hand (let it be know that Shewmake played 2B today, as well). There’s a 2nd guess, and it’s slightly less educated, but Shewmake would be trade bait, and the Braves could be shopping outside their aisle for a SS to start the year. We shall see. For now, Albies and Riley will be on the bookends of uncertainty and I sure hope it works out.
Infield (4): Matt Olson, Ozzie Albies, Braden Shewmake, Austin Riley
Outfielders
The Braves should have one of the most dynamic outfields in the majors if they can just get average production out of left field. With so many dudes trying out for the position, surely someone can stick and be and be an average player.
Outfield (3): Ronald Acuña Jr, Michael Harris II, Eddie Rosario
Reserves/DH
Unless there’s a trade (please God, let it be Ozuna), the Braves have Marcell Ozuna and Orlando Arcia under contract for the 2023 year, and after that, there’s a lot of guesswork. My hunch is that they’ll go outside the org for 1 player, but I have not idea who that would be, but if they stay in-house, here’s my guess for the 5!
Reserves/DH: Marcell Ozuna, Orlando Arcia, Ehire Adrianza, Sam Hilliard, and Jordan Luplow
We will likely find out the fates of some of these players either later today or tomorrow and will have an update when we do!
Peanut says Braves will option BOTH Grissom and Shewmake to Gwinnett. I say WHAT?
The “toying with mechanics” is a major red flag. And this after the cortisone shot.
I would imagine that if any trade is in the works, it’s to fill SS, and if that’s the case it would involve Shoemake along with one or more of Elder, Anderson, Dodd and Shuster. But now we may be needing all the pitching depth we have.
@1 I don?t care for that
Has Arcia found ?the pictures? Keith Lockhart used to have.
AA has a thing for him it seems.
I can’t express how little I like the idea of Orlando Arcia, starting shortstop.
It’s official. I definitely did not see this coming.
Whoa. That is unexpected. Got to feel like a trade that was discussed in the offseason could come to fruition soon.
I should?ve kept the faith, Tonkin. I betrayed you and I?m sorry.
Adrianza will make the team as a utility infielder apparently.
I?m thinking there may be a trade in the works.
I owe Ryan a coke.
Edit: Some on Twitter are wondering if there might be some service time manipulation going on as well.
Woof. That makes their offseason decision making extremely awful, so well done, I guess!
Nick Anderson being optioned is also somewhat surprising. Though that is likely partially because the Braves didn?t want to DFA other pitchers without options (like Tonkin as Ryan mentioned.)
I think we are all having some wishful thinking to think there is a magical trade on the way.
I’d be highly doubtful Vaughn stays on the farm for long, but this ain’t a ringing endorsement for the kid, nor for the shortstop strategy.
Of course, the pointy-headed green eyeshade-wearing bean-counting suits of the world would point out the team is already pretty stacked and Alex Anthopoulos probably has the luxury of rolling the dice – punting at SS for a month could only cost about 1 WAR, which is affordable given the richness of the rest of the lineup.
Of course, the best thing would’ve just been to bring back Dansby like I said all along. But the strict utilitarian calculus for cheaping out can be defended, if you’re bloodless enough to wish to.
Yeah, it?s not like there were four stud shortstops available for nothing more than money this offseason, the offseason we were specifically told that the luxury tax was no object. Passing on them only makes sense if you?re sure you?ve got a young shortstop ready to go in house. And apparently they didn?t!
Jesus Christ, this team is supposed to be competing for a pennant. But no, let?s start a utility infielder so we can hang on to a worse utility infielder. That not an indictment of our whole offseason strategy or anything!
@14, I endorse all of this.
This is, in fact, even worse than I imagined this offseason when I was complaining about this. I never imagined we would make Orlando freaking Arcia our everyday shortstop just so we could keep Ehire Adrianza. This is the type of incredibly lame move we’d have made five years ago. What in the everlasting hell they’re thinking is anyone’s guess, but this entire series of moves is GM malpractice.
@7
What?s the trade? I haven?t been able to keep up as much because of work.
@7 – Let’s say there is a trade coming. Is there some strategic advantage to sending Grisson and Shewmake down before hand?
I don?t like this at all. Whether Grissom or Shewmanke, you have the luxury to start a younger player and get him some at bats as the team rounds into shape. These are the kinds of decisions that confound me as a fan, because they seem so short sighted.
Faith
Odd indeed. I would’ve been happy with either one of Grissom or Shewmake manning the position this season. I’ll have to defer to others in terms of who has the better defense out of our internal options. But I can’t see Arcia lasting more than a month as the starting shortstop.
I’ve given up trying to understand why we do some of the things we do. I doubt we’ll ever know. So who plays SS at AAA? Will one of them be traded before the season starts? Maybe they’ll put Grissom in LF for a month.
I currently keep confidence that this will make more sense by Opening Day. Currently am going to need some kind of explanation eventually, tho.
The explanation is that AA doesn?t see enough air between the no-options crew and the options crew to cut bait yet, so he figures he might as well see what the no-options crew has first before dumping any of them, thus keeping the maximum number of marginal players available to start the season and maintaining as much roster flexibility as possible.
?But good lord do I hate that explanation. This isn?t an 80-win team trying to finagle a wild card berth. We should be past the sorting-through-crap, who cares how much value we shed while trying guys out stage of roster building.
We survived Robinson Cano and Mike Ford. We can survive this. Hopefully it will make sense in hindsight.
@23
He knows what he has in Adrianza and it ain’t worth starting Orlando Arcia to avoid the possibility of letting him go.
I have been essentially making the same argument about keeping Pillar but I really don’t see the ultimate value of going out of our way to keep any of Adrianza, Pillar, Tonkin, or Chavez. I think Yates has a lot to prove too. It makes sense to have Anderson (both), Soroka, Elder, Luplow and even Shoemake and Grissom get some work in at AAA but not if the major league team suffers.
I do hope a trade is in the making but I’m not sure who it would be for as well as who we would give up. This sniffs a bit like giving up on William Contreras.
Who are the 32 guys left in camp? Does that include Matzek and Ynoa?
Seems odd indeed.
In AA I trust. Go Braves!
From DOB over at TheAthletic: Medlen in, Byrd and BJ out.
“Bally made more changes to Braves broadcasts. Analyst Tom Glavine is back after a sabbatical and will do 35-40 games; Jeff Francoeur remains lead analyst. Lauren Jbara joins main reporter Kelly Crull and Nick Green. Peter Moylan returns in various roles. Treavor Scales hosts Braves Live; Jbara & Ashley ShahAhmadi will also host, and Kris Medlen joins them. Brian Jordan and Paul Byrd didn’t return.”
I liked Paul Byrd. Looking forward to seeing Medlen.
It surprised a little, but seems an ok move to get more clarity on which of the two has more potential at ss longterm, demonstrate continued improvement in AAA, and which one fills some other role in the future. Starting either at ss on a pennant calibre team would put a lot of pressure on them, that might magnify and swallow them up if they struggled with their respective weaknesses. In addition, Arcia gets a chance to look good, be serviceable, maybe even show he can hold as position down and keeps hitting like last season, but fundamentally is at least a short stop-gap to provide more time to work out which prospect really is the ss of the future. If Arcia flops completely, the pressure is off whichever of the two is promoted to replace him, a bit like when Harris came up last year, and just had to “be better” than the disastrous CF performance we were getting. We get a few weeks for Vaughn or Braden to demonstrate their superiority over each other in AAA, which will be a really fascinating head to head comparison- facing the same pitching, splitting SS/2b time.
I?m pretty firmly in the ?in AA we trust? camp. He is smart and the FO has more info than we do. But this one?s a real stunner for me. I think the rationale offered @29 makes the most sense. I don?t really like it, but I?ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
BTW, there are plenty of FO?s I wouldn?t trust. See, e.g., Colorado. And I remember the days when most general managers were not as savvy or as smart as those of us who read the Bill James Abstracts every year. But AA has earned my trust over the past five years.
I can simultaneously think that this is a very well run organization while also wishing that it wasn’t run on the cheap, right? Right? Right?
I just wish we didn’t have to start every season from behind.
@31, 100%.
@32, 33 At some point we won’t be able to dig out of the self-inflicted hole and we will end up as a wild card or missing the playoffs all together. No need to always throw two positions at the wall and see what sticks.
I trust in AA but,
Zips and other preseason projections have the team right at the top of mlb. I’m not worried about digging an early hole that’s too deep.
The Braves have a top 5 payroll. We are no longer in a world when our ownership is one of the cheapest in mlb. That is, the problem isn’t really a general unwillingness to spend money. I think the collective frustration here stems from a couple of AA’s very strong preferences that he’s demonstrated repeatedly. First, he is strongly averse to long term contracts that pay big money to guys in their mid to late thirties. We would all prefer to have one of the big four FA shortstops, but he deemed the long term cost too great.
Second, AA really likes depth on the 40 man, even at short term cost to the 26 man roster. White and Ludlow got sent down because they have options, while Pillar and Hilliard don’t. He’d like to start the season with all four of them under control and see how it shakes out. And it may be the SS decision was about keeping Adrianza, who is also out of options. (Although it’s hard for me to see how keeping Adrianza could possibly make much difference short or long term.)
Maybe we could just start the season without any shortstop at all. Would it violate the shift rules to only put eight defensive players out there?
I’m sure if you asked AA he would make the argument that it’s not about bringing the best 26-man roster north, it’s about making sure you’ve got the best 40-man roster for the whole season… but come on, man. I’m not that stupid and I know you’re not either. Arcia wasn’t the solution in November and he’s not the solution now. The only difference is that in November you could have maybe done something about it. Guys like Adrianza are freely available every week of every season; losing him to go sign with the Royals isn’t going to make or break you. The lack of urgency with regards to dealing with the team’s obvious problems is really galling.
Pravda wants us to believe that’s what it’s all about. Here’s DOB:
https://theathletic.com/4330112/2023/03/20/braves-mlb-shortstop-orlando-arcia/
I think Tfloyd’s right on the money regarding AA’s predilections.
I would say his obsession with depth is his biggest weakness (other than the money constraints, which aren’t his fault). He would rather go north with a worse team that he can play Gwinnett Musical Chairs with than a better team that he can’t. Of course, my opinion of Arcia is extremely low, so that plays into it as well.
FWIW the batting projections on fangraphs have Arcia at 95 wrc+ and Grissom at 100 wrc+. Not much of a difference there.
To me the biggest issue is if Kyle Wright and/or Charlie Morton turn into pumpkins…this shoulder thing with Wright is particularly concerning.
Are service-time shenanigans at all relevant anymore? Even if so, hard to see how an extra year of control means much given our competitive window. Just grasping at straws. Arcia at SS doesn’t make sense in any scenario, unless we’ve had like 5 injuries. He’s got less than 3 WAR for his entire career, and that number will surely drop if he logs meaningful innings at that position.
Service time manipulation is extremely out of character for the Braves. Even stretching back to the Frank Wren days, the organization has never been shy about calling up a guy if they thought he might help. Grissom would be a weird guy to cause a team-wide philosophy shift over, too ? he?s a good prospect, but not the kind of generational guy where you absolutely must ensure that extra year.
DOB made it should like they sent them both down because they were worried about having to lose Adrianza. Which was kind of funny
So, playing the game…… anyone think they would take Soroka north and promote neither of Shuster or Dodd? That would not start either’s clock and would preserve Soroka’s last option.
@45
I’ve actually thought about this scenario and no, I don’t think AA minds starting pitchers clocks because pitchers are so volatile. Also, if they perform early, he can extend them like he did Strider. More to the point, it’s more likely that a position player can stay healthy and productive longer than a pitcher and it makes AA a little more hesitant.
@46 then why keep Soroka in camp? Just send him to the minors and he can get all his work in there. I think if Soroka shows out well tomorrow, they keep him. Also, what are the odds they play the same game with Tonkin? Keep Tonkin and option out Lee? If you’re gonna play the game, you might as well play it to the end. If Adrianza is your floor then your floor is pretty low.
New thread. Roger, I’ll put my answer over there.