What a diff’rence a year makes, huh? Just seven months ago, it looked like this piece would’ve basically written itself, with nearly every position but shortstop under fairly long-term control.
The Guys On the Dirt
Here’s what Cot’s Contracts has to say, going around the horn:
C: Sean Murphy (signed through 2028, plus $15M club option for 2029)
1B: Matt Olson (signed through 2029, plus $20M club option for 2030)
2B: Ozzie Albies (signed through 2025, plus $7M club options in both 2026 and 2027)
SS: Orlando Arcia (signed through 2025, plus $2M club option in 2026)
3B: Austin Riley (signed through 2032, plus $20M club option for 2033)
All five were All-Stars in 2023. Backup catcher Travis d’Arnaud also has a $8M club option for 2025, and he was also the only one of the crew who didn’t have a below-average year. But he’s also turning 36 next year and he’s only a part-time player, so I’ll exclude him from the rest of the analysis.
The Performance
| Year | Triple Slash | OPS | +/- | OPS+ | +/- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murphy | ’19-’23 | .240 / .337 / .441 | .778 | 118 | ||
| Murphy | 2024 | .193 / .284 / .352 | .636 | -.142 | 76 | -42 |
| Olson | ’19-’23 | .259 / .355 / .531 | .886 | 141 | ||
| Olson | 2024 | .247 / .333 / .457 | .790 | -.096 | 118 | -23 |
| Albies | ’19-’23 | .274 / .327 / .488 | .815 | 112 | ||
| Albies | 2024 | .251 / .303 / .404 | .707 | -.108 | 95 | -17 |
| Arcia | ’19-’23 | .243/ .303 / .389 | .692 | 84 | ||
| Arcia | 2024 | .218 / .271 / .354 | .625 | -.067 | 73 | -11 |
| Riley | ’19-’23 | .275 / .341 / .509 | .850 | 125 | ||
| Riley | 2024 | .256 / .322 / .461 | .783 | -.067 | 115 | -10 |
The Question
Was last season an aberration, or was it indicative? Given the paucity of the farm system, and the fact that the payroll is already the highest it’s ever been, Alex Anthopoulos will face serious tradeoffs for any personnel decisions he considers.
However, after a season in which all but d’Arnaud fell badly short of their recent performance, it’s fair to ask whether it’s reasonable to count on this crew. And, most intriguingly, the best remaining prospects in the farm system are a shortstop, Nacho Alvarez, and a catcher, Drake Baldwin, though I’m not certain either would be ready to take over their respective position on Opening Day.
The bigger issue, of course, is whether these guys are likely to bounce back, or whether their struggles in 2024 were driven in part by age-related degradation of skills. Since all of them got a year older – I checked – we can’t rule that out.
A Tale of Two Halves
The Braves offense utterly froze over in May, June, and July, and warmed up in the last two months. Their team BABIP was a frigid .272 in those months, too, so it may not have entirely been their fault.
(Note: the offense was terrific in April, then awful the next three months, then rebounded during the last two months. So dividing the season into halves doesn’t quite capture the contour of the year. But it works well enough for our purposes.)
In all events, as five-ninths of the starting lineup, the infield both mirrored and drove the team’s overall offensive woes across the two halves:
| G | Triple Slash | OPS | +/- | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murphy | 1st Half | 33 | .211/.277/.376 | 0.653 | |
| Murphy | 2nd Half | 39 | .177/.290/.331 | 0.621 | -0.032 |
| Olson | 1st Half | 95 | .230/.309/.405 | 0.714 | |
| Olson | 2nd Half | 67 | .271/.366/.530 | 0.896 | 0.182 |
| Albies | 1st Half | 87 | .258/.312/.410 | 0.722 | |
| Albies | 2nd Half | 12 | .200/.241/.360 | 0.601 | -0.121 |
| Arcia | 1st Half | 90 | .211/.244/.333 | 0.577 | |
| Arcia | 2nd Half | 67 | .228/.307/.382 | 0.689 | 0.112 |
| Riley | 1st Half | 82 | .257/.329/.450 | 0.779 | |
| Riley | 2nd Half | 28 | .254/.303/.491 | 0.794 | 0.015 |
We all knew that Olson had a strong second half – not quite up to his incredible 2023, but on par with his terrific work in 2019 and 2021. And Arcia’s second half was somewhat similar to Olson’s: not quite up to his incredible 2023, but it otherwise compared favorably with his career numbers.
Albies struggled in his return from injury but played so little that it was hard to draw any conclusions. And Riley’s uptick started in June, so it muddied his first-half numbers, while he only played a month in the second half before his injury.
That leaves Murphy, who missed the first two months of the season and then spent the rest of the year as perhaps the worst regular at his position.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Long story short, Riley and Olson are fine. They had down years compared to 2023, but by the end of their respective seasons they had righted the ship and were again among the more productive players at their position, and their $22 million contracts (they have an identical AAV) are eminently reasonable given the quality of their play. They are not the problem.
Albies… well, I think we’ve all been worried about him for a little while now. In the player review for him that I wrote back in January, I noted his serious defensive dropoff, as his range dipped severely following his broken foot injury in 2022. While his range rebounded somewhat, his arm strength remains among the worst in the majors; also worryingly, his already-low average exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate all fell further, as did his sprint speed. Offensively, his year was actually quite similar to his injury-plagued 2022 campaign. He won’t turn 28 until January, but he’s suffered a lot of wear and tear. His club options are still so reasonably priced that they are likely to be picked up, but he now has serious question marks both offensively and defensively, and this offseason may be his most challenging since his rookie season.
Murphy faces some existential questions. His potential replacement, Baldwin, was the team’s minor league player of the year and had an excellent campaign at Triple-A Gwinnett; Murphy’s defense remains strong but his utter offensive collapse, dating back to the second half of 2023, raises extremely uncomfortable questions for the front office that declared him the team’s long-term catcher only 22 months ago. With $60 million owed him for the next four years, he will be given every chance to succeed, just as Marcell Ozuna was. But if he stays below the Mendoza Line, all the money in the world won’t keep his starting job secure from a hungry rookie making the league minimum, and he could become an embarrassingly expensive backup.
Arcia is who he is: not a starting player. Notwithstanding his improvement in the second half, he simply can’t hit the ball hard, and quite frankly, the fact that he’s hit 17 homers each of the past two years is probably a bit part of the problem. His swing gets extremely long and his proneness to extreme slumps makes him borderline unplayable. Really, I think he’s a fine utility infielder. He just isn’t a starter. I don’t know whether Nacho is ready, but I know that Arcia has lost the job.
Where Do We Go From Here?
1B and 3B: Riley and Olson have the jobs for the rest of the decade, and we’re a long ways off from me seeing that as a problem.
2B: Albies has the job by dint of the two sweetest words in the English language: default! There’s no realistic competition for the job in the organization other than Nacho Alvarez, who’s far more urgently needed as a shortstop. And even diminished by injury, Albies is still a basically cromulent league-average second sacker.
The 2026 and 2027 club options are still highly likely to be exercised. But what may be less likely is the team reworking them into a new longer extension. The outcome of this offseason and the 2025 season will have much to say about the absolute length of his future with the team, but we’re a ways away from needing to explore that question further.
I love the guy and I’d love for him to find a way to effectively compensate for the erosion of his foot speed. Giving up switch-hitting was another big step for him, and for one game in the Mets doubleheader, it appeared to be a roaring success. My fingers are tightly crossed.
C: Anthopoulos’s Folly. After silencing his critics for his first half-season in Atlanta, Sean Murphy’s bat has turned him into the most woebegotten member of the team.
In fairness to him, many a good player has had an injury-plagued season to forget – in 2001-2002, at ages 30 and 31, Javy Lopez posted an OPS that was .125 points lower than his career average, after a knee injury that ended his 1999 season, a broken finger that began his 2001 season and a sprained ankle that ended it, and plenty of other aches and pains along the way. Of course, he then had a 2003 season that was by far the best of his career, as he finished fifth in the MVP vote and earned a massive free agent contract to Baltimore.
(Yes, we all suspect his career year was chemically aided. That point is relatively immaterial here.)
Murphy is 30 years old now, having celebrated his big birthday two days after the Padres swept the Braves out of the playoffs. It’s not impossible to imagine him regaining his former status as one of the top backstops in baseball. But it’s a lot less likely than it was 12 months ago. However, the Braves have 60 million reasons to keep penciling him into the lineup. His offense is a question, but at this moment, there are no other answers.
SS: Anthopoulos’s top priority this offseason is replacing Arcia as the starting shortstop, and moving him to the bench. I think Alvarez is likely to be given the chance to win the job in Spring Training, just as Arcia (and Shewmake and Grissom) all were. The trouble is, at this point, there’s no plan B. Odds are that Anthopoulos will bring in a handful of Arcia-like backup options – perhaps our old no-hit all-glove buddy Nick Ahmed, who makes Arcia look like Jeff Blauser? Maybe they’ll pony up a bit of money for Paul DeJong, who has a glove and some pop but whose inability to get on base is equally as bad as Arcia’s?
The trouble with shortstop, of course, is that it’s the scarcest position on the diamond. There are few ways to fill it that are not expensive, and the trouble is, if you are unwilling to spend money, then you have to spend major prospect capital – which we simply don’t have at the moment – or be willing to incur inadvisably huge amounts of risk.
The Boston Red Sox were so intrigued by the idea of acquiring a cost-controlled infield prospect that they traded the soon-to-be 2024 Cy Young winner for Vaughn Grissom, who swiftly played his way back into the minor leagues. He’s now a 24-year-old second baseman and seemingly no closer to a major league starting position than he was when he was a 20-year-old callup.
The Braves need to replace Arcia, and they cannot afford to get cute. As it was with our current catcher, shortstop, and first baseman, the cost of a cheaper creative solution could be more expensive than just spending the money.
Offensively productive shortstops are indeed insanely expensive, as are offensively productive catchers. Can one be satisfied with defensively superior players at those positions? It depends on the the offensive production of the other seven positions, right? The Dodgers, with no lack of firepower, nonetheless decided to move Mookie Betts to shortstop out of a fear that they weren’t going to get enough production out of shortstop, although they changed their minds later in the season, partly through injury and partly because it was a stupid idea idea in the first place.
We got very spoiled by a 2023 lineup that had no resting areas for opposing pitchers, and that’s still a great idea, but there are no teams now that have it, so it proves you don’t kneed to have it. The Yankees have inexplicably thrived with a five-player deadspot in the lineup. (I’m exaggerating just a bit, but it accurately describes a large swath of the season.)
Would I rather have Xander Bogaerts than Orlando Arcia? Yes, but the Padres are fishing now on the West Coast while we fish in the Gulf of Mexico, and their offensive lineup is pretty awesome. Having a 7-8-9 dead stretch in the batting order is extremely frustrating (though it does let you know when during a game you can go walk the dog.) But it doesn’t stop you from producing winning baseball as long as you have pitching and defense. Arcia and Murphy are problems, and they’re problems worth addressing, but I think there are creative ways to produce 95-100 wins without addressing them. So get creative, AA.
The trouble with Arcia is that his defensive superiority isn’t sufficient to offset his offensive inferiority – Rafael Belliard couldn’t crack a starting lineup, either.
It would be nice if the Yankees could be induced to part with Oswald Peraza, who has begun to stagnate on their farm since Anthony Volpe beat him out for the starting shortstop role. But I doubt it – I’d be surprised if his prospect value has dipped enough to make him easily affordable given our threadbare farm.
I am always curious about post-hype sleepers – the Vidal Brujans of the world. Of course, “getting creative” could go the other direction: Trevor Story? Anyway, we’re going to see a truly motley assortment of shoulda beens, has-beens, never-wases, and everything in between. (I’d be a little surprised if we didn’t give a non-roster invite to Tim Anderson.
Maybe the right solution is some kind of platoon, a bit like the Belliard-Blauser platoon, allowing Arcia to serve as a defensive caddy for a more bat-first infielder – like Amed Rosario, whom I’ve talked up for years. We just can’t give another 600 PA to Arcia.
I agree. Another 600 at-bats from Arcia and his inability to make any visible adjustment based on the situation would be awful. Yes, he can run into a fastball now and again, but many professional level infielders would hit 17 homeruns in 600 ab’s if they always apparently swung as hard as they can at every pitch.
Honestly, unless you think Nacho is ready, which I do not, then Arcia is the best option. If everyone is healthy and he can hit much lower in the lineup at 2MM, then why not. Every other option will be too expensive or cost too much prospect capital. The trade package for Bichette to me was hilarious. Guy hasn’t been healthy in years and I doubt he takes the AA extension, which we should not offer
Arcia’s basically a replacement-level player. Finding someone who can put up equivalent production should, by definition, not be difficult.
As we saw with Zack Short, it is definitely possible to do worse. But with an entire offseason to study the question, it also shouldn’t be that hard to find someone equivalent who could possibly be slightly better.
Yes, but he’s basically a replacement level player earning replacement level wages. That’s a problem, but it’s not a PROBLEM, as long as the rest of your team is solid. I’m willing to improve the team anywhere, including shortstop, but I’m not sure that an additional $10 million is better spent at shortstop than on pitching or in left field.
You may be right – as it is, I think the only infield position where any change is likely to happen in the next 24 months is shortstop. And we shall see whether Alvarez are still in the organization by Opening Day.
That said, I actually think Arcia’s value to the organization is to provide precisely the kind of depth we didn’t have when we gave a bunch of innings to the likes of Luke Williams, Zack Short, Luis Guillorme, and Whit Merrifield. If we kept him as a starter, we would have both a bad starting shortstop and a bad bench!
But to take the other side of what you’re arguing, how would you better spend those $10 million?
Here’s the FA tracker I was looking at: https://www.mlb.com/news/2024-25-mlb-free-agents-by-position
I could see Michael Conforto as an upgrade. Andrew Heaney, maybe? We clearly need more starting pitcher depth. How would you spend their money?
I’d spend it on a nice sky box for myself, probably. But I’d invite you!
But my short answer is pitching, because there is never enough pitching. Imagine a world in which every bullpen pitcher was a high leverage potential pitcher. Relievers are cheap… the problem is in assessment, not price. Conforto in an interesting possibility. If I had the choice between putting Conforto in left field for a net cost of $10 million versus say, “upgrading” to Isiah Kiner-Falefa or Miguel Rojas, I think I’d go with Conforto. Tommy Edman will be available…. so what? We let a 4 WAR shortstop leave, but he’s currently making $26 million, and will be doing so until he’s as old as Miguel Rojas.
The funny thing is I actually think Edman may be more expensive than we want to pay!
I agree with you that the starting rotation is a greater concern than shortstop. I’m not sure we can count on more than 40-50 starts from Sale and Lopez, and while Schwellenbach’s development was the single best thing that happened all year, the rest is a deep concern: Holmes might could be a fifth starter, and Smith-Shawver might develop to match him, and one day Waldrep could take the leap that Schwellenbach just took. None of them feels particularly solid to me, though they’re infinitely solider than the morass of Anderson-Ynoa-Elder.
That $10 million of yours could bring in someone like Andrew Heaney, maybe. I’m guessing we’ll give invites to a lot more old friends: Julio Teheran, maybe even Dallas Keuchel? Alex Wood’s a free agent and he was terrible last year, but he might require something a bit firmer than an NRI to come to training camp. Still, I’m sure we’ll try a whole lot of chaff to find a bit of wheat.
I agree. This team can live with Arcia batting 9th IF the rest of the team hits closer to their historical norms but they can’t go into another October with starting pitching issues.
I’d sign Nick Pivetta. There’s a lot to like with his fastball on Statcast, he has really solid strikeout numbers, and he’d have way more upside than Ian Anderson. He had an elbow flexor strain early in 2024 that is a bit concerning but he shouldn’t require a massive financial commitment. It’ll probably be a little more than the Seth Lugo contract from last off-season.
Arcia is a strong enough defender (and cheap enough) to become the 2025 version of Gio Urshela, replacing whatever 2B/3B/SS that hits the IL.
As far as shortstops are concerned, it’s Willy Adames and…
Nick Ahmed (35)
Tim Anderson (32)
Brandon Crawford (38)
Paul DeJong (31)
Ha-Seong Kim (29) – $8MM mutual option with a $2MM buyout
Kevin Newman (31)
Miguel Rojas (36) – $5MM club option with a $1MM buyout
IMO, there are trade options. Here’s a few that come to mind:
Bo Bichette
Jordan Lawler
JP Crawford
Nico Hoerner
Bichette feels like the most realistic target and another that would likely sign an extension as he spends his offseason in Florida.
I’d be shocked if they traded Lawlar, as he’s a formerly top prospect who just had a lost season due to injury; I could really only see them moving him at a relative low in his value if they fear he either can’t stay healthy or can’t stay on the position due to injury. If we’re looking at prospects, I’d think that Peraza might be a better match.
JP Crawford and Hoerner are both guys I wondered about. The thing for the Mariners is they need to upgrade their offense in the worst way, so perhaps if they decided to go after Adames, they would be interested in flipping Crawford, who’s still got $21 million left on his deal and a partial no-trade clause. I’d love it if the Cubs could be persuaded to let Hoerner go, but I can’t see who on their roster would push him off of second base.
What are your thoughts, Ryan – how do you think we’d match up on these guys?
My guess is that AA continues to go the route of established veterans and I’ve got a feeling he’s got his eyes on Bichette who is about to start his free agent audition and is owed about $18MM this year.
And it just so happens that Bichette is his son’s favorite player.
Bichette clearly needs to get out of Toronto; that franchise has been screwed up since they let AA go, really. I’d love to get him. I guessed that part of the reason he didn’t move at the deadline is the asking price was too high. I wonder how far it’s fallen since then.
I have an absolutely stupid question that you guys will probably answer in the negative really quickly. Word is Chicago is looking to unload Swanson’s 7 yr/ $177 mil contract (signed in 2023). Some are calling it one of the worst contracts in baseball. Is there even the remotest possibility that we consider a reunion if Chicago pays some of his contract? As I say, probably a dumb thought given Swanson’s declining defense and offense that isn’t getting better, but I couldn’t help but ask and I’m sure someone will have a definitive answer.
Gosh, where’s that coming from? He was worth nine wins over the past two years. Fangraphs, at least, sees his defensive numbers the past two years as being among the best of his career (and the best in baseball at his position). If they wanted to unload him I’d happily take him back, but I hadn’t heard any rumor that they were looking to dump him and it would look awful for them if they did – to be honest, it would hurt them with subsequent free agent negotiations.
His offense isn’t great but it’s not a killer. He’s expensive but his contract isn’t crazy given his overall value, particularly with the glove – $27M per year for a four-win player feels quite reasonable.
Where were you seeing the scuttlebutt that they’re unhappy?
I would be glad to get Dansby back. He is a much more complete player than Arcia (hence the salary difference), but certainly would be much less of a hole in the offense. If Chicago would pick up some salary I would love that move, but probably a pipe dream though.
I just don’t see anyone but Arcia as our shortstop. We are not getting LT Dan back and Bichette is too expensive. What are you going to give up for him because the trade proposals I have seen for this rental would not be worth it
https://www.si.com/mlb/cubs/news/dansby-swanson-contract-could-become-nightmare-for-chicago-cubs
This was at the end of July this year, and Swanson did much better after this, but his offensive numbers were still the worst since his age 24 season in 2018
https://fansided.com/posts/dansby-swanson-miserable-season-cubs-stuck-with-him
As far as declining defense with Dansby, he’ll be 35 at the end of his contract. My bad because I stated things the wrong way, but I think we’ll start seeing a defensive decline in the next 2 to 3 years. There is a bunch of other stuff by fans that are probably not happy with anyone (and a streaky hitter like Dansby can get very annoying), but a lot of the articles appear to be generated by one SI article. There are 2 to 3 other stories that basically repeat the SI claims. Bottom line is I think you guys answered it – no way Chicago will part with Dansby.
I still maintain that there is absolutely no way Arcia will be our starting shortstop in 2025.
Below is some stuff about Dansby’s defense written in August. Defensive metrics vary so much, I have no idea what to believe.
“While Swanson is seen as a defensive anchor for the Cubs, his glove was not up to his usual standards. His numbers have regressed after leading all MLB shortstops in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) last year. His defensive metrics are still above average, but the gap between Swanson and the league’s elite shortstops has widened. He’s committed more errors than usual, and there have been moments where his range and decision-making have been questionable. This decline is troubling for a player whose value is heavily tied to his defence.”
TBH, a lot of this feels like pretty thin gruel, just kind of a basic blog post. I don’t see a whole lot of analysis to engage with let alone pick apart. For what it’s worth, for 2024, Baseball Savant puts his range in the 99th percentile and his Fielding Run Value in the 97th percentile, and Fangraphs sees him with the best Fielding Run Value of any shortstop in baseball.
It looks like they’re focused on one stat, Defensive Runs Saved from the Fielding Bible, but that doesn’t cover total defensive value, and it also isn’t necessarily the most up-to-date stat. It also feels like they’re mostly annoyed that he’s not a better hitter and cherry-picking stats to try to prove that he sucks.
I think you are right Alex. Cubs may trade him eventually, but they will be looking to get high value with no salary supplement unless his defense falls off the planet next year.
Arcia costs a couple million. We’re getting more than our money’s worth, because it’s such a low bar.
We might address SS, but o bet it’s one of the lowest priorities for AA because Arcia is such a bargain.
Arcia is difficult to figure out. He has been in the majors for 9 seasons – 5 of which he played more than 100 games. Of those 5 seasons he has had 2 decent ones and 3 bad ones. He may have one more decent season in him but I don’t think it will be with Atlanta. He had 602 plate appearances with a 218/.271/ .354/ .625 line. There is no possible way we put up with that level of production for the entire year next year. I could see a new hitting coach trying to work with him and giving him a chance to start the season, but if so, I would expect a very short leash. My gut tells me that we’ve seen the last we’ll see of Arcia in a Braves uniform.
It is funny to think how times have changed regarding shortstops. Rafael Belliard play 17 seasons between Pittsburgh and Atlanta from 1982 to 1998. HIs BEST season came in 1991 with a 249/ .296/ .286/ .582 line over 385 plate appearances. He had a .530 career OPS with 2 homeruns over 17 years. I don’t think we’ll ever see someone play that many years in the majors again with that little offensive production.
I think that’s the JonathanF bat-signal!
I was about to suggest Royce Clayton or Rey Sanchez, but they actually were far more effective hitters relative to their offensive environment than Pac-Man. Clayton’s career OPS+ was 78, and Sanchez’s was 69, while Belliard managed a robust 46 OPS+ in more than 2500 career plate appearances. Amazing!
And, if I recall, he was intentionally brought into Atlanta when the Glavine, Smoltz, and Pete Smith were coming up in order to provide solid defense behind them. He, along with Pendleton and Bream did that. But he couldn’t hit a lick.
Dansby has produced 9.2 fWAR in his 2 seasons with Chicago. His cost per WAR during this span was $4.3M. And he had a 95 OPS+ in his 6 seasons with Atlanta, and with Chicago, he’s had a 101 OPS+, so the complaints about his offense are based on this unrealistic expectation that he’d be some 120-130 OPS+ shortstop, which he never was, and he’s not being paid to be. Dansby’s been perfectly fine for Chicago, and he still has great hair. That should be worth another WAR.
With that said, Arcia has produced 3.2 fWAR for a total of $4.3M. So his cost per WAR is about as low as it gets.
I’m ok with Arcia if we can hire a hitting coach to get him back in track. Seitzer was gone from the team for an entire month due to an undisclosed reason, and after 8 great years as our hitting coach, a poor 9th year riddled by injuries and manipulated baseballs got him axed. So there’s probably more to that story.
Back to our shortstop dilemma, the problem is not so much Arcia as we have Arcia, Kellenic, and Murphy all in the same lineup. And I just don’t know if I can have an educated opinion on what to do with Arcia when he’s so damn cheap and I don’t know if a hitting coach can get him back to 2.4 fWAR Arcia.
I kind of just want to dump Soler’s salary and just run it all back next year. It’s easy for me to think 2023 was an aberration in almost every sense. The injuries and poor hitting will not continue, but the elite pitching will also probably not continue. So I don’t get a vote, but if I did, I vote just running it back with Arcia.
An upgrade allowing Arcia to be the utility would probably be optimal. But there’s not much in the minors to acquire that upgrade, and I don’t think AA is going to be okay with making Adames the highest paid player on the team, and that’s what it would take to get him here.
I think the first-round bye excuse has been put to rest for this year at least. Three of the four teams with a bye are still playing. Maybe the Braves just suck at rising to the occasion.
I don’t think Nacho can play the position of shortstop well enough to win the job based on what I saw last year. He even graded out poorly in his brief stint at second base.
I think he’s the next Vaughn Grissom — part of a trade…hopefully for someone who can be the solution at shortstop.
i agree about Nacho, can def seem him being traded.
Including Nacho, there are more than enough trades pieces to land an elite SS. Shoot, I think there might be enough to land an elite SP.
Someone posted on Twitter asking who you would start a franchise with if Ohtani and Judge were taken. A Braves fan said Michael Harris II, which at first seemed a little homerish.
But then when I looked a little deeper, it’s not quite as ridiculous as it seems. He’s signed to a really team-friendly deal, and through his age-23 season, he’s accumulated 10.6 fWAR in 362 games. That’s a 4.74 fWAR per 162 game pace, and he’s only 23 years old.
Now, the answer to the original question should be Bobby Witt Jr, Gunnar Henderson, Julio Rodriguez, etc. But through age 23, Michael Harris is one of the best players in baseball for his age. I think because he’s had injuries and he hasn’t matched the 137 wRC+ from his rookie season, his star has dimmed a little. But if he stays healthy next year and continues to develop, he could be a 5-6 WAR player soon.
And as a follow up to this thought, it does highlight one of the reasons why this season was so frustrating. There are FIVE guys in the lineup that either have legitimate 5 WAR potential or have produced 5 WAR in the past: Acuna, Harris, Olson, Riley, and Murphy. Instead of getting that 25 WAR potential, we got 8.8 WAR. I’m not saying Murphy is ever going to be a 5 WAR player ever again, but that’s a lot of missing WAR. If you did nothing else but ran the entire team back minus the departing free agents, I think you get close to 10 WAR back just progressing to the mean for those 5 players.
Ozzie’s 4 WAR days are probably behind him, but he would obviously say he’ll improve on his 1.3 WAR from last season. Even Kellenic didn’t match his 2023 with the Mariners, and even Mariners fans would probably say he has a little more in him than his 2023 season. Aside from Ozuna and d’Arnaud, not a single player met what were reasonable expectations for them. I wouldn’t bet on that happening again.
Ya know what, I’m just going to keep it going here with this thought because I’m procrastinating from going to the gym.
Team fWAR rankings by position, 2023 & 2024:
C – 4th, 13th
1B – 3rd, 10th
2B – 9th, 22nd
3B – 3rd, 17th
SS – 22nd (Vaughn Grissom heavily weighed it down), 27th
LF – 18th, 26th
CF – 14th, 18th
RF – 2nd, 17th
DH – 6th, 6th
Every single position got worse or stayed the same (DH) from 2023 to 2024. Astonishing.
Yeah let’s trade our best prospects for a salary dump to ease the blow of not paying max fried. Lordy
https://fansided.com/this-braves-cardinals-trade-would-help-ease-blow-of-losing-max-fried
That is one of the dumber trade proposals I’ve seen.
There aren’t a lot of clear ways to improve the team right now, so prepare for more of this and that “Bichette for Arcia/ASS/Baldwin” nonsense all offseason