About two weeks ago, the Atlanta Baseball Club traded second baseman Tommy La Stella away to the Chicago Cubs for a small collection of international bonus slots and also right-hander Arodys Vizcaino. The move provided clues as to Atlanta’s dollar valuation of the aforementioned bonus slots relative to baseball’s free-agent market. What else it did was to create a vacancy at second base — a vacancy that prospect Jose Peraza is expected to fill eventually but also not immediately. None of the other options on Atlanta’s 40-man roster — Phil Gosselin, Ramiro Pena, Tyler Pastornicky, nor Elmer Reyes –are projected to produce a 1.0 WAR or greater per 550 plate appearances in 2015.

Atlanta went some way, it seems, to addressing their second-base depth earlier this week by signing former Yankees prospect Corban Joseph to a minor-league deal — and Joseph, it seems, is basically Tommy La Stella.

Consider, their projections for 2015, pro-rated to 550 plate appearances:

Like La Stella, Joseph enters his age-26 season. Like La Stella, his second-base defense is probably some combination of below-average but passable. And even though they profile differently in terms of walk-strikeout differential (where La Stella is better) and home-run power (where Joseph is), both are candidates to produce league-average batting lines — and candidates to do so, it should be noted, somewhat contrary to expectations.