Making Sense of the Braves’ Shortstop Situation
On Opening Day, when the Braves took the field after batting in the top of the first inning, everyone you’d expect ran out to their usual positions. Well, almost everyone. Taking his position as the starting shortstop was Orlando Arcia, the recipient of a three-year contract extension announced earlier that day. The deal is worth $7.3 million with a club option for a fourth year that includes a $1 million buyout and replaces the previous two-year contract extension he had signed after the 2021 season.
If you hadn’t followed the Braves’ shortstop saga over the offseason, seeing Arcia in the Opening Day lineup might have been a surprise. So let’s recap: Dansby Swanson, the everyday shortstop since his debut in August 2016, played out his final year under team control last year and entered free agency. Atlanta didn’t show much interest in re-signing him once he hit the open market, and he wound up inking a massive seven-year deal with the Cubs.
The heir apparent to Swanson was Vaughn Grissom, who had been called up midseason to fill in for an injured Ozzie Albies even though he hadn’t played above Double-A yet. He impressed with a 165 wRC+ through his first 100 plate appearances in the big leagues, but that mark slid to just 35 over his final 50 trips to the plate. His late swoon was so bad that the Braves ended up benching him in three of their four postseason games. Still, entering spring training, the expectation was that Grissom would get every opportunity to win the job for good.
For his part, Arcia had appeared in just 104 games for the Braves after they acquired him from the Brewers in April 2021. He played four different positions in the infield and outfield, essentially acting as a utility man for Atlanta — a pretty significant step backwards after beginning his career as Milwaukee’s starting shortstop. Through his first five seasons, he put up a .244/.295/.366 slash line (a 71 wRC+) and accumulated 1.9 WAR, and after joining the Braves, he spent a lot of time riding the shuttle between Triple-A and the majors. Still, he did show some improvement at the plate in Gwinnett, posting a 129 wRC+ in 322 PA with his best-ever ISO at .233.
Those improvements at the plate carried over to the next year, where Arcia spent nearly all of his time in the big leagues as the Braves’ utility man. In limited action, he posted a 104 wRC+, a career-high for him. The biggest difference for him was a jump in batted ball quality:
| Year | EV | FB+LD EV | Barrel% | Hard Hit% | GB% | ISO | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016–20 | 87.0 | 91.1 | 3.3% | 30.1% | 52.0% | 0.121 | 71 |
| 2021 | 88.2 | 90.7 | 3.2% | 38.1% | 50.8% | 0.111 | 49 |
| 2022 | 90.7 | 93.7 | 7.5% | 42.5% | 45.9% | 0.172 | 104 |
His hard-hit rate improved by more than four points, up to 42.5%, and his barrel rate reached 7.5%, both career highs. He also cut his popup rate to 5.6% and simultaneously increased his fly ball rate. By elevating his higher quality contact but avoiding mis-hits, he was able to generate much more productive results on his balls in play, with average exit velocities on his fly ball and line drive contact that were particularly notable. Instead of a light-hitting, defense-first shortstop, Arcia’s batted ball contact started looking a lot more dangerous.
His plate discipline also took a big step forward. With the Brewers, Arcia had developed a very aggressive approach at the plate which didn’t go well with his middling bat-to-ball skills. Last year, he reduced his swing rate to 44.7%, a drop of nearly eight points over the year prior, and easily a career low. His contact rate didn’t budge, but simply taking more pitches allowed him to run a 9.0% walk rate and maintain his decent strikeout rate.
Despite those improvements at the plate, it still came as a surprise to see Arcia win the Opening Day gig. Grissom had an excellent spring, and a surprise contender emerged in Braden Shewmake.
| Player | PA | H | K% | BB% | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando Arcia | 47 | 14 | 19.1% | 12.8% | 1.011 |
| Vaughn Grissom | 40 | 13 | 10.0% | 5.0% | .829 |
| Braden Shewmake | 35 | 10 | 17.1% | 5.7% | .823 |
There’s only so much stock you can put into spring numbers, though there is some evidence that exit velocity improvements can be a little sticky into the regular season. Unfortunately, based on the limited number of Statcast tracked batted balls, Grissom struggled with the same issues that undercut his seemingly impressive debut last year. In 15 tracked batted balls, his average exit velocity was just 86.5 mph — slightly better than the 84.6 mph he put up in the big leagues last year, but still well below league average. (Arcia only had eight tracked batted balls this spring, but their average exit velocity was 94.2 mph.) The lack of high quality hard contact last year was a major red flag for Grissom, who only managed a 34.3% hard-hit rate and put nearly half of his batted balls on the ground. A lot of his success was BABIP-driven, which is why he crashed so hard in September when balls stopped finding gaps in the defense.
Then there’s the problem of Grissom’s defense. He wasn’t great at second base while filling in for Arcia, costing the Braves five outs and three runs per OAA and RAA. At the more challenging defensive position, it’s likely those numbers would only get worse. Grissom worked out with Ron Washingon, who helped turn Marcus Semien’s defense into a strength, for three separate weeks during the offseason. But while there was some improvement, it wasn’t enough to warrant handing him the job out of the gate.
Shewmake’s emergence may have complicated the picture a little, but he wound up getting sent back to Triple-A for more development time. A decent defender already, the thing holding him back has been his lack of production at the plate. He has a good feel for putting the bat on the ball but no power whatsoever and limited on-base skills. His improvements this spring had coaches buzzing, but ultimately, he needs to prove it in the minors before getting a shot in the big leagues, and his ceiling may be that of a utility infielder anyway. After both Grissom and Shewmake were sent down to the minors, it’s telling that the former lined up at shortstop for Gwinnett, with the latter shifting over to second base.
Despite all this drama surrounding the position this offseason, Grissom could end up being the Braves’ shortstop of the future anyway. The extension Arcia signed doesn’t preclude the Braves from calling up him or Shewmake if they break out in the minors this year. But Arcia is only 28 years old, and it’s possible he’s in the middle of a mid-career breakout after his change of scenery. The improvements he’s made at the plate are a move in the right direction, and his defense is another positive at a premium position. If Grissom does get called up at some point to take the starting role, having Arcia as a utility man isn’t the worst outcome for the Braves.
Jake Mailhot is a contributor to FanGraphs. A long-suffering Mariners fan, he also writes about them for Lookout Landing. Follow him on BlueSky @jakemailhot.
As the article explains: Arcia is more interesting than people are giving him credit for and Grissom is not as good as people think
Grissom should be the utility guy as he doesn’t really have a home defensively as is. He’s not a great infielder. Would like to see some reps in left field as well.
I think he could be fine at third base, but they gave shown zero interest in moving Austin Riley despite him being not very good defensively there. So if that’s off the table, then he needs to figure out a different position.
Matt Olson (1B): signed until 2029, team option for 2030
Austin Riley (3B): signed until 2032, team option for 2033
Austin Riley is an ok outfielder, but is decent enough at third base that the Braves won’t have much of an interest in moving him to another position until he’s much older. With his offensive profile, he’s a top 5 third baseman by WAR even with his defensive issues.
People look at the time Grissom spent at second base in 2022 in the majors and forget that less than 10% of his minor league innings were at second base before he was brought up to the majors. He came up to the major leagues and still managed to not be dead last in the majors in OAA.
From what I’ve seen, Grissom can be a major league shortstop defensively. He’s young and he’s still learning, but he’s most of the way there. If he can learn to make better contact on a consistent basis, he’ll be back in the majors soon.
@hughdiffy – excellent points
Not sure what your definition of “decent enough at third base” is, but over the last two seasons Riley has been as bad a fielding third baseman as there in MLB by OAA.
Over the last two seasons, Riley has played 2734.2 innings at 3B, more than any other player. Riley was worth -12 OAA in that time. Riley also had the second most errors the past two years, with 28, just behind Rafael Devers with 36.
Defensive Runs Saved has him with 19 DRS, good for 4th among third basemen during the past two years.
He plays a lot of innings, he makes a lot of plays, and there’s at least some disagreement among defensive metrics about how bad he is.
Riley’s bat is so good, he could have been literally 10 times worse defensively, and he’d still be in the top 10 third basemen in MLB by WAR over the past two years, just above Yandy Diaz.
There’s a reason why DRS hasn’t been used by FG, like, ever. OAA is basically the more accurate version of it. And he’s not been good! You can’t really compare him to other players who have played a lot at 3B because almost else who has been worse since OAA started has been moved off 3B. Hunter Dozier, Miguel Sano, Colin Moran, Miguel Andujar, Nick Castellanos, JD Davis…none of them are third basemen anymore. The only guys who are worse who haven’t been permanently moved off third are Alec Bohm (who definitely should be moved off of third base) and Yandy Diaz (who has only played one out of 5 games at 3B in 2023).
So by OAA, he’s bad. Normally, you’d just suck it up and say he should play 3B because the guy he replaces at 3B would be way worse at hitting than the guy he’d replace in LF. That’s why playing higher on the defensive spectrum is good; the idea is that you’re way better off having Austin Riley replace Josh Rojas than Corbin Carroll. The problem with this is that the Braves have a guy whose natural position is 3B and needs a spot to play, and a spot in LF where the Braves are desperately trying to replace someone.
The other reason to keep Riley there is that once you move him off of 3B and into LF, it may be harder to move him back. This is a more compelling argument, because it’s entirely possible that Grissom won’t hit well enough to play every day (he’s young, we don’t really know what he can do, etc). You don’t want to go shifting Riley around if he’s just going to go back there. But this argument depends on the idea that Riley’s going to get better at the actual skills of playing 3B so offset the inevitable short-burst mobility-related decline that will happen with age. Otherwise, they’ll have to move him off of 3B anyway because he won’t be playable there.
Bottom line: Austin Riley is very likely a bottom-5 defender at third base. Keeping guys higher on the defensive spectrum is good if you have guys lower on the defensive spectrum who can hit. The Braves don’t have that. There are still potentially some reasons to keep him there, but they are certainly not bulletproof reasons.
I think there’s one other consideration, which is the player’s own preference. Chipper Jones and Derek Jeter, to name two examples, were kept at positions where their defense was not a top consideration, because they liked playing the position. (Chipper voluntarily moved to left to help the team, a move that frankly helped no one, but it would have been worse if the team had forced him off his preferred position simply because he sucked at it.) Just by the eye test, Austin Riley’s defense at third base has improved, as has Bohm’s, from somewhere around “unplayably bad” to “bad but playable.”
Combine that with Riley’s bat, and there’s a lot of reason to just write his position in Sharpie. After all, futzing with a player’s position can get you a lot of unintended consequences – see Scott Kingery, Nick Senzel, et al.
To be fair, I’m not sure the problem with Kingery and Senzel was them moving around a lot. And Derek Jeter is the poster child of someone who should have been moved off his position! The Chipper Jones situation is actually a pretty good example of a move that didn’t pay off, because while they upgraded defensively at 3B, Vinny Castilla hit terribly.
If you want an example of a case where this could go wrong, I think the Vinny Castilla one is the most likely scenario–they move Riley to LF, Grissom comes up and can’t hit, and they have to move him back. And at that point, it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.
“By OAA,” he’s been worth -4 Runs/150 at 3B, over the last two years.
That’s below average, but it’s not “bad” by any stretch of the imagination.
“Bad” is what guys like Devers and Urshela and Urias and Escobar have been doing over that span.
Over his career, he’ll probably be in the “Bottom 5” in Counting RAA during any given Five-Year Span…because people worse than him will get moved off or wash out of the league.
Like how Jeter having “The Worst UZR Ever at SS” is because he played 12 years (with UZR) without ever being unplayable, and with enough stick to make up for it.
Anyway! The Braves’ current set of guys who can field better than Riley are only going to be 5-7 runs better than him defensively…and they project to lose that offensively to a league average LF.
Thank you.
I find it funny that you think that 3B is Vaughn Grissom’s natural position when he’s played all of 235 minor league innings at that position. Grissom is not ready to play 3B at the major league level. Nor is he ready to play LF at the major league level! He’s never played a single inning of professional ball in the outfield.
No matter what other people think, the Braves aren’t desperately trying to replace anyone in LF yet.
Marcell Ozuna had a good spring training, and Eddie Rosario looks like he’s back from his eye problems. That’s $27 million in payroll they have committed for LF/DH, and they’re going to roll with that until it is proven that they have to make a move.
And it’s not clear that they’ll need to make a move. Kevin Pillar and Sean Hilliard should hopefully be able to back things up in the outfield. The Braves DfA’d Jordan Luplow, so they feel secure enough in their depth that they didn’t need to keep him around. If pressed, they’ll call up Eli White, who has been hitting up a storm from Spring Training into AAA, and still has options.
Austin Riley is 26 years old. He’s got 7-10 years before he’s unplayable at third base. Is he worse than average? Definitely. And he is improving defensively. He cut down the throwing errors from 2021 into 2022. He improved his range from 2021 to 2022 as well, so instead of missing balls completely, he managed to deflect them in more amusing and damaging ways.
Even being a bottom 5 defensive 3B, Riley is still a top 5 overall 3B. That seems a bulletproof reason enough.
The only reason to move Riley from 3B is if the Braves get Nolan Arenado, Jose Ramirez, Manny Machado, or maybe Alex Bregman. That’s not going to happen.
That’s…really not true, haha.
You have to adjust for playing time, because Riley leads the league in 3B innings over that span.
His Fld over that time (FG’s amalgamation of UZR and RAA) is -8.7, which comes to a -4 Fld/150.
OAA is cumulative. The fact that Grissom was as negative as he was in such a short amount of time is a testament to how bad he was at defense.
If he’s not a good enough hitter for the infield, how is left field going to work out better when it’s the position usually reserved for stone gloves/weak arms who hit the ball a mile?
(As an aside, I’ve never understood the notion of hiding a weak arm in left. Yeah, it’s a shorter throw to third, but versus an awful lot of right-handed hitters.)
I believe the best place to hide bad arms is DH
It’s because no one goes 1st to 3rd on a single to left, even if the guy has a noodle.
Go Braves!
Ron Washington is a very good coach, but he is not literally a miracle worker. Semien was barely adequate at shortstop and plus at second base before the new shift rules, so even if he turned Grissom into a defender as good as Semien it would still be a tough roadm in the new context.
In fairness…Semien’s probably the poster child for guys who UZR/DRS overrated before Tango built OAA and RAA.
Turns out, the scouts were right about him being a fringey shortstop, once you eliminate positioning.
Fringy is about right. He was an average shortstop by OAA in 2018, and below average in 2019, but not unplayably so. By 2020 he was bad again (although he wasn’t healthy then, so that might have played into it).
In any case, Ron Washington is only half the story with Semien. He did improve Semien considerably–there’s no way Semien is this good a defender at 2B without Washington’s help. But the reason why OAA figured this out and UZR/DRS didn’t is that Semien was exceptionally bad at going towards the third base side and Matt Chapman eliminated. Most shortstops are worse going that way than towards first, but Semien was unusually bad there. At some point, the A’s figured out they could position Chapman so that he would completely compensate for Semien’s problems there. So Semien had a lot less responsibility than most shortstops out there, and OAA picks up on that much better than UZR/DRS did.
So when I hear that Ron Washington is going to fix Grissom like he fixed Semien, I get really confused. Is Grissom going to have a 25 year old Matt Chapman playing third base to back him up? No, he’s going to have Austin Riley, who is already pretty fringy at 3B. Good luck with that, everyone.
The Braves extend another player for significantly less than he would sign for elsewhere. Even if Arcia is a 1 WAR per season utility guy over this contract, the AAV is pennies on the dollar. And Arcia showed some actual promise last season, so there’s even some upside. $2.5 million a year rarely buys you any upside.
Utility guys don’t get multi-year deals. Teams usually have multiple in-house options for players like that. AAAA infielders are a dime a dozen. Unless you’re thinking Arcia is good enough to be no-questions starter, this was a great deal for him to take.
IKF got $6m this season, on his last trip through arbitration.
If they think he’s a useful backup, this protects them from having to make a choice between overpaying him and losing him.
So Arcia’s age (28) was mentioned, but Shewmake’s (25) and Grissom’s (22) were not. Grissom’s physique and skills will continue to develop. Grissom’s first few games in AAA have been stellar, so we’ll see if he returns to earth once again.
The other key fact not mentioned here is that Ehire Adrianza was kept on the 26 man roster, because he’s out of options and the Braves wanted to keep that depth. EA hasn’t seen the field yet in 2023, but is firmly in the utility role for the month of April.
I originally thought the Braves were going to play EA some in cherry picked matchups to increase his trade value, but that hasn’t materialized in the first 4 games. Tiny sample and April and May will be fascinating to watch.
Braves legend Ehire Adrianza was a key cog of the 2021 World Series winning team.
Remember when Adrianza’s double in the bottom of the 4th inning of Game 6 of the NLCS set up Eddie Rosario’s home run? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
In 2022, Adrianza looked cooked because of injuries. He showed up to spring training camp healthy this year, and the Braves are hoping he can be a utility bat off the bench again.
That double was a pinch hit for Ian Anderson too. Snit rolled the dice there and won.
28 year olds can develop their physique as well.
Yeah, but it’s a lot harder!
More to the point…Arcia is putting up quality batted ball numbers already.
Looks like he made a swing change in 2020 – since then he’s doubled his barrel percentage, improved his launch angle, and increased his Hard Hit% from 29% to 40%.
If he’s really a 90 wRC+ guy now…and he can still play a functional SS…that’s a not-terrible starter.
Not a good one, but one you can live with.
Shewmake probably just a good backup, Grissom maybe an everyday player but of the positionless roaming variety. Arcia, we’ll see. I had given up on him for sure but I guess ATL coaching never did
I’d guess that Grissom will eventually become a bulkier DH on a bad team. The guy can rake but his athletic ability is limited. Arcia is IMO better than league average and is one of those greater than the sum of his parts type of players.
Maybe Arcia will turn into the SS Brewer’s fans were hoping he would. Was highly regarded when he came up but had frustrating fielding lapses and a crummy idea of the strike zone. He has the skills to be an above average SS. Sometimes it just takes time for some guys. I wish him luck. Always seemed like a positive energy guy.
Arcia is a fine backup/utility guy and is getting paid like it for a reason. There’s 7 seasons of data on him – I’m not buying “mid-career breakout” for a career 74 wRC+ guy. Grissom and Shewmake are big question marks.
Am I nuts, or does a trade for Ha-seong Kim make a ton of sense for the Braves and Padres? Since Swanson and Boegarts signed keep expecting to see that announced any day. The Padres have 5 big-league shortstops and need pitching. The Braves have a top-6 rotation and top-1 bullpen and need a long-term shortstop.
HSK is clearly an upgrade over any of the Braves’ current SS options. He’s a better hitter than Arcia/Shewmake and a *way* better defender than Grissom. Even if the Braves want to see how Grissom or Shewmake pans out, HSK is only on contract for 2 more years. The Padres have 4 guys who can play SS signed to long-term deals, and HSK is the odd man out. I guess the teams might not want to help an NL competitor?
How about buying Arcia hitting his physical peak because he’s in the 27-29 year old range?
HSK makes sense, but it’s like that commercial: the Braves just aren’t going to pay a lot for a shortstop right now.
Arica’s “7 seasons of data” consist of 4 seasons where he had a .32 BB/K, a 3% Barrel Rate/87.1 EV, a .117 ISO, and a 68 wRC+, followed by 3 seasons where he’s had a .41 BB/K, a 6% Barrel Rate/89.6 EV, a .158 ISO, and a 93 wRC+.
That second batting line with scratch baserunning and defense adds up to 2-2.5 WAR at SS.