The Braves have reinstated infielder Orlando Arcia from the 10-day injured list, per a team announcement. In a corresponding move, the club optioned shortstop Vaughn Grissom to Triple-A. Arcia had been out with a microfracture in his left wrist since mid-April.
The move comes as something of a surprise, as Arcia will return to the club without a rehab assignment after reportedly beginning to take dry swings just a few days ago. Arcia opened the season as the club’s regular shortstop prior to his injury and got off to a hot start with a .333/.400/.511 slash line with a 149 wRC+ in 13 games. That hot start earned him a contract extension that will keep the 28-year-old under team control through the 2026 season.
Given his success at the plate this season prior to his injury, it seems reasonable to expect Arcia to once again get the lion’s share of playing time at shortstop. Prospect Braden Shewmake was promoted recently and received a start at shortstop, but with Arcia back on the roster seems likely to settle into an infield utility role behind Arcia, second baseman Ozzie Albies and third baseman Austin Riley. The 25-year-old Shewmake has yet to record his first hit in the major leagues, but saw a power surge early this season in the minor leagues, as his five home runs in just 110 plate appearances nearly matches the seven he hit last year in 307 plate appearances. Still, his overall Triple-A slash line of .255/.307/.415 casts him as a glove-first option in the big leagues who doesn’t figure to hit much.
With Arcia returned and Shewmake taking up a utility role in the infield, the 22-year-old Grissom is left heading to Triple-A as the odd man out. Grissom made his major league debut last season, filling in for Albies at second base, and impressed in 41 games with a slash line of .291/.353/.440 that was good for a wRC+ of 121. Though his 21.8% strikeout rate and high .350 BABIP left room for concern, the biggest question mark surrounding Grissom was his defense, which he spent the offseason trying to improve with infield coach Ron Washington.
Unfortunately for both Grissom and the Braves, the young shortstop’s start to the season has been something of a disaster. Grissom has taken a significant step back at the plate, with a slash line of just .277/.314/.308 in 70 plate appearances that leaves him 29% below league average by measure of wRC+. Meanwhile, his defense has been a major concern, with six errors in 18 starts at shortstop and defensive metrics that give him concerning ratings across the board. In particular, Grissom’s -4 Outs Above Average leave him in just the third percentile among MLB fielders and cast him the third worst defensive shortstop in the majors, ahead of only Enrique Hernandez of the Red Sox and CJ Abrams of the Nationals. Given Grissom’s pronounced struggles, it seems reasonable to expect him to work on things at the Triple-A level for the foreseeable future, unless another injury around the infield forces the club’s hand.
Good. Grissom looked lost on defense and offense.
.277 Batting average is bad for a 22 year old? He would be around top 3 out of all rookies for BA. Give this guy a chance, let him full time DH. I think hes a great hitter. BA isnt everything but it means something
He’s slugging .302 with only two extra base hits in 70 PAs. This is a good move. Let him get himself right in the minors.
There isn’t any room for him especially if he isn’t performing. He needs to be in AAA. He needs more time in the oven.
I don’t think you want him at DH only because his defense is what needs the work. The bat plays at SS if the glove catches up, but he needs the defensive reps to see if that happens.
Probably because batting average isn’t everything. And if he’s not walking much or getting much power on the hits he manages, as has been the case in those games, that’s not exactly that valuable.
You just want him playing full-time because you’re a Mets fan.
LFGMets is not a Mets fan.
Oops. My bad.
@Dr Van Nostrand multi user names
But you are, and you are also a troll.
He was striking out way too much and have issues there to be a DH; his whole game was having issues needs to go down and work on it all
He’ll be back, let him work on his fielding and hitting, Grissom will be a MLB player within a year or two and he’ll be a good hitter.
In 1990 that batting average would have kept him up, but it’s 2023 and we have a better picture of the overall value he is (or isn’t) bringing to the table
Hitting, Grissom hasn’t been completely terrible… what’s odd is he’s pretty much only hitting singles when he gets a hit. More recently he’s really looked lost though. You can tell the struggle is real. Defense was better than I person expected but still… not good. I’m in the camp that his glove isn’t going to improve enough to keep him at short. He’s athletic enough to move to the outfield and really focus on being consistent with the bat. Hope that’s what they do in the minors, but don’t think they will..
Braves really haven’t found anyone to replace Swanson yet have they
Arcia was doing very well but got hurt.
Let’s hope Arcia can maintain pre injury performance, then we are ok
Well, it’s only been a month, and that bridge replacement (Arcia) was doing well until an injury. A better situation than already having buyers remorse a month into a 7-8 year deal, which seems to be the case with most of the FA deals from last off-season thus far.
Well if the Orioles hadn’t been playing the Braves this week, I probably would not have taken notice as much
Still though, I would not have busted up the Albies Swanso DP combo
Starting to wonder how good of a read the Braves beat reporters have on the team! On Thursday they said Arcia was 2 weeks away.
See it as more of evidence to how tight-lipped the FO is.
The Braves FO’s INFOSEC is rivaled only by the CIA.
Gris will be a good player once he finds a team that will settle him in at SS. He is putting pressure on himself knowing the Braves are one move away from replacing him full time. As much as I think he will be a very solid player, the Braves need to trade him,
As an Os fan, i’d say package Soroka and you can have Joey Ortiz. Os would send Grissom to AA. Ortiz is hitting over.350 with pop and is an MLB Gold Glove at both middle infield positions. He’s exactly what the Braves need and Grissom belongs in AA.
Grissom doesn’t have the range and ability to be a full time major league short stop
He has a cool name, though
they said the same thing about Swanson
That is 100% false. Nobody ever questioned Swanson’s range or ability to be a big league shortstop. Swanson got in trouble early on trying to make the spectacular play when it wasn’t called for but he has always had range and looked like a big league shortstop. Grissom looked awkward at 2nd last year and you held your breath every time a ball was hit to him and it’s even worse at short. He does not belong on an MLB infield any time soon and especially not on a contender. And his bat has not been good since his initial 3 week hot streak last year and looked completely overmatched in the playoffs. You’d be lucky to get a bucket of balls for him in a trade currently, his value couldn’t be any lower.
Braves keep rolling on while the Mets are sinking to the bottom lol
At least we Mets fans can celebrate ‘Bartolo Colon’s Home Run Off James Shields In San Diego Seven Years Ago Today’…Day
Yeah because the Met’s GM is the worst in baseball. 400 million dollar payroll and employ the likes of Drew Smith, Stephen Nogosek, Vogelfat, and Luis Guillorme. With Bryce Harper back, the Mets are in prime position to finish in 4th place. The season can be saved if they do one thing, fire InEppler
It’s Sunday, man – smoke a bowl and relax. You can get back to repeating the same nonsense on every thread on Monday.
Dr.,
You’re right it’s a beautiful Sunday morning in the Big Apple too important to enjoy doing outdoor things than to waste it on the Mets.
Scalped tickets are cheaper.
So souix us!!
Oooooo! I want a tomahawk flashlight. Gonna find one online now and buy it!
@metfan4ever people like you are the worst type of met fans. The team could all be batting .100 and the pitchers with ERA’s of 8 and you would still defend them. Critisizing your own team is good, it shows how they can improve. If your happy with a sub .500 team with a 400 milliom dollar payroll, then go ahead and defend the team. The fact of the matter is that they flat out wasted 400 million dollars. For example, I could have 9 Bryce Harpers at 30 million per year in my lineup and STILL have 130 million dollars left over for other moves. This is just an example but as you can see, the Mets use Vogelbach, Guillorme, and Escobar in this lineup. 30 million should get you a superstar player
LFGMets and metfan4ever in steel caged death match. Who says no?
“Critisizing your own team is good, it shows how they can improve.— HOW does it show improvement. HOW. Do you think the GM/Manager is looking for what YOU THINK. And who said I’m happy with it–YOU ARE THE WORST TYPE OF PERSON IN THE WORLD because think you know everything–GO AWAY TROLL. — What makes you think Harper would come to the Mets and he doesn’t have a ring. he left before Washington won–go away lil girl
And you can’t get MAD BECAUSE “”Critisizing ” IS GOOD AS YOU POSTED-TROLL
Arcia was maddening to watch when was with the Brewers. Streaks of brilliance followed by long stretches of boneheaded incompetence. He could maintain success with less pressure and more lineup protection, but I still think the Braves are going to regret not locking up Swanson. Of course, they’re still likely to get multiple championships. But maybe 3 rings instead of 4.
@abc123baseball
Dansby walked, he was offered a contract, it’s his choice and the Braves have no regret. Arcia was doing fine up until he was hit. He’ll take time to get back into things.
Don’t know if he’ll ever be a big league SS. Given their inconsistencies in LF, I wouldn’t be opposed to getting him reps in outfield in AAA.
Grissom has to show a bigger bat to play the outfield. His bat isn’t good enough right now
The hot start didn’t “earn Arcia an extension” as he was extended on Opening Day. They extended him because it was a no brainier because he is making relatively nothing per year.
Also it is not simply Arcia’s hitting that is the main reason he is going to be at short but the fact that he was playing good defense (the hitting certainly helped). Errors don’t tell the whole story obviously but Grissom made 6 errors in 19 games. He noticeably has little range also
Grissom has no range, his feeds to second base are slow, and he’s not efficient catching the ball and throwing to first. I think his bat still has promise, but he’s just not a shortstop.
He took steps backwards all around in defense and offense. With Atlanta only having very little future openings in the majors not sure if Grissom fits Atlanta future plans. He doesn’t have the power to a left fielder
Agree on all of these takes. Not to mention if they gave errors on double plays I think he would have two more, though one should not have been allowed due to the base-runner sliding about eight feet to the outfield side of the bag.
He was better in spring, so maybe he was just stressing.
Play like that won Jeter gold gloves. Guess he’s playing in the wrong city.
FWIW, Arcia’s hot start to the season didn’t earn him the contract. He signed the contract before the season started.
He needs to go spend the rest of the season learning left field. We already have Arcia for the next few years as our SS. After that hopefully Shewmake can put some bat to ball together. We need a LF smasher of the future and traded JHM away. Grissom is not the Braves SS of the future.
I wouldn’t say Arcia is gonna be the SS for sure after this year. Even if he is good he could always shift to utility if they trade for or sign someone. Good call on Malloy tho. Could be a bad trade. We’ll see. Jimenez is solid. I would say if you are gonna have a position to fill in free agency or trade, LF is a good one. At the very least there are always Pillars/Rosarios to give you a league average season for fairly cheap.
That’s why I say send Grissom to AAA to learn LF. He for sure is not the future SS. You don’t get faster the older you get. He has the energy and shouldn’t be held in AAA to be the next SS. Switch positions and come up to the bigs. If Arcia plays like he has through the all star break will play at minimum this full year at the position and would have to be beat out next year by a long shot. If Arcia doesn’t produce they will trade Grissom and Soroka for a decent SS.
Grissom is only 22, and he’s only played in 10 games in AAA. In the old days, he’d have played two more years in the minors and come up when he’s 24 or 25. He’s still got time to round out his game, whether it’s at SS or another position. I wonder how he’d profile at CF?
It’s funny how advanced metrics have changed the industry’s view of what’s a good and bad offensive performance. Years ago, a .277 BA for a shortstop especially would have been pretty good. Now we have guys hitting .220 with RC+ well over 100.
Despite taking Grissom to a “Ron Washington 7 week SS retreat”, and a PR stunt about Grissom “being” the next in line after the Swanson departure, the braintrust chose to sign Arcia, that right there says tons. Sometimes things just don’t work, look how silly people look now as papi Ozuna has gotten some of his groove back… I mean, Santander looks like fix in Baltimore and he now has 6 homers while Ozuna in less games has the same amount, that’s why the braves leadership resisted on bitting the bullet and did not release him, they saw exactly what he showed them in spring training with a .300+ average and pop.
Regarding Grissom, I think he does need to change positions, the range and throw is underwhelming to say the least. Good thing he keeps positive, but MLB is not a babysitting thing, that’s how desperate the situation is at the SS position with the braves as they prefered to get Arcia up with no triple A time to curb his injury, Arcia, if return to his old self before the injury will go down as a master stroke of genius and it’ll cost only 7 million dollars for the next 2 years, brilliant. Go Braves!!!
I don’t buy the pr stunt thing you said. Nobody even said anything to prop up Grissom. In fact they said it wasn’t even his job yet. They just didn’t wanna overpay for Swanson. Arcia would’ve been signed to that cheap deal even if he was a backup because it’s ridiculously cheap. Ozuna playing well for 5 days doesn’t make up for a months worth of atrocious hitting and who knows what he will do going forward. He can’t play the outfield worth a lick so he’s not gonna play everyday with D’arnaud coming back and Pillar and Rosario both hitting well lately. Comparing Santander to Ozuna is quite ludaris. Santander is not hitting 150 with a sub 300 on base and inability to ever play defense.
Should say they never said it was his job, not “yet”. Just because he trained with Ron Washington didn’t mean they were acting like he was gonna be a great defender. It actually meant he wasn’t good enough so he needed help. It’s all how fans read into things.
Ozuna is hitting close to .500 since his “breakthrough” and Rosario still hitting 50 points above his weight. Yes, Darnaud will comeback but still, the same is true, left field IS a platoon thingy and yes someone will get the load of it, but I doubt it’ll be Pillar. Ozuna needs to be doing what he did in Florida and many will have egg on their faces. Too many left fielders? Sure, I actually like Hilliard better than Rosario and Ozuna, but is the managers pick and EVEN with a righthander there the last week Snitker has gone with papi. Now, most of us (including me), would’ve cut him before the marlins series, thanks to the braves braintrust that didn’t happen and now he has 6 dingers. Mic drop.
Idk what you are talking about. Rosario is playing everyday. He had an off day because he played both games of the doubleheader. You are talking about a five game span. Over the last two weeks both Pillar and Rosario are hitting great. Pillar and Rosario aren’t that much worse than Ozuna in their careers. He is overrated. He always was. His career OPS is 780. Rosario’s is 766. A huge chunk of Ozunas WAR is from a year and a half of fine work but usually he is so-so. More recently horrible. At least Rosario and Pillar can play defense nearly league average in left. You are talking about Rosario hitting close to his weight well Ozuna is hitting 160.