Among the numerous storylines surrounding the Braves leading into the All-Star break, there isn’t one more complex than what to do at shortstop.
For going on three months, Orlando Arcia has been the worst qualified player in all of baseball — an offensive zero that has been below average defensively. An excerpt from a piece I did on him earlier:
 In the final two months of the 2023 campaign, Orlando Arcia hit .191 in 47 games. To this point this season, he’s hitting just .206. Over his last 505 plate appearances dating back to August 11th of last year, Arcia is hitting just .201 with a 52 wRC+ (48% below league average).
Let me be clear, Orlando Arcia would have to be Andrelton Simmons with the glove to make up for that kind of offense. He’s not even close to that, and frankly, he’s been a below average defensive shortstop for a large part of the season. Combine that with him being an offensive zero, and over his last 70 games, Orlando Arcia has been the WORST player in baseball for going on three months.
However bad you think Orlando Arcia has been to this point in the season, he’s actually somehow been worse. Yet, the Braves haven’t been eager to replace him with their budding star on the farm in Nacho Alvarez.
Soon to become a consensus top 100 prospect in baseball, Alvarez has hit the ground running since his promotion to AAA, hitting .323 with six homers and a .963 OPS over 23 games. It’s a tiny sample size, but he has shown a knack for being able to get on base at a high rate his entire minor-league career. At the very least, it’s reasonable to expect him to be better offensively than Orlando Arcia has been this season.
But it isn’t that easy. While Arcia has been below average defensively recently, he’s still regarded as an above average defensive player, which cannot be understated at a position as critical as shortstop, especially when Ozzie Albies is playing dreadful defense at second base. The Braves don’t want a disaster-class defensively up the middle behind their pitching staff, and as Vaughn Grissom proved a year ago, everyone isn’t cut out to be a shortstop at the major-league level.
The situation this year with Nacho Alvarez is very similar to the one with Vaughn Grissom a couple of years ago. The Braves thrust Grissom into the shortstop role too early, he lost his confidence and a bunch of trade value on top of that. It all worked out in the end because Grissom was moved for Chris Sale, who is pitching like a Cy Young for the Braves, but the Braves clearly aren’t eager to repeat history with Alvarez.
That’s most likely why Alex Anthopoulos hasn’t pulled the plug on Orlando Arcia yet. Right now, Alvarez’s trade value is as high as it has ever been. If he comes up and can’t hold up defensively at shortstop, that trade value will diminish severely. It would also leave the Braves with their hands tied. Alvarez wouldn’t have a place to play in Atlanta, and the entire baseball world would know it.
It’s probably best for the Braves to keep Alvarez in Gwinnett for as long as possible, but if the Braves don’t add a shortstop before the trade deadline, they may not have a choice but to give him a chance
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Photo: Larry Radloff/Icon Sportswire
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