Braves Shortstop Honey Holes
I have maintained for going on two seasons that the Braves have carried a major weakness at the shortstop position. That rhetoric was somewhat quelled by the greatest season of Orlando Arcia’s career, a benchmark that I would bet the farm against anyone that he will never match or eclipse that season again; I don’t even think he will ever get close, to be honest. The best case scenario for the roster as a whole would be for Nacho Alvarez Jr. to be ready to step into that role, it is highly unlikely that 2025 is when that takes place. So, the Braves are going to have to fill that hole with a player currently outside the organization.
Free agency is generally the easiest place to bring in improvements, but surveying this year’s shortstop class (it won’t take long) will show you that t consists of Willy Adames (the dream signing, but Anthopoulos would never) and a bunch of guys who would not even ride the bench for the Braves. With free agency out the window and Nacho probably not being ready, that leaves the Braves solely in the trade market for a shortstop. And look, it is also a very real possibility the Braves don’t bring in anyone as the new starter and they ride with Orlando; it is painfully obvious that defense is their main priority at the infield’s premier position.
Who is realistically available for trade?
To find trade candidates you need to look for guys on two types of teams: teams that do not want to pay their salary moving forward and teams that can’t pay their salary moving forward. To find guys available to the Braves in the trade market, you can eliminate the teams in the latter half of that search criteria. If a player has a contract that their current team just cannot pay, the Braves are a team that will not pay that contract.