Say what? Braves will option both Shewmake and Grissom to Triple-A to begin season, per report (Updated: Nick Anderson optioned too)

Mar 20, 2023 - 9:50 PM

Since 2018, the Braves have largely operated in a fashion that I generally understood (reliever stuff aside), even if I didn’t always agree. If the below from beat reporter Mark Bowman is true, however, then I have no idea what’s going on:

To be clear, Vaugn Grissom has pretty good projections on the back of an overall-successful short stint in the majors last year, and his body of work in the minors at a young age. The defensive concerns are real, but the projections don’t ignore those considerations, and are still fine.

Braden Shewmake probably shouldn’t have been a realistic option to win the starting shortstop job out of Spring Training, given his unimpressive minor league track record and not-worth-starting projections. Still, there was some smoke wafting around over the past few days that Shewmake had inserted himself as a third candidate in the Braves’ spring shortstop competition. Moreover, he was only the third candidate because any discussion about Orlando Arcia winning the gig had largely evaporated with the latter’s nondescript performance this spring.

But now, here we are. Have Arcia and Ehire Adrianza somehow sewn up the shortstop and utility infielder job? Is a trade coming? Maybe the simplest explanation is that this isn’t a credible report, but it’s Mark Bowman, who doesn’t generally report rumor as fact. So... I don’t know. This isn’t really the “interesting” prospective roster move I was hoping to see. As I was typing this, the other beat hombre confirmed this:

So there you go. I don’t really understand it any more than I did when I started writing this post, but here we are. Hopefully this doesn’t go poorly for the Braves, but honestly, the roster is so stacked that this isn’t a big deal — just a confusing one.

Stay tuned for any more developments as Spring Training winds down. Maybe there will be a trade after all...

UPDATE: Looks like Nick Anderson is going to Gwinnett as well:

Anderson being sent down is also surprising, albeit considerably less so. The righty reliever had shown good stuff in his outings. But, the Braves have gone on record as emphasizing roster flexibility early in the season, and Anderson has options, while some of their other reliever candidates do not. I imagine he won’t be at Gwinnett for long unless he gets hurt or really falters.

The roster picture is getting a little clearer now for Opening Day, but also a lot weirder.