There has been no question that the Atlanta Braves have struggled mightily at the shortstop position this year. Ha-Seong Kim was signed and got hurt in the offseason, and while playing has a batting average of .112 in 36 games. Jorge Mateo was signed as a response to Kim getting hurt, and while a locker room favorite, he hit .240 with a .380 slugging percentage in 34 starts before he was released for the return of Kim.
Jim Jarvis was promoted to hopefully be a spark plug after doing well in AAA Gwinnett but fell to a .207 average and a .297 slugging. Mauricio Dubon has been by far the best performer at the premium position but has only played 42 games there while also being the utility star and covering 66 games in left field, Atlanta's other biggest hole. Jarvis has been sent back down to AAA, and Kim and Dubon are free agents at the end of the year.
So who is going to stake his claim to the future of the Atlanta Braves' premium position? Well, June 17th may be the day that was decided, as that is when Alex Lodise seemingly flipped the switch and began his ascension.
Alex Lodise is putting himself very much in the conversation over the Braves' future at shortstop
The Braves drafted Lodise with the 60th pick in the 2025 MLB Draft after he won the Dick Howser Trophy. He was immediately ranked a top-5 prospect in the system. All of that come with a lot of hype and a ton of pressure to perform. The first 62 games of this year where a struggle for him. In 249 at bats, Lodise had hit to a .242 average and a .334 on base with a .372 slugging and .714 OPS. Lodise only had eight home runs, seven doubles, and a triple. He was only getting an extra base hit in 6% of his at bats and he was striking out at a 31 percent clip. There was a lot of swing and miss and not nearly enough power being produced.
Lodise would also show occasional flashes of his immense power with his ability to hit a ball off the apartment complex in Augusta and the occasional shot down the right-field line, but it was few and far between. Lodise was hitting line drives less than 20% of the time while pulling the ball 40% of the time. It reached the point where social media had started to take notice of the struggles. Social media pushed him in trade rumors. More and more mock trades would have his name in it. Prospects Tate Southisene and John Gil were having incredible years, and Lodise seemed to be falling behind.
LODI LASER TO THE APARTMENT BUILDING!! pic.twitter.com/6WsIQizWGu
— Augusta GreenJackets (@GreenJackets) June 17, 2026
June 17th, Lodise didn't just turn that corner, he blew through it. All year he had been working on adjustments, learning to go the other way while maintaining his power pull side. On that day, he absolutely launched a home run to left-center that went halfway up the apartment building in Augusta. This wasn't going to be just a hot streak. This was going to become the new normal. Lodise has had 249 at-bats and in that time, he has hit to a .305 average, an on base of .379, has slugged an insane .598, and maintained an OPS of .977. He has hit 17 doubles, one triple, and 18 home runs in that time.
Lodise has over doubled his extra base hit percentage from 6% all the way to a 14% rate. He has lowered his strikeout percentage from 31 percent down to 21 percent. Lodise has been promoted twice, to Rome, where he had an astronomical 164 WRC+ and only struck out at a 7% clip, and now has anchored himself as the No. 3 hitter in the Columbus Clingstones lineup with a .320 average and only striking out 20 percent of the time. He isn't just cutting down on the swing and miss and laying off bad pitches. The ball is exploding off of Lodise's bat.
It seems like every time Lodise steps to the plate, the ball is leaving as a line drive. The metrics back that up, as in the 12 games in Columbus, he has hit a line drive 35 percent of the time. This is also the first time Lodise hasn't been a primarily pull hitter, as he is only pulling the ball 25% of the time, while going opposite field 30% and back up the middle 45% of the time. Lodise is going with his pitch, using the whole field, and he is doing it with very loud, very strong contact. His slugging is up 216 points, and his OPS is up 263 points. This isn't a small sample. This has been half his season. Lodise isn't showing any signs of slowing.
Lodise has all the tools as well. He has 50-grade speed and a plus glove, although he has made more errors than is ideal this season. When he has played in the infield with both top prospects Southisene and Gil, Lodise was penciled in at the premium position. He has plenty of range, great reaction time, can make the routine plays, and has the ability to make tough plays look easy. Lodise needs to work on his arm accuracy, but he has plenty of arm strength to maintain the position. He also has a high baseball IQ, which bodes well for his ability to adjust to higher levels of competition.
The Braves have an opening at shortstop, and Lodise has turned that corner. The road to Atlanta is getting shorter and shorter, and he seems to be going faster and faster. Lodise looks like he is almost ready to make that claim. A claim that has the potential to last for a very long time.
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