For all the Atlanta Braves' offseason needs and wants, the elephant in the room is that they currently don't have a shortstop. While the Braves have made significant inroads in accumulating shortstop depth in the minor leagues, those prospects are highly unlikely to be ready by next season. In a world where the Braves are losing both Ha-Seong Kim and Mauricio Dubon to free agency, that is a pretty big problem.
No sane Braves fan will miss Kim, as his tenure with the team was an abject failure. However, a glance at the available shortstop alternatives on the free-agent market does make the prospect of losing Dubon feel pretty painful and consequential. Sure, his bat doesn't inspire fear in the hearts of men, but he is a terrific defender and proved that he could handle the position every day when Kim was hurt at the start of the season. If the Braves lose him, the loss would absolutely be felt.
Fortunately, early signs do bring some optimism that the Braves could bring Dubon back. The fine folks over at MLB Trade Rumors put together their annual free agent rankings and predictions recently, and all of three of their votes over where Dubon would end up went to the Braves.
MLB Trade Rumors thinks Mauricio Dubon will end up back with the Braves, and Atlanta better hope they are right
Now, MLBTR wasn't claiming any sourced information regarding any negotiations or rumors here. Much of their argument for why Dubon and the Braves make sense as a pair came down to fit, need, and what appears to be a lot of affection between the two sides. It isn't hard to connect the dots here, but the staff at MLBTR doesn't really traffic in idle speculation without any substance.
The biggest disappointment here is that Dubon made it to free agency at all. Ideally, the Braves would have been able to lock in Dubon while they had an exclusive negotiating window with him before free agency opened up. That said, keeping a guy from hitting the open market when they were already so close was never going to be easy, if for no other reason, being that Dubon can try to get Atlanta to up their offer a bit once he can show interest from other teams.
Does this mean that Dubon is a lock to re-sign with the Braves? Absolutely not. All it takes is for Dubon to find an offer that is significantly richer than Atlanta is comfortable matching, or for the Braves to identify another option via trade or even an internal prospect option that they would prefer. However, for the moment, there is no reason to panic about Dubon's future with the Braves beyond the usual hand-wringing before a deal is done.
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