Vaughn Grissom
Yet again, Vaughn Grissom has been the subject of a weirdly aggressive PR campaign this offseason. Last offseason, there was a ton of talk about how much work Vaughn did during the offseason to improve defensively and it seemed like he was the favorite to win the starting shortstop spot after Dansby Swanson left. The end result? Orlando Arcia surprising won the job out of spring training and Grissom played the vast majority of the 2023 season at Triple-A where he dominated at the plate.
Going into 2024, the Braves very clearly like Vaughn's bat or, at the very least, they want the rest of the league to think so. It wasn't long ago at all that we saw multiple articles from Braves beat writers beating the drum of putting Grissom in left field to free money up to go after a high end starting pitcher despite the fact that Vaughn has no experience in the outfield.
With the Braves coming out of nowhere to trade for Kelenic, a former top prospect in baseball with an All-Star ceiling, that illusion has been shattered. Atlanta didn't take on the money needed to snag Kelenic to have him to share playing time with a guy that has never played left in the big leagues before. Not only does that not make sense to do to Kelenic, but having Vaughn on the big league roster as a part-time at best player who only hits against lefties hurts his value as well.
Right now, Vaughn is a player without a position to play on the Braves. Having too much talent in the organization is not an actual problem, but sending Grissom to repeat at Triple-A again also seems wasteful. The best guess is that the Braves will try to use Vaughn as the centerpiece of a trade to get a starting pitcher and let the chips fall where they may when it comes to Kelenic's platoon splits.