Braves News: Braves recall Vaughn Grissom, officially place Orlando Arcia on the IL
By Eric Cole
The Atlanta Braves got some rough news yesterday when it was discovered that Orlando Arcia had a microfracture in his wrist after getting hit by a pitch against the Reds. However, they are also one of the few teams that actually has the kind of depth at shortstop to absorb that sort of loss and today, they made things official as they recalled Vaughn Grissom to the big leagues and placed Arcia on the injured list.
The #Braves today recalled INF Vaughn Grissom to Atlanta and placed INF Orlando Arcia on the 10-day injured list with a fractured left wrist.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) April 14, 2023
Again, we all assumed that this was going to happen when Arcia's injury was announced. While we don't know exactly how long Arcia will be out, it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to miss just a handful of games. Moreover, Grissom being held out of Gwinnett's lineup last night along with all of the reporting saying that Grissom was likely coming up made this move pretty straightforward and predictable.
What does this mean for the Braves' shortstop position going forward?
What happens at shortstop for the Braves in the medium term likely depends a lot on Vaughn Grissom. Arcia was off to a really nice start on both sides of the ball for the Braves this season which certainly vindicated their decision to send Grissom back down to the minors to start the season.
To Grissom's credit, he has definitely risen to the challenge down at Triple-A Gwinnett as he has posted a 1.043 OPS through 10 games in the minor leagues. He is clearly still learning how to play shortstop well, but he has been far from a disaster at short and seems to be in a good place defensively.
If Arcia heals up quickly and/or Grissom underperforms in the big leagues, it does seem probable that Arcia takes the reins of the shortstop position back once he is deemed healthy again. However, if Grissom shows out at the plate and also shows that he can at least be reasonable defensively, he could stick with Arcia returning to his role as a high end utility bench guy which could be awfully useful as the Braves try to build in days off for guys over the course of a long season.