“What are the Braves doing at shortstop?” Kind of the recently-eternal question, after the Swanson swan song, Orlando Arcia’s one decent season, and then The Issues since. Seriously, from 2024-2026, the Braves are not only dead last in shortstop fWAR (1.3 in 1673 PAs), but they’re so far down that even the 29th-place team, the Rockies (always the Rockies) has more than double the Braves’ shortstop production (2.7). While Braves’ shortstops have been good defensively (seventh in defensive value in that span, thanks Nick Allen!), they haven’t hit at all, with a 64 wRC+ putting them in their own sad tier, well below the Guardians, Rockies, and Rays, whose shortstop wRC+s over the past three seasons are hanging out in the low-to-mid 70s.
Jim Jarvis, de facto starting shortstop against right-handers for a fair while now, is the latest contributor to this value-bleed, and is now going away.
Jarvis was a fun story, and presented as a fun guy. Acquired as a non-return for Rafael Montero last year, he fared well in Atlanta’s minor league system. He then got a decent run in Atlanta in July, and put together a 111 wRC+. It wasn’t at all supported by his inputs, but even those inputs were decent (.336 wOBA, .308 xwOBA).
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But then the calendar turned to August, and Jarvis languished. In 42 August PAs, he has a -36 wRC+ (yes that’s a negative sign) and a .208 xwOBA. Sure, he’s underhitting his xwOBA by nearly .100, but a .208 xwOBA is… really bad. Put this together with shortstop defense that was above-average but not awesome thanks to some goofs on simple plays, and you have Jim Jarvis, 124 major league PAs, a 56 wRC+, and -0.1 fWAR.
So, the Braves will now probably give Mauricio Dubon a longer run at shortstop. There’s an outside chance that Ha-Seong Kim finally gets some playing time, but I guess that depends on the extent to which the Braves care that their recent slump has put a sizable dent in their division odds. If they do, then nah, Kim’s proposition is too risky. If they don’t, well, that’ll be kind of funny for all sorts of reasons. For whatever it’s worth, Dubon is also running up on like eight weeks with a combined xwOBA under .300, but it’s in the .280ish, guy-having-a-bad-time range, rather than the Jarvis desolation of approaching .200.
Brewer Hicklen returns to the major league roster after a continued assault on International League pitching. The journeyman outfielder put up a 130 wRC+ at Triple-A Gwinnett before the Braves called him up shortly before the All-Star Break. He hit incredibly well in 23 PAs with a lot of good fortune baked in (.457 wOBA / 192 WRC+, .354 xwOBA), but ended up being sent down as the Braves needed active roster room. (Okay, they didn’t “need” active roster room. They chose to make room for others at Hicklen’s expense.) Since he was optioned, Hicklen has put up a 143 wRC+ at Triple-A. With Lane Thomas in the fold, Hicklen probably won’t start, but… actually I’m not sure exactly how he’s going to get PAs unless an outfielder needs a breather, but he can at least hang out in the dugout now.
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