Vaughn Grissom’s 2023 Braves debut reaffirms why he started year at Triple-A

The Atlanta Braves got the full Vaughn Grissom experience on Friday night in his season debut.

While the big bats did the heavily lifting in the Atlanta Braves‘ 10-3 blowout victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night, all eyes were on shortstop Vaughn Grissom making his season debut with the team.

It was only a matter of time before he would return to the big leagues. Many people thought the starting shortstop role was his job to lose in Spring Training. He hit the cover off the baseball down in Florida, and it seemed as though his glove was good enough to beat out Orlando Arcia and Braden Shewmake. However, infield coach Ron Washington made the right call to option Grissom.

Arcia had been playing so well in the first two weeks of the season before suffering a microfracture in his left wrist. It may be his non-throwing hand, but it is also the bottom hand on his bat. Fortunately, the Braves made the easy choice to recall Grissom up from Triple-A Gwinnett ahead of the three-game road series at Kansas City. His bat did the talking, but so did his glove…

Grissom went 1-for-4 at the plate with an RBI, but made his first error of the year in his season debut in a shaky defensive performance throughout. He may have made a few big plays as the game progressed, but Washington was reaffirmed in his decision to have Grissom start the 2023 campaign in the minors. Thankfully, the Royals are rebuilding and the Braves’ bats were booming.

Let’s hope that these were only first-game-back jitters, and not a sign of bigger issues to come.

Atlanta Braves fans got the entire Vaughn Grissom experience on Friday night

Part of what makes this team so fun to watch, cover and root for is how deep this roster really is. General manager Alex Anthopoulos is about as good as anyone in the business of building a championship-caliber baseball team. Most teams don’t have three major-league level shortstops in their organization. The Braves have three in Arcia, Grissom and Shewmake. It’s a good problem.

Even if Grissom’s glove never eclipses his bat, so what? Atlanta has the depth all over the diamond to offset any potential issues there. Of course, he needs to constantly work at it to help elevate his game and his team’s play. Look no further than the great work Austin Riley has done at third base defensively over the last three seasons. He will make tremendous plays over there on the regular.

However, there will come a time when the Braves’ bats cool off and runs will be at a premium. I am not saying Grissom has to be transcendent in the field, but he cannot be a liability at what has historically been a defense-first position. We don’t need him to be an ace with the glove like Dansby Swanson was recently, or regularly display some of that Orlando Magic like Arcia does.

Overall, pitching and injuries have been the two issues that have popped up with the Braves in their first three weeks of the season. Surely, once key pieces get healthier, we will get a better feel for what this team truly is capable of. We know it can outslug anyone and we know it can run with the best of them. However, Atlanta can’t afford to let teams back in games with careless defense.

I anticipate Grissom will get better with more big-league reps at short, but Washington was right.