The Atlanta Braves were faced with a tough decision regarding their shortstop position following the 2022 season. Dansby Swanson who had been the Braves starting shortstop for the past 6 seasons was a free agent for the first time in his career. He was a part of a stacked free agent shortstop class that included the likes of Trea Turner, Carlos Correa, and Xander Bogaerts. With many options on the table for the Braves, they reportedly offered Dansby Swanson a 6 year contract worth 100 million dollars, and never budged from the offer despite Swanson initiating multiple conversations with Atlanta executives. This resulted in Dansby signing a 7 year, 177 million dollar deal with the Chicago Cubs, and there was one man who was responsible for the Braves not going that high on an offer, Orlando Arcia.
Orlando Arcia was signed by the Brewers as an international free agent in 2010 at the age of sixteen. By 2016 he was ranked as the 6th best prospect in baseball according to MLB.com, and he would get the call up to the Brewers major league squad later that year in August. It wasn’t a smooth transition for Arcia, who would post a .219/.273/.358 slash line during his rookie season. His second year in the league was much better, he would play in 153 games and post a 90 OPS+, but his production was nowhere close to what is expected of a top prospect. Unfortunately it would remain that way throughout Arcia’s time with the Brewers, across his 5 full seasons with Milwaukee he was one of only two players in the MLB to have at least 1500 PA’s while posting an OBP below .300 and an OPS+ below 75, the other being Alcides Escobar. When the Braves traded for him in 2021, they made an adjustment in his approach that would turn him from one of the worst hitters in the league to a much closer representation of the top prospect he was supposed to be.
The Braves turned Arcia into a more patient hitter, in his first full season with the club his swing% dropped to a career low of 44.7%. His first pitch swing% was also a career low at 23.1%, this adjustment was also prevalent on pitches in the strike zone, seen by his career low 63.8 Z-Swing%. This change in his approach led to career highs in his Barrel% and Hard Hit%, 7.5% and 42.5% respectively, as well as a career best mark in soft contact% at 11.9%. Seeing more pitches per plate appearance than ever, Arcia also raised his launch angle to a career high 11.7 degrees, all of this led him to posting his best offensive season yet and his first above league average. In fact he was one of only five middle infielders with an average exit velocity above 90 MPH and a strikeout rate below 25%, a list that Dansby Swanson was not on. Arcia is not a one sided player either, as a prospect his fielding graded out as a 65 on the 20-80 scale. He has accumulated a 28.4 fangraphs defensive value as well as 11 DRS/10 OAA at the shortstop position throughout his career.
Having changed Orlando Arcia’s approach making him a much more patient hitter and seeing the results that it had, it was most likely much easier on the Braves to let Dansby Swanson walk in free agency knowing they had a solid option still on the roster.