Why haven’t the Braves given Nacho Alvarez a chance yet? Insider reveals crucial details as to why the…

Alvarez, soon to be a consensus top 100 prospect in baseball, has hit the ground running since his promotion to AAA, hitting.323 with six home runs and a.963 OPS over 23 games. It’s a small sample size, but he has shown a knack for getting on base at a high rate his entire minor-league career. At the very least, it’s reasonable to expect him to be better offensively than Orlando Arcia has been this season.

But it isn’t so simple. While Arcia has recently been below average defensively, he is still considered an above-average defensive player, which cannot be overstated at a position as vital as shortstop, especially while Ozzie Albies is playing terrible defense at second. The Braves don’t want a disaster-class defense up the middle behind their pitching staff, and as Vaughn Grissom shown a year ago, not everyone is cut out to play shortstop in the majors. This year’s circumstance with Nacho Alvarez is extremely similar to what happened with Vaughn Grissom a few years ago.

The Braves pushed Grissom into the shortstop position too soon, and he lost confidence and a lot of trade value as a result. It all worked out in the end because Grissom was traded for Chris Sale, who is pitching like a Cy Young for the Braves, but the Braves clearly aren’t eager to repeat history with Alvarez, which is most likely why Alex Anthopoulos hasn’t pulled the plug on Orlando Arcia yet. Right now, Alvarez’s trade value is as high as it has ever been. If he comes