Atlanta Braves have three center fielders; maybe one too many?

With teams in need of outfield help – especially in Center – perhaps the Atlanta Braves need to start Cristian Pache‘s career?

The expectation seem to be that the Atlanta Braves would like to get Cristian Pache one more year of ‘seasoning’ in triple-A before subjecting him to the rigors of major league hitting.

That might work out well for the team… or it might be better to try a different course of action.

I won’t sit here and pretend that the Braves have a major trade chip in hand in the person of Ender Inciarte.  At the same time, there is a definite need around the league for quality defensive help in CF and the Braves do have that available in spades.

Ronlad Acuna isn’t really a CF in the long run, yet he handled the position reasonably well in the absence of Inciarte.  But now a viable third option is available.

Pache is now on the 40-man roster.  Before this season, putting him into the mix would have  complicated matters concerning both the Braves’ bullpen usage and for his service time control.

For this coming season, there’s still service time considerations to think about, but if Inciarte could help bring back a major league player that would help the 2020 team, then it’s time to have that discussion.

It’s a Hit?

It is certainly plausible that Inciarte could jump out of the gate hitting like he did in 2016 and ’17.

In those seasons, he was at .291 and .304 while playing nearly 290 games with an OPS of .350.

Since then, injuries have happened, but so has a performance downturn, albeit with some streaky bits mixed in:

• 2018:  .265, with .325 OBP and a .705 OPS
• 2019:  .231, with .343 OBP and a .740 OPS

Those are decent enough numbers, but there’s more we can say about them:  Inciarte’s value comes from his glove.  He’s no longer hitting leadoff – which is good, since his OBP is not nearly at the ‘elite’ level you’d need for a lead-off hitter.

But what of Pache’s platework?

In his progress through the minor leagues, Pache has hit fairly consistently hit in the .270-.285 range with numbers that played well in early AAA work.

Like Inciarte, though, Pache’s primary gifts are those away from the plate… which reasonably raises this question:  how ‘ready’ does he need to be?  More to the point, how well does Pache really need to hit to be at least roughly Ender’s equal at the plate?

There’s little doubt that Pache’s glove and non-hitting skills are ready for the majors.  Given that – and a roughly equivalent bat – it’s really time for the Braves to leverage this surplus in fielding and to use Inciarte as part of a trade – whether that be to assist with catching, pitching… or whatever.

All has been fairly quiet regarding the outfielders currently on the roster since the end of the 2019 season.  But not completely.

The Braves are bringing back Nick Markakis, Adam Duvall, and – of course – Acuna.  Inciarte is the obvious incumbent for center, but with noises being made about possible outside outfielder help, it does appear that out-of-the-box options are being considered.

In Pache, at least, you’ll have elite-level defense and cheap control for years… that hardly a bad combination.

It’s hard to justify trading away a Gold Glove winner… but Atlanta is in a unique position:  they’d simply be able to bring in the next one.

The Winter Meetings are just over 2 weeks away.  Hopefully we start to get some answers to these questions.