How Does it End-er? What do Braves do with Inciarte?

Atlanta Braves

Demote Austin Riley?

Yuck.  The Braves third baseman of the future came out of the gate white-hot for his MLB career, putting together an impressive .292/.348/.608 triple slash through his first 33 games in the show.

Since then, however, he has struggled, hitting a staggeringly bad .183/.244/.408, and piling up strikeouts at a 38.4% clip during that stretch.  He has been fine in the field, but it’s clear that the book is out on Riley, and that could warrant some time in AAA to see if he can learn to control his woes against the breaking ball and make a stronger impact down the stretch for the Braves.

How About a Reliever?

I mean, you definitely could.  The Braves pen has been solid lately so you may not want to mess with success too much. However, you’ve got players like Huascar Ynoa and Chad Sobotka that still have the flexibility to move back and forth between Atlanta and Gwinnett.

Keep in mind that Kevin Gausman has been doing fine on his rehab assignment (3 ER over 11 IP in High-A and Double-A so far), so moving too many arms around may not be the most beneficial move in the short term, but it’s certainly the least painful.

Atlanta Braves

Trade or Move From the Bench:

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Matt Joyce has proven to be a great pinch hitter for the Braves, but doesn’t provide much else off the bench, as opposed to someone like Charlie Culberson or Johan Camargo, who can play multiple positions in the field, and fairly well at that.  Factor in Adam Duvall‘s resurgence at AAA and Joyce is looking more and more expendable.

That being said, though, Johan would make a very interesting trade piece, given his versatility in the field, and his upside at the plate (a 115 OPS+ last season, when he got 464 AB’s, as opposed to a slim 59 OPS+ this year, only haven gotten 154 so far this year).  Camargo could also be a candidate to get optioned, so there’s that to consider as well.

Outright or Trade Inciarte Himself

I’ve floated the idea of trading him myself somewhat recently, and it bears repeating in this case.  The primary issue here would be selling low on a player that struggled much of the season before his injury and hasn’t ever really established himself at the plate.

There are many teams that could use a glove-first outfielder, but it would seem at this point that teams would be looking at him as more of a lefty-platoon option or a bench player.  It might behoove the Braves to give him a shot to increase his value as the deadline looms, but on the other hand, time seems to be against them, and his performance on his rehab assignment isn’t exactly inspiring a lot of hope, batting a paltry .189 with no extra-base hits over 37 plate appearances. Of course, the option to DFA Ender is on the table, but there has been no indication from the organization that it intends to do that.