It Might Be Time to Give Michael Harris a Breather

The defense is still elite. The bat is not. Here’s how the Braves could manage a reset.

The Atlanta Braves are getting it done against the Mets despite four ‘black holes’ in their lineup.

One of the black holes is left field, which should (hopefully) be fixed soon with the return of Jurickson Profar. One’s coming at shortstop, which is somewhat easier to stomach with the Gold Glove defense from Nick Allen.

Ozzie Albies… yeah, we’re saving that can of worms for another newsletter. (Short version: the answer is Nacho Alvarez. The real question is how you make that transition.)

But none have been darker than the void in centerfield.

Michael Harris II, entering play on Tuesday night, is hitting just .221/.245/.333.

If Atlanta wanted to make a move to temporarily replace Harris in centerfield, what options do they have? Let’s talk about it.

UPDATE: After this newsletter was submitted for publication, Michael Harris was removed from Tuesday night’s game after being hit by a pitch in the elbow. He said after the game that it didn’t hit any bones around the elbow and is officially day-to-day.

How bad has Harris been, exactly?

Pretty bad.

Among qualified hitters (3.1 plate appearances per team game) entering last night’s contest, Michael’s .578 OPS is seventh-worst in all of MLB. And his .245 OBP? Dead last. Worse than even Texas Rangers slugger Jake Burger, by eight points.

It’s worth noting that Burger’s already been optioned down to Triple-A Round Rock. He wasn’t completely fixed with a stay in the minors, but after being recalled the next week, both his batting average and on-base percentage increased by about 40 points.

While the two players aren’t in the same situation - Burger was an offseason addition who doesn’t provide any defensive value - it’s a similar blueprint for what we’re going to propose to Harris.

That blueprint - reset, retool, return - could be exactly what Harris needs. Which brings us to the hard part: send him to the minors.

And understand that I don’t want him to get a ton of work in immediately in Gwinnett. I want him to stay away from the field for a few days, to clear his head and get a bit of a mental reset. After that, give him all the time he needs to get comfortable with whatever changes he’s being asked to make before returning him.

But all of this requires some logistics - how does Atlanta replace him in the lineup and, more importantly, replace his glove in centerfield?

Because the one thing that hasn’t slumped is his defense - Money Mike’s at a +6 Fielding Run Value, 7th in all of baseball. How do you replace that?

The replacement is already on the roster

Eli White does exist.

While the speedy 30-year-old has played almost entirely left and right field this season for Atlanta, he has previous experience in center and the physical tools to excel as a temporary replacement for Harris.

Eli White’s 29.9 ft/sec sprint speed is 98th percentile, tied for 7th-fastest in the majors this season. His arm similarly grades out well, with an 89.4 mph arm strength figure that comes out to the 82nd percentile.

And despite having only 390 major league innings in centerfield, he’s never graded out negatively at the position. His highest mark was 2022’s +3 in CF, coming in just 148 defensive innings, or just over 16 games of work.

Defensively, White’s no liability — and may even be an asset.

At the plate is another question. After a hot start, one that saw White hit .286/.333/.455 through the season’s first 40 games, White has come back to Earth. He’s hitting just .146 with a .354 OPS since May 22nd, although in his defense, that’s just 20 games and 48 plate appearances of part-time work. It’s entirely likely that he gets more comfortable with a full two weeks of being penciled into the lineup card every single day.

But starting White in centerfield means potentially not having a platoon for left field, unless Atlanta wants to resume using Stuart Fairchild as a starter instead of leaving him on the bench (he’s gotten into just one game since returning from the IL, pinch-running against the Mets on June 17th.)

Can you make this move now?

For logistical reasons, Atlanta would probably wait until they return from the road trip to make a roster move for Harris.

But the real conversation should be “do you do it now or wait for Jurickson Profar to return from suspension?”

Let’s game out both scenarios.

Option Harris down now

The selling point here is that, depending on how quickly he picks things up in Gwinnett, Atlanta might be able to get both Harris and Profar back in the lineup before the All-Star Break.

The issue you run into with this strategy is losing the left field platoon. Unless Atlanta wants to resume using Stuart Fairchild as a starter instead of leaving him on the bench (he’s gotten into just one game since returning from the IL, pinch-running against the Mets on June 17th), Eli White and Alex Verdugo are likely both getting everyday playing time in this scenario.

That opens the door for a call-up: Carlos Rodriguez. He’s not a slugger, but he walks more than Harris and can cover all three outfield spots.

The free agent out of Venezuela signed with Atlanta over other suitors because they could offer him a 40-man roster spot. And he’s made the most of those opportunities.

In Gwinnett this year, where he debuted in late April after starting the season in Columbus, he’s batting .303 with 20 walks and 27 strikeouts in 57 games. While he doesn’t hit for any power to speak of (a .356 slug and just six extra-base hits), he has some speed (nine stolen bases).

The scenario there is probably playing White in center and Verdugo in left, with Rodriguez rotating in against lefties (.333 average) and for defense late. While there’s not much chance of Rodriguez running into one, there admittedly wasn’t much chance of that with Harris right now, either (.333 slug this season) and at least he can walk a bit more than Harris will.

Wait to send Harris down until Profar returns

This one doesn’t require a prospect promotion of Rodriguez, as well as giving Harris a bit more time to figure it out.

There are two notable downsides, though - the first is that Atlanta continues to carry Harris, who is batting just .171 in June, on the roster through this crucial stretch of divisional matchups.

The other downside is that, depending on how long it takes him to ‘get right’ in Gwinnett, you may not have him back on the MLB roster until August.

While you do buy some extra time, thanks to the four-day All-Star Break, it’s arguably a less important stretch of baseball because it’s entirely non-division matchups in the month of July.

And because of the ‘reduced importance’¹ of the non-divisional matchups, this feels like a more likely scenario to me. Harris gets a longer runway to figure it out both in Atlanta and the minors, the Braves get to see how Eli White fares in the role between now and the trade deadline, and Alex Verdugo somehow finds a way to remain on the roster even longer.

Either way, Atlanta can’t let the status quo drag on. All season, we’ve heard Brian Snitker say these guys just need time to figure it out. But the sun’s setting on the runway for 2025…and it’s getting too dark to keep flying with even one black hole still dragging the lineup down.

1. I don’t believe those games are less important - everything counts the same at the end of the year - I’m speculating that AA and the front office will think that way, based on how they manipulated the rotation for last week’s Mets series.