What Does Atlanta Do if Ha-Seong Kim Declines His Player Option?

The Atlanta Braves might be stuck if their potential 2026 shortstop opts to head to free agency

The Atlanta Braves seemingly finessed their way into acquiring a quality shortstop for virtually nothing when they claimed Ha-Seong Kim off of waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays. Kim, who turns 30 next month, was holding a $16M player option for 2026 and the notoriously frugal Rays decided that potential expenditure was not in their future plans. The Braves claimed the former Gold Glove winner off of waivers, committing to paying the remaining $2M on his 2025 contract as a “recruiting pitch” for 2026, per President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos.

But what if Kim decides to enter the free agency market this winter? Why would he decline the option, and where would it leave the Braves for 2026?

Let’s talk about it.

Why would Kim decline the option?

Think about this decision as an either/or: Would you rather make $16M to be a free agent in 2026, or risk that guaranteed money to try and get more money now?

The complicating factor is that this decision doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Let’s break down the calculus here.

If Kim were to decline the option and enter into this winter’s free agent market, he’d be turning down a guaranteed $16M for next season. He’d have to be assuming that he could beat that amount, right?

I think he could. Look at the shortstop market this winter - it’s really just Bo Bichette of the Toronto Blue Jays and…Orlando Arcia? This is a simple supply and demand calculation here. With the only “premier” shortstop on the market in Bichette being an abject disaster on defense (a league-worst -10 Fielding Run Value at shortstop, per Statcast, which includes a 1st percentile range score of -13 Outs Above Average), Kim would likely be seen as the only true “two-way player” on the market at the position.

While this season’s defensive ratings haven’t been anything to write home about for Kim, sitting at -2 Fielding Run Value entering Tuesday’s doubleheader, it’s also a small sample size issue here. The infielder’s been positive in every other season of his career, even winning the Utility Gold Glove for the National League in 2023 after bouncing between shortstop, second, and third base as his San Diego Padres team dealt with injuries to several regulars.

He’s also not a slouch offensively. For his career, Kim holds a 98 OPS+ and 99 wRC+, perfectly average production at a position that’s exceptionally hard to find quality offense on the free agency market. He’d be the clear #2 offensive option behind Bichette, who hit .311/.357/.483 prior to going down with a season-ending injury this week.

While this year’s essentially been a lost season from an accumulation stat perspective for Kim, he’s not been awful after returning from his shoulder, hamstring, and back injuries. In 37 games entering Tuesday night’s action, Kim has hit .246/.317/.346, a below-average mark but one with promise. In his short sample size with the Braves (13 games), he’s hit .304/.365/.391 with a homer and 6 RBI in just 13 games.

While the overall statline is not impressive at all, being able to sell his current health allowing him to return to the previous level of production is the logical route.

It’s not just the stats that come into play here

The differences in this coming offseason and 2026’s offseason must be discussed, as well. If Kim were to decline the player option for 2026, he’d be turning down $16M in the hopes of making more in the free agent market this winter.

But if he picks up his option and performs to his career norms, a .243/.326/.377 line, he’d be entering the free agent market into an offseason that is expected to be marked by an owner-initiated lockout that has the potential of putting a freeze on free agent movement over the winter. While he would undoubtedly be either the best or second-best option on the market, depending on how you feel about Seattle Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford, he’d also be entering free agency into an offseason marked by labor strife and uncertainty around the immediate future of the game.

Several marquee free agents from the last lockout offseason, the one that happened in the winter of 2021, anecdotally reported how their free agency felt rushed and incomplete, with the players forced to quickly decide between several offers in a hurry to find a roster spot as baseball resumed with an abbreviated spring training.

Is Kim eager to sign up for that experience?

And that’s assuming he performs just…fine. If he looks more like the 2023 version of himself, one that won a Gold Glove and received down-ballot MVP votes while hitting .260/.351/.398 with 17 homers and 38 stolen bases, he’d likely also be saddled with a Qualifying Offer by the Braves. It would require him to turn down a high single-season salary, one that came in at $21.05M for 2024, but in return would saddle the team that signed him with a significant draft pick penalty in the next draft. That team would also likely lose a not-insignificant portion of the next international free agency signing period’s bonus pool for adding the shortstop.

For what it’s worth, several MLB insiders believe that Kim’s headed to free agency, in light of these factors. MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, the league’s beat writer for the team, wrote just last Friday that “the expectation around baseball has been that Kim will not exercise his $16 million player option for next season”, theorizing that Kim would leap Bichette to be the most attractive shortstop on this winter’s market due to his perceived ability to actually be able to play shortstop.

If Kim were to opt out in search of a larger payday, always a consideration of a player who is represented by uber-aggressive super-agent Scott Boras, what would the Braves do?

Re-sign him or pivot to the trade market

With the emphasis that the Braves have placed on defense up the middle, to the point of being willing to sacrifice offense to carry a Gold Glove defender (Nick Allen, Michael Harris II), it’s extremely unlikely that the Braves would be willing to extend the money and the qualifying offer penalties required to sign the defensively-challenged Bichette to a long-term deal.

That doesn’t mean that Kim isn’t an option to return on a multi-year deal, though. As President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos explained just last week, getting Kim in Atlanta for the final month of the season could potentially be a big deal. “Getting him in our clubhouse, him getting to know us, us getting to know him — whether he doesn’t opt out or does, we’re both in a better position. We know more about each other. Had he been in Tampa and opted out (of the option), and now we’re coming to the table to talk to him, I can’t tell you we separate ourselves from any other team that he hasn’t played for.”

From a sheer money perspective, it’s likely that Atlanta would be behind the eight-ball on signing any marquee free agent just based on their history with long-term contracts. Under Alex Anthopoulos, the Braves have not offered anyone - a free agent or an under-contract player signing an extension - a multi-year deal for an annual value of more than $22M a year.

At the same time, going back to the start of 2021, nine different “two-way” shortstops have signed free agent deals for more than that self-imposed limit of $22M a year:

Courtesy of the MLB Trade Rumors contract database

All but one of those players, Javier Baez in 2021, also declined a qualifying offer in their free agent year, costing their new team an early draft pick and some IFA bonus pool space.¹

But if Kim’s offseason decision is likely to lead to a free agency situation, Anthopoulos explained why the Braves could potentially be ahead of several competitors due to Kim’s brief tenure in Atlanta.

“I always believe comfort and familiarity can only help, especially having been here and lived here and had multiple players tell me how much they love playing here and being here. I feel this is an asset. Truist (Park) is an asset, the fan base is an asset, our clubhouse culture is an asset. Our manager, coaches, ownership group, management is an asset. So I think whatever exposure they get to that, maybe it can break a tie.

[…] My hope is that he enjoys it here, he thinks this is a place that he can perform and play well, and that we have him beyond 2025.”

Just to be safe, let’s hope for the best but prepare for the worst here.

What trade options would be out there?

Honestly, not many. It’s very rare for an MLB team to trade a top shortstop prospect or a young MLB defender that’s early in their team control, simply because it’s so hard to fill the role and even more rare to have extra depth at the position.

There are a few options here for the Braves, though.

Option 1: A pending free agent

Atlanta could look to acquire a veteran who is being edged out of their role in favor of a top prospect. The first team I’d look to in this situation is the Seattle Mariners and veteran J.P. Crawford.

Crawford, who will play the final season of his contract at the age of 31, is a perfectly crumulent option at shortstop - below average defensively (-5 Fielding Run Value), but slightly above average offensively (+3 Fielding Run Value after a .266/.354/.365 slash this year). With top shortstop Colt Emerson being promoted to Triple-A Tacoma over the weekend, the trade-enthusiastic Mariners may be willing to move Crawford a half-season too early rather than waiting to watch him walk in free agency for virtually nothing.

Option 2: Poaching a tenured shortstop from a rebuilding team

I’m looking at Atlanta’s frequent trade partner out in Los Angeles, the Angels.

Run by former Anthopoulos assistant Perry Minasian, the Braves have acquired fourteen players from the Angels dating to the beginning of the Anthopoulos tenure in late 2017. Some of these were salary dumps, like when they picked up closer Raisel Iglesias and the remaining three years/$48M on his deal back in 2022. Some of these have involved Atlanta reclaiming traded pitchers, such as when they acquired Jesse Chavez back in 2022 or Ian Anderson this April.

Is there another deal in there for Atlanta to mine? Perhaps, for shortstop Zach Neto?

The Angels promoted prospect Denzer Guzman to the majors on Sunday to replace Neto when he went on the injured list with a hand strain. Guzman, who hit .262 in a brief stay with Triple-A Salt Lake this year, is seen as a defensively sound shortstop that has some raw power but consistency and growth needed in the hit tool. While it’s clearly possible for him to move somewhere else on the diamond - both second baseman Luis Rengifo and third baseman Yoán Moncada are free agents - it’s also possible that Los Angeles decides to cash in on the youngster Neto before he reaches arbitration next season.

Neto’s hitting .257/.319/.474 in his third season in the majors, sitting on both 26 homers and 26 stolen bases. He grades out as a slightly negative defender (-3 Fielding Run Value) on Statcast, but that’s buoyed by his offense and baserunning.

The reasoning behind Los Angeles trading Neto isn’t easy to figure out; he’s only now approaching his first arbitration year, so the price shouldn’t be too exorbitant, but we’re counting on Angels owner Arte Moreno continuing his frugal and spending-adverse ways. While he’s swung big at times, having given massive contracts to both first baseman Albert Pujols and third baseman Anthony Rendon that were historically underwater almost immediately, he’s generally considered to be risk-averse and spending-adverse for anyone but the biggest stars at this point in his ownership tenure.

This same logic - a frugal owner that, frankly, isn’t very good at baseball decisions - holds for the Colorado Rockies and Dick Monfort. Similar to the Angels, they have a young shortstop in Ezequiel Tovar that is about to make legitimate money and the organization has a potential replacement in the wings. Tovar’s contract extension, signed in March of 2024, guaranteed him $65M over a seven-year period. The shortstop is owed $54M of that over the next five seasons, and with former top prospect Adael Amador waiting in Triple-A Albuquerque, Monfort may decide to shed that financial obligation.

If either team makes that trade, and that’s still an unlikely outcome, Atlanta would likely need to use a lot of their top-end pitching prospect depth to get the deal done. Both organizations have struggled to develop pitching over the last few seasons, with LA only getting two members of their all-pitching draft of 2021 to the major leagues. The Rockies are on pace to have the league’s worst ERA for a fourth straight season, currently sitting at 6.01, a full seven-tenths of a run ahead of their next closest competitor.

But lost in all of this discussion of player options, qualifying offers, and trades is one more choice, an unpopular but understandable option.

Option 3: Just run it back

Nick Allen hit .220/.283/.247 this season, a league-worst .530 OPS. His 52 OPS+ signifies that he was 48% worse than a league-average hitter this season, MLB’s worst mark for any player with more than 100 games of action in 2025.

But his defense was among the best in the league, coming in at a 96th percentile mark of +12 Fielding Run Value.

Could the Braves try that again? Sure, I guess. As much as it would hurt to watch the equivalent of a pitcher batting in the #9 spot every night², Allen’s offense (or lack thereof) won’t be the thing that makes or breaks Atlanta’s ability to score runs. Sure, having a black hole down at the bottom of your order can hurt on the margins, but if the Braves’ offense needs their #9 hitter to perform in order to consistently win games, there are bigger problems afoot at 755 Battery Avenue.

What should Atlanta do?

To be clear, none of those three options are good. The clear best thing for the Braves is for Kim to pick up his player option and spend the 2026 season with Atlanta, hopefully working on some sort of longer-term deal with the Braves so that he can continue past this season. With experience at both second and third, he gives the team flexibility as he ages in case he needs to eventually be moved off of shortstop, assuming his arm strength fully returns after last season’s shoulder surgery.

But if he does opt out and heads to free agency, it’s going to look more dire than Braves fans necessarily want to admit.

1. Baez was ineligible to receive a qualifying offer, as he was traded in his final year before free agency and therefore could not be given a qualifying offer. This rule would also be in place for Atlanta with Kim this offseason.

2. On the point of a pitcher at the bottom of the order, Max Fried’s final season in Atlanta’s lineup (2021) saw him put up a .273/.322/.327 line, winning the NL Silver Slugger at pitcher. It was a 74 OPS+, so he technically outproduced Allen.