{"id":424060,"date":"2026-01-19T21:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424060\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:34:07","slug":"braves-sign-jorge-mateo-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424060\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Sign Jorge Mateo – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves announced today that they have signed utility player Jorge Mateo<\/a> to a one-year deal. The Movement Baseball client gets a $1MM guarantee, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR<\/a>. Atlanta opened a 40-man roster last week when Jos\u00e9 Suarez<\/a> was put on waivers and claimed by the Orioles. This move gets them back to a full 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

It is probably not a coincidence that Atlanta is signing a shortstop-capable player one day after the unfortunate Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> news<\/a>. Atlanta announced yesterday that Kim hurt his hand, reportedly from slipping on ice, in South Korea. He underwent surgery in Atlanta to repair a torn tendon in his right middle finger. He is expected to miss four to five months, meaning he will be out for a decent chunk of the first half of the upcoming season.<\/p>\n

Kim was previously slated to be the club\u2019s everyday shortstop, with Mauricio Dub\u00f3n<\/a> in a multi-positional bench role. Kim\u2019s injury suddenly vaulted Dub\u00f3n up to being the club\u2019s everyday shortstop, which would be a bit of a stretch for him. He has played the position in 107 games in his career, logging 721 innings, but last year\u2019s 33 contests were a career high. He\u2019s been credited with 13 Outs Above Average at the spot in his career but Defensive Runs Saved has him one below par.<\/p>\n

The depth behind him was also lacking. Nacho Alvarez Jr.<\/a> is on the roster and has shortstop experience in the minors but Atlanta kept him at second and third base last year. Even if he were a viable shortstop, he hasn\u2019t hit much in his big league career yet. Aaron Schunk<\/a> was signed to a minor league deal but his shortstop experience is also fairly limited and his offensive numbers are even worse than Alvarez\u2019s to this point.<\/p>\n

Going into the season with that kind of group would have been unacceptable for a team hoping to contend, so responding in some way was inevitable. Mateo isn\u2019t a guarantee to help, as he is coming off a couple of injury-marred seasons, but there also wasn\u2019t much else out there on the market. With Bo Bichette<\/a> heading to the Mets, the top shortstop free agents are veteran utility types like Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> and Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Atlanta is taking a cheap bounce-back flier on Mateo, with a deal barely above next year\u2019s $780K minimum salary. As mentioned, Mateo is coming off a few challenging seasons. In July of 2024, he was playing second base for the Orioles when he and Gunnar Henderson<\/a> both slid for a ground ball. They collided and Mateo suffered a subluxation of his left elbow. He underwent surgery in August, prematurely ending his season.<\/p>\n

Inflammation in that elbow put him back on the injured list in June of 2025. While on a rehab assignment, he suffered a hamstring strain which kept him on the shelf for July and August. Due to all those injury challenges, Mateo only played 111 games over the past two years combined. He also produced a lowly .214\/.253\/.362 line in that time. Baltimore made a fairly easy call to turn down a $5.5MM club option for 2026, sending Mateo to free agency.<\/p>\n

Atlanta probably isn\u2019t expecting much from Mateo offensively, as that has never been his forte. His career batting line is just .221\/.266\/.363, which translates to a wRC+ of 75, indicating he\u2019s been 25% below league average overall. If healthy, he will surely provide value from a speed-and-defense perspective. He topped 30 steals in both 2022 and 2023. Over the past two years, despite the injury absences, he still swiped 28 bags. In 2025, he stole 15 bases even though he only got into 43 games.<\/p>\n

With the glove, Mateo has 2,320 1\/3 innings at shortstop, more than three times as many as Dub\u00f3n. Mateo has been credited with 13 Defensive Runs Saved and six Outs Above Average in those. He also has experience at second base, third base and all three outfield positions.<\/p>\n

Adding Mateo gives Atlanta a bit more depth and flexibility to cover for Kim\u2019s absence. Dub\u00f3n is a better hitter than Mateo, though he\u2019s not exactly a slugger. His career .257\/.295\/.374 batting line translates to an 85 wRC+, ten points ahead of Mateo but 15 below par. Mateo has the edge in terms of speed. Defensively, OAA likes Dub\u00f3n but DRS leans to the more-experienced Mateo.<\/p>\n

Both players hit from the right side and have traditional splits, with better career numbers against lefties, so a platoon isn\u2019t likely. Atlanta can perhaps have the two battle for shortstop playing time in spring training. Both have extensive experience at other positions as well, so a utility role is possible for either or both. Once Kim returns, he should push them both to the bench, though it\u2019s entirely possible other injuries pop up around the roster between now and then.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Daniel Kucin Jr., Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves announced today that they have signed utility player Jorge Mateo to a one-year deal. The Movement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,222934,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-424060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-jorge-mateo","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}