I just read where  Orlando Arcia went two for three in his debut with the Colorado Rockies this past Wednesday. I hope he does well with his new team. Arcia became expendable when the Braves activated Ronald Acuña. I must admit that while Arcia’s complete lack of plate discipline over the past couple of seasons was an endless source of frustration for me, I still hated so see him go, especially his being designated for assignment. I always feel bad for a player when a team just lets him go.

Arcia came to the Braves in 2021 in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers. He filled in admirably at second base a couple of times when Ozzie Albies was injured. Arcia got off to a great start in 2023 and made the All-Star team after stepping in as the starting shortstop following the departure of Dansby Swanson. But beginning around the final two months of that season, his production at the plate started to nosedive. He regularly struck out swinging at pitches no where near the strike zone. Early this season, the Braves decided that Nick Allen was a better option at short, but Arica’s release still came as a surprise to me, although I should have seen it coming since the Braves barely had used him at all this season.

Players being designated for assignment is just part of the game, but I don’t remember when I first became aware of teams releasing players. I looked back through my old Atlanta Braves Media Guides and determined that Ed Sadowski was the first player the Braves released after I started following baseball. I had no recollection of the Braves releasing Sadowski, since I had no recollection of him ever having played for them. He appeared in just three games for the Braves at the tail end of the 1966 season and went one for nine at the plate. After the Braves released him, Sadowski never played in another major league game.

I remember one day in the Braves history of releasing players that was a virtual St. Valentine’s Day massacre. At the close of Spring Training in 1978, the Braves cut veterans Buzz Capra, Vic Correll, Tom Paciorek, and Craig Robinson all on the same day. The Braves were awful in those days; they finished in last place in the National League West in 1977, and without Capra, Correll, Paciorek, and Robinson, they finished last again in 1978.

I remember being surprised that the Braves released Paciorek. While he had not been spectacular in 1977, he seemed to be a better option off the bench than Clarence Gaston. To their credit, the Braves had second thoughts about releasing Paciorek, and they resigned him on April 7—only to release him again, and for good, on May 23. The Seattle Mariners picked up Paciorek, and he hit .299 in 1978. He wound up playing nine more seasons after leaving the Braves, hitting .292 along the way and finishing up with a career batting average of .282.

Correll caught on with the Cincinnati Reds and spent three seasons with them as a backup catcher. Neither Capra nor Robinson ever signed with another major league team.

Maybe Orlando Arcia will experience a career resurgence with the Rockies. After all, the bar for success with his new team will be kind of low. While the Braves have not exactly played like the 1927 Yankees this season, the Rockies have not even played as well as the 1962 Mets.

And just for the record, the Braves are 2-4 since activating Acuña and releasing Arcia.