Phoenix - A Tale of Two Shortstops (and their would-be successors)
We’ve been watching baseball games every night this week, and even though I haven’t seen either of them play, I’ve thought a lot about two shortstops, Brandon Crawford and Nick Ahmed, and their would-be successors.
Shortstop is my favorite position to watch. It’s traditionally the place where the most athletic player goes on defense, because it’s in the middle of all the action. Besides pitcher, it’s one of two positions on the field (catcher is the other) where a player who doesn’t hit very well can start for a major league team, and they’ll keep sending him out there. Many, many major league players, at all sorts of positions, started out as shortstops, because they were the best athlete on their team as a teenager. Aging shortstops often get moved to play third base (Cal Ripken Jr. and Manny Machado are only two examples) as they get older, but the very best shortstops sometimes successfully resist the move (a young Jose Oquendo switched to second base because Ozzie Smith wouldn’t move). A special case was when Alex Rodriguez, who had won the previous two Gold Gloves as the American League's best defensive shortstop, switched to third base when he joined the Yankees, because that was the position Yankee team captain and ultimate Hall of Famer Derek Jeter played (Jeter started winning Gold Gloves once he was no longer competing with Rodriguez).
From 2015 through 2021, the two best defensive shortstops in the National League were Crawford and Ahmed. Crawford, playing for the San Francisco Giants, won the National League Gold Glove four times in that period; Ahmed, playing the for Arizona Diamondbacks, won it twice; once it was won by a shortstop on one of the other 13 teams. Watching a Diamondbacks-Giants series was a treat, no matter whether either team was any good (between them, the two teams made the playoffs a total of three times), because there was a good chance there would be some spectacular plays by Crawford and/or Ahmed. They were still with those two teams at the start of 2023, but they were both getting old, and neither was with his original team by the start of 2024. But who do you find to replace a defensive great? We've been seeing and hearing bits and pieces of that story all week.
Brandon Crawford:
Crawford made his major league debut in 2011, and played in less than half the Giants' game – if I saw him then, I don’t remember it. On Opening Day of 2012, he had been anointed their starting shortstop of the future. They played in Phoenix that night, and I remember Crawford, in part because of the hype about his defense, and I was curious to see how good he really was. He booted the first ball hit to him. He came to bat four times and didn’t get a hit, but struck out twice. I was not impressed.
But he got better, both offensively and defensively, and he was the Giants’ Opening Day shortstop every year since, until this year. He really was a spectacularly good fielder, and usually a better-than-average hitter. In his best season, 2021, he hit well enough that, combined with his defense, was good enough that he finished fourth in the voting for Most Valuable Player.
By the middle of last year, though, it was clear that he was the shortstop of the Giants’ past, not their future. His contract expired at the end of the season, and they made no attempt to re-sign him, even though he says that he wanted to return, and knew that he wouldn’t be the regular shortstop. They were auditioning other players at shortstop during the season, like a rookie who impressed me, Casey Schmitt (more on him later). At the start of Spring Training this year, the St. Louis Cardinals signed him as a backup. He played Wednesday night, for the first time in a week. He’s hitting .174.
The Giants, meanwhile, didn’t add any backup infielders until Spring Training, when they signed … Nick Ahmed.
Nick Ahmed
I remember Brandon Crawford’s poor Opening Day start, and Casey Schmitt’s spectacular first week of his career, but I don’t remember the first game I saw Nick Ahmed play – it was probably in 2014. However, after watching him play a few games, I told Kerry that I thought that he’d win a Gold Glove or two if he could learn to hit major league pitching. In other words, his defensive was outstanding, but even a shortstop has to get a few hits now and then, and I wasn’t convinced that he’d ever hit well enough to play regularly. His offense got better, although he never had a year where he was up to the major league average in the single statistic that I think of as the best indicator of offensive effectiveness, OPS+ (footnote below).
The thing that Nick Ahmed did better than any shortstop I’ve ever seen (with one notable exception), was the conversion from catching the ball to throwing it. He’d be reaching for a ground ball, and when it got close, you didn’t seem him catch it, plant his back foot, transfer the ball from his glove to his throwing hand, then throw. Instead, it looked like the instant the ball touched his glove, it was flying toward first base. The only other shortstop I ever saw who could do that as well was Ozzie Smith. Ozzie's Hall of Fame plaque describes him as “one of the best defensive shortstops of all time,” but that may be understating it. He could dive to catch a ball, but would bounce up and throw so quickly that it looked like there was a spring somewhere. Ahmed wasn’t a diver, but he had that quick release, and he also had a strong throwing arm.
But he started having shoulder problems in about 2021, and by 2023, between the weaker arm and the slower reflexes with age, he was no longer an elite shortstop. In the draft of amateur players in 2021, the Diamondbacks had the 6th overall pick, and they picked a shortstop, Jordan Lawlar, who was supposed to be their shortstop of the future.
In the 2023 season, Ahmed was mostly healthy, but young Geraldo Perdomo (more on him later), was playing well, and Lawlar was playing well at AAA. We went to a game in September, and Ahmed got a rare chance to start. Late in the game, a batter hit a weak ground ball that looked like it would be a hit, because the batter could get to first before the fielder could get the throw there. But Ahmed charged the ball, reached for it with his glove, and suddenly the ball was at first base just before the runner got there. I turned to Kerry, and said, “that was vintage Ahmed,” and she agreed. I don’t know of anyone else, except maybe Ozzie Smith, who could have made that play. The next day, the Diamondbacks called up Lawlar and released Ahmed, and I realized that simple-looking, yet spectacularly difficult, play had been Nick Ahmed’s final play with the Diamondbacks. It was an appropriate finale.
The Diamondbacks then went on a run that would take them deeper into the playoffs than they’d ever been during Ahmed's nearly 10 years with the team. He declined the Diamondbacks’ offer of a league championship ring. Baseball business can be cruel.
He caught on with the Giants this spring, but didn’t hit any better than he ever had, and wasn’t consistently fielding at the level he did five years ago. This week, he was released by the Giants.
Maybe he’ll catch on somewhere else, but the era of watching Crawford and Ahmed make dazzling plays is over. So what about the successors?
Casey Schmitt
In May of last season, the Giants called up Schmitt from the minors. He got two hits in four at-bats in his first game. He did the same in his second. Then they came to Arizona, and he did better.
In his first game, the first time I'd ever seen him, he had four hits in four at-bats. About once every 15 or 20 games that we go to, one of the 18 hitters who starts the game will get four hits. That means that it happens to the average player about once every 300 or 400 games. Casey Schmitt did it in his third game in the majors. Needless to say, I was impressed.
The next day, he had “only” one hit in four at-bats against the Diamondbacks, then he was two-for-four against us the next day. At this point, he had 11 hits in 20 at-bats in the majors. That’s an average of .550. No one has had an average as high as .400 for a full season since 1941, so it was clear that it wasn’t going to last. However, it’s rare for even a good hitter to have a five-game stretch that good. He went hitless the next day (against one of the best pitchers in baseball), but after watching him those four days, I went home thinking I’d just seen the Giants’ shortstop of the future.
However, he hit .182 for the rest of the year, and wasn’t on the Opening Day roster for the Giants this year - Nick Ahmed started at short. But when we saw the Giants play in San Francisco, various players were injured, so Schmitt had just been called up again, and started at shortstop the two games we saw.
He had four hits, including two home runs, in eight at-bats against the Yankees. This was the Schmitt I remembered from the previous May. But for the games he’s played this year that we didn’t see, he was hitting about .150 with no other home runs. We saw him play for Sacramento in Salt Lake City this week.
Maybe the Casey Schmitt I keep seeing is the real one, and someday he’ll stick in the majors. Or maybe he just isn't that good unless I’m sitting in the stands.
Jordan Lawlar
Lawlar was supposed to be Nick Ahmed’s long-term successor when the Diamondbacks drafted him in 2021 as a 19-year-old. He missed most of that season with a shoulder injury, then tore up the minor leagues at various levels for two years before getting called up to the majors near the end of last season. That was when Ahmed was released, but Lawlar had only four hits in 31 at-bats. But just as Schmitt's hot start apparently wasn't the real thing, Lawlar's slow start may not have been either. I thought we'd find out this year. However, he injured a thumb and missed the start of the season, then was starting a rehab assignment in Reno when he pulled a hamstring. This week, he reinjured the hamstring, and still hasn’t played a game in the majors. Will he ever make it?
Geraldo Perdomo
When Ahmed got hurt at the end of 2021, Geraldo Perdomo, a 22-year-old moving up through the minors, inherited the job for the 2022 season. He did not look like he belonged. Although he played almost every day, he just barely had more hits than walks, and hit under .200. The consistent part of his defense was that he regularly almost made great plays. He’d dive for a ball I didn’t think he’d get, but he would get it – and it would roll out of his glove. He’d go a long ways to get to a ball that required an awkward throw, and the throw would be a fraction of a second late, or would not quite be on target.
In 2023, his fielding got better. He wasn’t Ahmed or Crawford, but he played like a major league shortstop. And his hitting got much, much better, good enough that he got named to the All-Star team, something Ahmed never did. He slumped after the All-Star break, but overall, he had a better offensive season than Ahmed ever did (and as good as Crawford’s average). This year, his hitting is a little better than it was overall last year, and his defense continues to improve.
Wednesday night, the Diamondbacks were playing the Braves, having lost the previous two nights, and it seemed like Perdomo was in the center of everything. In his first two at-bats, Perdomo doubled each time, and scored once. It was tied 3-3 when he came up in the 7th inning, and he got another hit, this time a single. A little later, he scored, and the Diamondbacks were ahead. But in the top of the 8th inning, but Braves tied it. In the bottom of the 8th inning, the Dbacks got a run and had the bases loaded with one out, when Perdomo came to the plate again. He hit a long fly ball to score the runner from third, to give them a crucial extra run.
In the top of the 9th inning, Arizona brought in
Paul Sewald to pitch. Sewald’s the closer, so his job is to pitch the 9th
inning of games when there’s a slim lead. He was injured in April, then was
perfect in that role in May and June. In July, he had given up the lead (and
the Diamondbacks had lost the game) three times in a row, most recently two days
earlier. The first batter hit a rocket on the ground to Perdomo’s right. He dove,
caught it, popped up, and made a strong throw to first to just barely get the
runner. Sewald settled down and the next two outs were routine. Perdomo's play was one that Nick Ahmed or Brandon Crawford would have been proud
of when they were in their primes.
The next stop on our tour:
The next stop on our quest (to see all 30 MLB ballparks plus all 30 AAA parks, all within a five-year period) is Pittsburgh, in late July. Stay tuned.
Footnote: OPS+
“OPS+” is basically a batter’s OPS for the season divided by the average OPS for the league that year.
Oh, but what is “OPS”? It’s On-Base Percentage (O) Plus (P) Slugging Percentage (S). And actually, “OPS+” is the batter’s On-Base Percentage (divided by the average On-Base Percentage) plus his Slugging Percentage (divided by the league average), all multiplied by 100, so that an average hitter has an OPS+ of 100, and higher numbers are better. The best OPS+ is typically in the upper 100s.
On-Base Percentage is just the percent of the times a batter reaches base safely. In baseball terminology, it’s walks plus hits plus hit-by-pitch, divided by total plate appearances.
Slugging Percentage is a number that is the total number of bases (so a single counts 1, a double 2, a triple 3, and a home run 4) a batter accumulates, divided by the number of “at-bats”. The number of “at-bats” is usually less than the total number of plate appearances, because it’s not an “at-bat” if the batter walks, or gets hit by a pitch, or hits a fly ball that makes an out but scores a run, or puts down a bunt that makes an out but advances a runner.
A batter who gets on base a lot helps his team win, even if he doesn’t hit home runs. A batter who hits a significant number of home runs helps his team, even if he doesn’t get on base that much. Combining the On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage is a way to compare the overall value of a player, and it seems to work, in terms of predicting how many runs a team will score.
So an OPS+ of 100 is an average player for that season. It’s been an OPS of about .700 the last couple of seasons, with Nick Ahmed never had an OPS+ above 93. Brandon Crawford’s career OPS+ is 97, although it was 141 in his excellent 2021 season. Geraldo Perdomo’s was 57 in 2022, 97 last year, and is a little over 100 this year.
Comments
Post a Comment