2024 Positional Power Rankings: Shortstop

Seager is one of the best pure hitters in baseball, and even though he’s been around so long he took his first major league starting job from Jimmy Rollins, he only turns 30 next month. Having just won his second World Series MVP, he finally has a shot at winning the regular season award now that Shohei Ohtani is in the other league. And after a decade of predictions that he’d have to move off the position, he hasn’t played a position other than shortstop since his rookie year. This is as nailed-on a starter as you’ll find at a position full of nailed-on starters.

Nevertheless, Seager does get hurt sometimes. When that happened last year, Texas split the reps between utilitymen Duran and Smith. Duran had the better surface stats last year, though Smith could be in for some positive regression in 2024. He’d have to regress a lot, though, because in two seasons of 200 or more plate appearances, he’s yet to hit .200 in the majors.

In short: Drink lots of water and get to bed early, Corey. Your team needs you.

Lindor suffered a bit of a reputational hit after his move to New York, but his production never flagged as much as his critics would have you believe. And at any rate, he’s playing some of the best baseball of his career. Lindor is coming off back-to-back 6-WAR seasons. In 2023, he posted his highest home run total and slugging percentage since 2019, and ripped off the first 30-30 season of his career. And unlike Seager, he’s missed only three games total in the past two seasons.

As such, the Mets are understandably light on reinforcements at this position. Mauricio is probably out for the season after tearing his ACL in winter ball. Wendle is next in line to stand between second and third with a glove in his hand if something happens to Lindor. But Wendle hit just .212/.248/.306 for the Marlins last year (that’s a 47 wRC+, in case anyone was unclear on how bad that line is), so he wouldn’t be much worse off if he brought his glove to the plate as well.

The Royals aren’t exactly known for throwing big contracts around wantonly, so when they committed some $289 million over 11 years to Witt, that was a big statement. That’s more money than they’ve spent on their entire major league roster the past three years put together. Witt was impressive but a bit unrefined as a rookie, but in Year 2 he made big strides in terms of plate discipline and defense, and tacked on an extra 67 points of slugging percentage to boot. Even the most conservative front office will push its chips in when confronted with a 23-year-old shortstop coming off a 30-homer, 49-steal season. Last year, Witt was within a rounding error of 100 runs scored, 100 RBI, and a .500 SLG. The only shortstops age 23 or younger to hit those marks are Alex Rodriguez, Cal Ripken Jr., and Joe Cronin.

Witt has played 308 games out of a possible 324 in his career, so the Royals likewise haven’t devoted many resources to a backup. In case of emergency, Garcia might slide over from third to short, allowing manager Matt Quatraro to cobble together a replacement elsewhere on the infield.

Turner had an up-and-down first year in Philadelphia. By WAR it was the worst full season of his career, but that’s mostly an artifact of a very rough start. After a brutal road trip in early August, Phillies fans gave Turner a standing ovation to pick up his spirits, and the two-time All-Star hit .337/.389/.668 with 16 home runs through the end of the season. He then hit .347/.400/.633 with three home runs in 13 playoff games. There are weird seasons, and then there’s convincing Phillies fans to believe in the power of toxic positivity.

Expect a return to normalcy in 2024. (Indeed, anything short of being abducted by aliens would be more normal.) You can pencil Turner in for a mid-20s home run total and 30-plus stolen bases, and hitting near the top of a powerful Phillies lineup it seems reasonable to pencil him in for a fourth consecutive season of more than 100 runs scored.

On those rare occasions Turner needs a break, Sosa ought to be the first man off the bench, but those days will be few and far between.

These power rankings can get fun when there’s uncertainty about how the various teams will line up, but shortstop looks like an extremely stable position. Out of the top 17 teams on the list, I count two, maybe three, where there’s any uncertainty over who the starter will be. In Baltimore’s case, it’s not because of a lack of faith in Henderson, who’s the reigning AL Rookie of the Year. Nothing about that campaign (.255/.325/.489, 123 wRC+, 4.6 WAR) indicates anything other than a bright future at the position.

The question is this: When Jackson Holliday gets worked into the lineup, where will he play? He could settle in a second base, which would give Baltimore one of the best double play combinations in the baseball for the rest of the 2020s, to say nothing of leading the league in luxuriant blond coiffure. Or the no. 1 prospect in baseball could displace Henderson to third and claim shortstop for himself. And spare a thought for poor Mateo, who put up 2.9 WAR himself just two seasons ago. He’ll be a heck of a backup.

Oh boy. After the best part of a decade enjoying some combination of Seager and Turner at short, the Dodgers are scrambling for options. Lux, the presumptive starter, is now off the case after early defensive returns in spring training looked like he had the yips. So the shortstop job now belongs to Betts, at least for the time being. It’s nearly unprecedented for a 30-year-old career corner outfielder to get regular action in the middle infield for the first time since his rookie year, as Betts did last year. To play shortstop everyday for the first time since high school at age 31 is another step or two into the unknown. Even accounting for the fact that Betts is no ordinary career corner outfielder, this is a fascinating development.

But at least Betts can hit. The Dodgers’ best actual shortstop is Miguel Rojas, who just turned 35 and has a wRC+ of 70 and 69, respectively, in his past two full seasons. Surely a trade is coming, so Betts can be restored at least to second base.

Bichette tore American League pitching to smithereens on his debut in 2019, slugging 11 home runs and 18 doubles in 46 games as a 21-year-old rookie. The much-hoped-for leap into superstardom has never really happened; he’s an aggressive hitter who makes hard contact but doesn’t walk and puts a lot of balls on the ground. And after going 25-for-26 in stolen base attempts in 2021, he’s just 18-for-29 since, and grades out near the bottom of the shortstop class (22nd out of 27 players with at least 300 PA at the position) in baserunning.

Nevertheless, Bichette is an elite contact hitter within the strike zone, and for however much his skill set begs to be nitpicked, he consistently puts up batting averages at or around .300 and home run totals in the 20s. An MVP in the making? Perhaps not. But he’s averaged 4.5 WAR over the past three seasons. That’s a top-10 shortstop in baseball for sure.

Correa got locked out of Seager money over concerns about his long-term health, and in 2023 he exhibited major signs of slowing down. Never a burner to start with, his running speed dropped well below-average, and his range at shortstop declined. He hit into 30 double plays, the most in the majors, and spent time on the IL with plantar fasciitis. You know, like late-career Albert Pujols.

But Correa is still young enough (only 29) that one down year shouldn’t be cause to ignore the two excellent campaigns that preceded it. Or the fact that Correa was either hurt or underwhelming or both for much of 2018 through 2020, then bounced back to earn not one but two $30 million-a-year contracts from a Central Division team that doesn’t give out many of those.

Unlike Turner or Lindor or Bichette, however, Correa’s injuries and inconsistency make it incumbent upon the Twins to prepare for the worst. You could do worse than Farmer as a second-division starter; in 369 plate appearances last year, he posted 1.6 WAR, and his 101 wRC+ was the best of his career. Nevertheless, there’s a long drop from Correa to competence, and Minnesota will hope not to rely too much on Farmer.

The husband of World Cup-winning striker Mallory Swanson is probably the best defensive shortstop in baseball at the moment. Certainly he’s the best defender among shortstops who can hit 20 home runs a year, which he’s done three seasons running now. There’s a clear step down offensively from the other shortstops making more than $25 million a year, but but Swanson’s defensive ability allows him to narrow the gap despite only being an average-to-above-average hitter.

Along with Hoerner, Swanson makes up half of the best defensive double play combination out there. In the event that Swanson misses time, Hoerner — who started 118 games at shortstop in 2022 before Swanson signed with the Cubs — will probably switch positions. But that’s unlikely. Swanson missed two weeks with a heel contusion last year around the All-Star break. That IL stint accounts for 12 of the 16 games he’s sat out in total since the start of the 2020 season.

I love Adames’ game, and I think he’s about to become preposterously wealthy when he hits free agency this winter. Last season, he started 147 games at shortstop for Milwaukee, and should be penciled in for the same amount this year, assuming he stays healthy and the Brewers remain in contention. Any challenge for the NL Central title must include a productive season from Adames.

But what if Milwaukee falters? This early in Matt Arnold’s tenure, it’s still not clear if he’s as much of a wheeler-and-dealer as his predecessor, David Stearns. Then again, Arnold did just trade his best player, Corbin Burnes, earlier this winter. If the Brewers hit Bastille Day five games under .500, I’d expect suitors to be lined up around the block for Adames.

In that case, Ortiz, the former Orioles farmhand who came over in the Burnes trade, would be at the front of the line to replace him. Ortiz added some beef in the past two seasons, and has turned into a global top-50 prospect. At the moment, he’s also due to see time at second and third base, assuming he makes the Opening Day roster.

The Padres’ all-shortstop infield has turned into an all-shortstop lineup. Kim could play there, or Bogaerts, who got the bulk of the reps at short last year. Fernando Tatis Jr. was a shortstop not that long ago, as was Manny Machado, while Jake Cronenworth played a little short in college. The 20-year-old Merrill, the team’s Opening Day center fielder, has played nearly 1468.2 minor league innings at short and 115 innings at all other positions put together.

Kim was a shortstop in Korea, and in his first three seasons on this side of the Pacific, he’s played all over the infield. In 2024, he’ll start the season as San Diego’s full-time shortstop, with Bogaerts moving over to second. Kim doesn’t have a ton of power — his .398 SLG in 2023 was his highest mark in three major league seasons — but he can get on base and he ripped off a surprising 38-steal campaign now that throwovers are limited and the bases are bigger. He’s solid. And if that stops being the case, the Padres have more candidates for the job than they can use.

We writers don’t actually determine the order of the power rankings, we just do the blurbs. If I were in charge, the Mariners would be a couple ticks higher than they are here. Crawford’s glove has declined over the past few years, but in 2023 he took massive steps forward offensively. He started hitting the ball in the air more, and hitting it harder, and he set a new full-season career high in SLG and more than doubled his previous career high in home runs.

At the same time, Crawford — already a selective hitter to being with — started walking like Joey Votto. He led the American league in walks. J.P. Crawford! Out of all the shortstops who registered at least 150 plate appearances last year (51 in total), Seager led in basically every offensive category worth talking about. But Crawford was second in OBP, wRC+, and offensive WAR. And when it came to OBP, Crawford (.380) was the only shortstop within 30 points of Seager. I guess that could all be a one-off, but if it’s not, expect the Mariners to be comfortably inside the top 10 in this ranking next spring.

Zach Neto: the original “let’s rush him to the majors before our player dev ruins him” Angels prospect. Neto’s numbers from his rookie year (.225/.308/.377) look a little ugly, but context provides some mitigation. The former Campbell Camel spent two monthlong stints on the IL in 2023 for two different injuries. The first came was an oblique strain, suffered in mid-June, when Neto was hitting .259/.338/.431, which is downright heroic for a shortstop who made his debut with just 44 games of minor league experience to call on.

He returned exactly a month later, hit .180/.226/.340 in 12 games, hurt his back, and went back on the shelf. Neto’s third stint in the bigs consisted of 17 games late in September, and he hit .169/.286/.262.

So when Neto was healthy, and not playing in post-Ohtani shutdown, post-waiver panic garbage time, he was a good hitter for a player of any position or experience. If that’s the norm going forward, the Angels will be thrilled. If not, they have options. Those include Rengifo, who it seems like plays four positions at once for the Angels, as well as Adrianza, Soto, and Paris. Fun fact: Paris is almost a year younger than Neto, despite having been drafted three years earlier.

Volpe got a ton of playing time as a 22-year-old rookie — 159 games, 150 of them starts, all at shortstop — and acquitted himself well in the field and on the basepaths, where he stole 24 bags in 29 attempts. Offensively, however, it was a disappointing debut for the heir to Derek Jeter. Perhaps the expectations were unreasonable, but any team in any situation would want more than a .283 OBP from its top rookie. With a full season’s worth of experience under his belt, Volpe ought to improve on a .290 wOBA that ranked sixth from the bottom among qualified hitters in 2023.

The Yankees do have other options, in spite of their controversial “All Our Utilitymen’s Names Must Start With ‘Oswald’” policy. Oswald Peraza had an even worse rookie year than Volpe did in 2023, with a wRC+ of 53, and is currently sidelined with a shoulder injury. Oswaldo Cabrera spent most of last year in the outfield, but he can stand at short and hold a glove.

The big guy is all the way down here in the middle of the pack. That might not feel appropriate for Cruz, who may have the loudest all-around tools in the game, but there’s not a lot of track record to go on. After 87 games in the majors in 2022, Cruz missed almost all of 2023 with a broken ankle. (That’ll teach him to stand in front of Tyrese Maxey.) The Pirates’ short- to medium-term outlook depends heavily on Cruz staying healthy, cutting down his strikeouts, and ideally remaining at shortstop.

When Cruz isn’t on the field, the Pirates could use Peguero, who was a replacement-level performer last season and is penciled in at second base anyway. There’s also Bae, who was even worse than Peguero in his first full year in the majors.

The best backup option could be Triolo, who posted a .388 OBP in limited duty last year. Unfortunately, that came at the cost of a 30.1 K% and almost no power, and while Triolo played 54 games in the big leagues in 2023, not one of them came at shortstop.

It’s not every day a two-time All-Star signs a six-year, $140 million contract with the Red Sox, and within two seasons it’s like he’s in witness protection. Hiding in plain sight. But it’s been an unusual couple of years. The Red Sox have been terrible — they’re currently coming off back-to-back last-place finishes in the AL East — and all the focus on Boston’s infield has been elsewhere.

Plus Story’s had an absolutely brutal run of injury luck: Broken wrist, heel contusion, internal brace surgery to repair a torn UCL. (We should come up with a fun nickname for that procedure, like Timmy Jack Surgery or something.) And when on the field, Story has been disappointing, posting a .227/.287/.398 line, which is an 84 wRC+. In 137 games and 564 plate appearances for the Red Sox — which amounts to about a full season in two years — he’s hit 19 home runs and generated 2.6 WAR.

So compared to his time in Colorado, Story is walking less, striking out more, and hitting for a lower average and less power. Adjustments for park and the decline of the rocket ball take care of some of that, as does the rust that would accumulate after so many trips to the IL. But he’s got to turn it around.

I think the projections are a little conservative here because the Reds figure to fill their minutes at shortstop with a pair of second-year players. Cincinnati’s infield glut got cleared out a little when Marte tested positive for Boldenone. Expect De La Cruz to retain the position if he’s anywhere near competent. He’s got the range and arm to play shortstop and third base at the same time, though the young switch-hitter showed a terrible weakness against left-handed pitching (.143/.231/.263 in 122 plate appearances) in 2023. That and his 33.7% overall strikeout rate are the two biggest areas in need of improvement, though De La Cruz has elite speed (35 steals in just 98 games last year), and even better raw power than his .175 ISO suggests. If he can tap into that a little more, he’s the kind of all-around player who could be an All-Star even if he struck out 200 times a year.

McLain would be the starting shortstop on most other teams, but here he’s consigned to second. He was the superior performer among Cincinnati’s rookies last year, and should be able to slide over to the other side of second base if De La Cruz needs a day off or has to be shielded from certain matchups.

Finally, a genuine positional battle. The Rays have fairly stable incumbents at second and third in Brandon Lowe and Isaac Paredes, but in between they’ve got five or six players with big holes in their game. Caballero is the best defender and can draw a walk, but doesn’t have much power to speak of. Walls is a career .189 hitter who’s coming off hip surgery. Rosario can hit (sometimes), but his defense has gone through the floor. Basabe can run, and he hit well in the upper minors, but he’s inexperienced at the big league level.

Caminero is putting up minor league batted ball data that makes seasoned evaluators sound like they’re talking about Sidd Finch, but he won’t be old enough to buy his own dip until July, and he might be more of a third baseman anyway. I don’t see much potential for offense here from any of the candidates — Caminero excluded — but maybe Caballero can play good defense and score a few runs from the bottom of the order. The Rays will figure something out. They always do.

Despite the Jeterian hype around the young Peña — and to be fair, as a rookie replacing a superstar, he won a Gold Glove, hit 22 homers, and was named MVP of the ALCS and World Series — the sober light of day is a little less flattering. Peña is still an excellent defender, but his home run total dropped to 10 in 2023, with only a modest increase in batting average. He struck out less in his second year, and he almost doubled his walk rate… to 6.8%, which was 94th among qualified hitters.

Peña is now 26, with two full seasons of major league experience. Perhaps he can find a way to access the power he showed as a rookie without dropping his OBP back under .290. If not, his glove is good enough to carry the load and make him a decent everyday shortstop.

Another third-year shortstop who ought to walk more. Abrams actually showed serious improvement from his first to his second full year in the majors; as a rookie, he was sub-replacement-level in 90 games on both sides of being traded for Juan Soto. In 2023, he showed a little more power — 18 home runs — and managed to cobble together a 90 wRC+ that ought to get buffed a couple notches by his 47 stolen bases in 51 attempts. Another leap forward of that magnitude would get Abrams some down-ballot MVP consideration.

But let’s take this one step at a time. Abrams showed signs of improvement in just about every facet of hitting last year, but that’s mostly because he was coming from such a low starting point. He still chases too much and doesn’t hit the ball very hard — to such an extent that given his speed, he might be better off keeping the ball on the deck more.

Behind Abrams, Vargas is about as stereotypical a utilityman as you’ll find and Nuñez is a Rule 5 guy who’s never played above Double-A. The other man in contention for playing time is named Lipscomb and has a mustache, so the former Tennessee Volunteer is striking a powerful blow for nominative determinism. Striking a powerful blow with a baseball bat? We’ll see. Suffice it to say, Abrams will have plenty of rope to consolidate the gains he made in 2023 and take the next step.

I like what the Cardinals have done here. They’ve got one of their top prospects, Winn, in position to grab the starting job. Winn, who turns 22 this week, was terrible in a 37-game audition last year: He hit .172/.230/.238. Now, power isn’t really his strong suit anyway, and at that age, just making it to the big leagues is more of a positive indicator than slugging .238 is a negative indicator. But it’s easier to have confidence in a post-deadline call-up who hits like Seager did in 2015 than one who hit like Winn.

So St. Louis went out and got an insurance policy in the 37-year-old Crawford, who looks positively bizarre in Cardinals colors after 13 years in black and orange. He’s looking for one last go-around after hitting .194 in 94 games with the Giants last year. I’d bet against anything like a return to the form that earned him a top-five MVP finish in 2021, but Crawford is an old pro who can push Winn and provide a defensible alternative if the youngster looks well and truly lost this spring. And if both of them crash and burn, St. Louis can always move Edman back to short, or give Saggese a shot if he starts the season well in the minors.

In 2023, Arias played 10 or more games at four positions, and had the unusual distinction of splitting most of his time between shortstop and first base. It’s not every day you see a player do the full Ernie Banks in one season. If only Arias hit like Banks. Or more like Ernie Banks than Willie Banks.

In an ideal world, Rocchio, the 23-year-old Venezuelan and no. 59 prospect in baseball, will claim the job. Rocchio hasn’t shown much power in the minor leagues, but he has demonstrated the potential to become a decent contact hitter. A 23-game major league debut in 2023 went pretty poorly, as Rocchio hit an empty .247 and struck out 27 times in 86 plate appearances, but it’s not like Cleveland has anyone else in or near the majors who can play shortstop everyday and hit.

I have no idea what to make of Perdomo, who took a massive step forward offensively in 2023. He added 51 points to his batting average and walked 12.9% of the time, which was enough for an All-Star nod and a 99 wRC+. And yet, he still hit under .250 with almost no power. Perdomo has led the majors in sacrifice bunts two years running, for those of you who are interested in such things.

Arizona has enough going on elsewhere in the lineup to be able to live with Perdomo’s steady defense and token offensive contributions from the no. 9 hole. But the Diamondbacks also have a potential All-Star shortstop, Lawlar, on the verge of major league readiness.

The projections are a little light on Arizona here because of the untrustworthiness inherent in rookies and Perdomo’s high-wire act at the plate. But I see two players with the potential to be at least average starters at shortstop, one of them with the potential for way more, plus a ton of big league depth in Peterson and Andrus, and a guy named Blaze to boot. This is way better than a bottom-quarter-of-the-league shortstop situation.

Since coming to Atlanta, Arcia has realized the one-in-a-thousand chance that gets every optimist in trouble: He’s the lifelong glove-first shortstop who learned how to hit in his late 20s. Arcia had the best all-around season of his career in 2023, a 2.3 WAR campaign with 17 home runs despite one of the highest groundball rates in the league. Even though Arcia made the All-Star team last year, this is one of Atlanta’s weaker positions, which probably has something to do with why the Braves won 104 games in 2023 and are projected to be four wins better than the Dodgers and 13 wins better than any other NL team this year.

But if the Braves don’t continue to get competent two-way shortstop play from Arcia — or if Arcia’s banged-up hand turns into more than an annoyance — they don’t have a lot of depth to call on. Guillorme and Fletcher are the nominal backups, but neither is really a true shortstop at this point and both are at least a year removed from their days as positive offensive contributors.

The A’s are built like a team that resents being perceived before the new ballpark in Las Vegas is ready. And while there are a few spots where the A’s are promising, or at least interesting, shortstop isn’t really one of them. Allen was just bad last year. He had a 60 wRC+ in 326 plate appearances in 2022, and a 55 wRC+ in 329 plate appearances in 2023. And even though Oakland could probably improve that position by offering a cheap major league contract to any free agent infielder, Allen is set for a third go-around.

The slightly more interesting candidate for the position is the rookie Hernaiz, who was a acquired from Baltimore a year ago in the Cole Irvin trade. (The Orioles have so many young shortstops, they’re just subsidizing the rest of the league at this point.) Hernaiz hit .321 across Double- and Triple-A last season. There wasn’t a lot of power (just nine home runs in 131 games), but any shortstop with a batting average that high is almost definitionally a useful player. He’s got a golden opportunity to make this job his.

If last year was an aberration for Anderson, the Marlins will end up with one of the steals of the offseason: A veteran leader who could team up with Luis Arraez to form a dynamite contact-hitting double play combination. To say nothing of Jazz Chisholm Jr., Josh Bell, and Jake Burger.

But last year was hard to ignore. In 123 games, Anderson saw his batting average drop from .301 to .245, to go along with some of the worst secondary numbers you’ll ever see: a 5.0% walk rate and a .051 ISO. The upside is big, but the most likely outcome might be Jean Segura Redux: An elite contact hitter puts on a Marlins uniform right as his hit tool disappears in his early 30s. If Anderson’s time in Miami goes as badly as Segura’s, the Marlins have built an entire bench of fast multipositional guys in Berti, Gordon, and Bruján. I don’t know if I’d want any of those bats in the lineup or gloves at shortstop every day, but you could do worse.

When Tovar started on Opening Day last year, he was 21 years old, with nine games of major league experience and just 80 games played, total, above A-ball. And he was overmatched at the plate. Even playing half his games at Coors Field, Tovar hit .253/.287/.408, which is a wRC+ of just 70. The 15 home runs aren’t bad, especially because more than half of them came on the road. But Tovar had the third-highest O-Swing% in the league last year, and all of his offensive struggles are kind of downstream of his proclivity for swinging at everything.

Which is a pity, because he’s an absolutely stupendous defender — the metrics had him a hair behind Swanson in 2023. If he learns even a little plate discipline, and provides any offensive value whatsoever, he could be a really good player and not just Gen-Z’s Freddy Galvis. But elite defenders who hit like pitchers are Colorado’s style. The Rockies won’t rest until there’s a Brenton Doyle at every up-the-middle position.

It wasn’t that long ago that DeJong combined 30-homer power with Gold Glove defense at short. But while the glove still plays, the bat looks pretty shot. He hasn’t posted a wRC+ over 70 since 2021, hasn’t gone over 90 since 2019. Which, I guess, is how he’s on his fourth team in eight months.

Montgomery is the wild card. The no. 13 overall prospect in baseball, he has the potential to become an offensive force, with rare patience and power from the left side. But even though he just turned 22, he’s only played 51 games above A-ball, and none above Double-A. He might be too raw for the majors now, and he might already be too big for shortstop ever, though that’s where he’s played throughout the minors. But it’s not like the White Sox have many better options. Might as well try.

Speaking of those options, Chicago has the fruits of the Aaron Bummer trade, with Lopez and Shewmake fresh off the plane from Atlanta. Lopez is currently penciled in to start at second, and Shewmake, who is currently on the shelf with an ankle injury, is a better fit there defensively, if he hits enough to stick in the majors at all.

I was a little rough on Trevor Story a few capsules back, so let me say this: At least things are going better for him than Báez, who signed a six-year, $140 million contract of his own the same offseason as Story. The now-31-year-old has hit .230/.273/.361 over 280 games in a Tigers uniform, though his glove has remained strong even as the bat has deserted him. A renaissance would be most welcome as Detroit tries to push back to playoff contention, but don’t hold your breath.

The Tigers’ pipeline doesn’t currently have a shortstop prospect comparable to Colt Keith at second, so Báez is probably going to get another 500 to 600 plate appearances this year. The rest of the reps are likely to go to the positionally flexible McKinstry, and maybe Urshela when he’s not needed elsewhere on the infield.

If Brandon Crawford is in the lead for the title of “Guy who looks weirdest in his new uniform,” his replacement is not far behind. Nick Ahmed spent 10 seasons in Arizona, where he won two Gold Gloves and occasionally posted OBPs over .280. Now he’s in Giants camp as a non-roster invite and is arguably the favorite to start at shortstop on Opening Day.

Ahmed is in competition with Luciano, who hit .233/.333/.308 with 17 strikeouts in 45 plate appearances in his first major league action. The 22-year-old is one of San Francisco’s top prospects, and he posted impressive walk rates and decent power numbers (55 homers in 292 minor league games) for a shortstop.

Luciano’s stock has started to drop in the past year and change, and he’s had a dreadful spring to this point (he’s slugging .179), which has reportedly given Ahmed the edge in the race for the starting shortstop job. Not ideal for the youngster, or for the team that’s relying on him.