The 2026 Replacement-Level Killers: Shortstop & Third Base

Today, it’s another Killers two-fer, covering the left side of the infield. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of a contender (Playoff Odds of at least 10%, a criterion that 22 of the 30 teams meet) and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot merits a closer a look. All statistics are through July 12.

Red Sox

Four and a half seasons into his six-year, $140 million deal, Trevor Story’s Red Sox tenure has been a disaster, as injuries have limited him to 361 games — less than 49% of those played by the team during that span — and 6.1 WAR. Last season was his first time exceeding 94 games with Boston. Hampered since spring training by what had previously been characterized as a right groin injury, he hit .206/.244/.303 (46 wRC+) with -0.5 WAR in 41 games before undergoing surgery to repair a sports hernia in late May. In early June, he relayed the expectation of an eight-to-12-week absence, bracketing his return between right after the All-Star break and mid-August. As of June 28, he was partaking in full baseball activities, so the hope is he can begin a rehab assignment soon, and at least approximate his typical league-average-offense-with-plus-defense form once he returns.

That can’t come a moment too soon, because Boston’s infield has been particularly depleted by injuries. Both Marcelo Mayer, who moved over from second base to shortstop when Story went down, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who did the bulk of the second base work after that shift, have been sidelined by stress reactions in their left ulnas, and neither has a clear timeline for return. Mayer has hit just .220/.282/.312 (63 wRC+), while Kiner-Falefa has hit .277/.344/.361 (97 wRC+). Tsung-Che Cheng, a lefty-swinging 24-year-old rookie from Taiwan, has been sharing the job with righty Andruw Monasterio since Meyer went down. Both have been reasonably productive during the 14-2 surge that has carried the Red Sox (46-48) back into contention, but regression looms just around the corner, and for all of his injury woes, Story’s ceiling is still much higher.

Phillies

During the highly entertaining Dave Dombrowski era, the Phillies have placed more than their fair share of players on my Killers lists, often due to the team’s laissez-faire attitude toward defense. Nonetheless, unless you read my recent look at the worst defenses among contenders, you may be surprised to find two-time batting champion and three-time All-Star Trea Turner here due to his collapse on both sides of the ball. The 33-year-old shortstop has alternated slightly below-average months with some even worse ones (including a 62 wRC+ in July). He is hitting .236/.284/.355 on the season, and his 74 wRC+ is the ninth-lowest mark among qualifiers in both leagues, though he has company within today’s installment. His 35.4% chase rate is a career high, up 4.3 percentage points from last season, while his 11.8% pulled-air rate is a career low, down 4.1 points from last year and 6.1 points from 2024. He’s been getting eaten alive by sliders, sweepers, and changeups, with batting averages below .200, slugging percentages below .260, and whiff rates above 38% against all three pitch types. On the defensive side, he ranks last at the position with -9 DRS while being tied for fourth worst with -6 FRV.

Turner’s uncharacteristically bad performance raises the possibility that he’s playing through an injury, but at best there are only vague hints. He left games on June 15 and 18 after being hit by pitches, sustaining a right wrist contusion from the former and sitting out a game, then suffering and a right calf contusion from the latter. Neither of those explains his season-long woes, but when interim manager Don Mattingly gave him a day off on July 8, he described Turner as “a little banged up, lower half.” Turner is signed through the 2033 season, so he’s not going anywhere except maybe to second base, a position where he dabbled for stretches with the Nationals and Dodgers. Under that scenario, the Phillies would have to decide to trade Bryson Stott, something I haven’t seen anyone suggest is a real possibility at this juncture. As the rest of this series will demonstrate, they have other problems that are more easily addressed.

Twins

With players such as Ryan Jeffers (a pending free agent) and Joe Ryan (who has a mutual option that he’ll likely decline, but still one more year of club control) generating widespread interest, the Twins have generally been classified as likely deadline sellers rather than contenders, but at 48-49, they’re tied for the third AL Wild Card spot, with 34.5% Playoff Odds. If they’re looking to contend, upgrading at shortstop should be on the agenda. The team began the season with Brooks Lee as the starter, but he struggled both offensively and defensively before shifting to third base — where he’s done a much better job — in late May. That could put Royce Lewis, who has started to recover his stroke while playing first base, into play as somebody else’s change-of-scenery candidate at third.

Since Lee’s move, Tristan Gray and Ryan Kreidler have shared shortstop duties while getting the most exposure of their brief major league careers. Gray, a lefty-swinging 30-year-old utilityman, is not only batting just .235/.274/.337 (68 wRC+), but is also seven runs below average according to both DRS and FRV. Kreidler, a righty-swinging 28-year-old who has largely split his time between shortstop and center field, is hitting a healthier .248/.317/.426 (107 wRC+) overall, with a 144 wRC+ in 68 plate appearances while covering shortstop. While he merits a longer look at one position or another (he’s also spotted at third and in left), a contention-minded Twins team ought to raise the floor here in case the league catches up.

Brewers

Moving Joey Ortiz from third base to shortstop landed the Brewers on this list last year, and on the offensive side, things haven’t improved. His current 68 wRC+ (.225/.291/.305) is just a point higher than it was last season. Now both he and David Hamilton, with whom he shared time at shortstop, are covering third base because in mid-June, the team promoted 21-year-old Cooper Pratt, its sixth-round pick out of a Mississippi high school in 2023, after just 58 games at Triple-A Nashville. Such is the Brewers’ faith in Pratt that they signed him to an eight-year, $50.75 million extension in late March.

Though he made other outlets’ Top 100 Prospects lists, Pratt missed that of FanGraphs, grading out as a 45-FV prospect here, as a solid defender at shortstop with above-average contact ability but less power than his 6-foot-4, 210-pound frame suggests. So far, he’s been a substantial upgrade, hitting .257/.360/.324 (97 wRC+) with 4 DRS and 1 FRV in 24 games. Given the Brewers’ long-term investment, I’d expect they’ll stick with him rather than seek an upgrade from outside.

Rays

Taylor Walls is an exceptional fielder and an exceptionally bad hitter. He’s put up 65 DRS in just 425 games at shortstop since the start of 2021 (tops by 26 runs in that span) but just a 70 wRC+ in 1,827 plate appearances (the majors’ third-worst mark among players with at least 1,500 plate appearances). This year has been more of the same. His 13 DRS leads all shortstops by five runs, though he has -1 FRV (he’s been slightly below average by that metric over the 2021–26 span), and meanwhile, he’s hitting just .213/.310/.280 (70 wRC+), a combination that has netted him a modest 0.4 WAR. Strong hitting by Ben Williamson (157 wRC+ and 0.6 WAR in just 53 plate appearances) in spot duty has outdone that, but it’s been offset almost completely by the struggles of Carson Williams and Oliver Dunn in even smaller slices of playing time.

The 23-year-old Williams is a legitimate prospect, a 2021 first-round pick who placed 28th on our Top 100 list as a 55-FV prospect in the spring but has since been downgraded to a 50 FV (no. 101 on The Board). He profiles as a Gold Glove-caliber defender with good raw power but significant contact issues; he’s struck out in 33% of his 762 plate appearances at Triple-A since the start of 2023 and at a 39.6% clip in 139 major league plate appearances in 2025–26. When Walls and Williamson were each sidelined briefly due to injuries, Williams spent two stretches with the Rays this year, but hit just .100/.156/.133 in 33 plate appearances — not a great advertisement for more playing time, but the team figures to test him again at some point.

Marlins

With a major league-best 26-11 record since the start of June, the Marlins are now seven games above .500 (52-45) and sitting in the third NL Wild Card spot. Nonetheless, third base is a trouble spot for them, as the 55 wRC+ produced by Javier Sanoja, Graham Pauley, Leo Jiménez, and Connor Norby is lower than that of any other contender at any non-catcher position. Sanoja has gotten the most time there with 45 starts, in addition to two starts at second and 10 spread across all three outfield spots. Overall, he’s hitting a solid .272/.313/.404 (95 wRC+) while striking out just 8.6% of the time, less often than any player with at least 200 plate appearances besides Luis Arraez and Nico Hoerner, but in his time at third base, he’s managed just a 75 wRC+ in 181 plate appearances. Lately he’s been sharing the job with Jiménez, who has hit .215/.309/.308 (75 wRC+) overall, albeit with just a 50 wRC+ in 74 plate appearances while playing third. Norby and Pauley have been even less productive while manning the hot corner; both were optioned to Triple-A Jacksonville late last month.

The four aforementioned players are all fairly young — Norby is 26, Sanoja 23, and the other two 25 — and as prospects graded out as either 40-FV or 45-FV types, with some value as role players. With better luck, the Marlins might cobble together a decent timeshare (though only Pauley swings from the left side), but as that hasn’t happened, they need real help. The Twins’ Lewis could provide a real upgrade here.

Mariners

With Eugenio Suárez departing via free agency, the Mariners traded for the versatile Brendan Donovan in early February, planning for him to man third base, and when he’s been available, he’s hit a robust .274/.386/.452 (145 wRC+) with three home runs. However, he’s struggled defensively in what little time he’s spent there (-2 DRS and -4 FRV in 191 2/3 innings) between trips to the injured list for groin strains in mid-April and mid-May. In his absence, the team has started eight other players at third, with Leo Rivas, J.P. Crawford, and Colt Emerson accounting for 15 to 22 starts apiece between them. Rivas hit a godawful .131/.263/.172 (39 wRC+) in 120 plate appearances — a performance that helped drag the Mariners into Killers territory — but is now back in Triple-A, while Crawford has shifted over from shortstop to accommodate the arrival of Emerson, a 20-year-old, 55-FV prospect whom the team signed to an eight-year, $95 million extension just after Opening Day. Crawford has hit .218/.334/.359 (107 wRC+) and played much better defense at third base than at shortstop, while Emerson has tried to find his footing. The rookie’s 92 wRC+ is respectable, even if his .201/.275/.396 line itself is rather ugly, particularly given a 34.4% strikeout rate and a 10-for-65 slump since June 17.

The hope was that Donovan would begin a rehab assignment in the Arizona Complex League during the All-Star break, but so far, that hasn’t happened. Barring a setback, he should return at some point this month, giving the Mariners some flexibility, particularly if they want to give Emerson a Triple-A reset. If the rookie comes around, that might put Crawford, a pending free agent, into play as a trade candidate at either short or third.

Cardinals

In an effort to keep the number of players named Nolan in their lineup constant, after trading Nolan Arenado to the Diamondbacks in January, the Cardinals began the season with Nolan Gorman sharing time at third base with Ramón Urías. It didn’t go well; Gorman hit just .194/.279/.318 with seven homers, a 32.3% strikeout rate, and -0.3 WAR before being optioned in mid-June, first to spend almost two weeks at their spring training complex in Jupiter, Florida reworking his swing. Things haven’t clicked. He’s hit .121/.311/.293 with a 41.9% strikeout rate in 74 plate appearances at Triple-A Memphis. Urías didn’t hit a lick for St. Louis before landing on the IL with a bout of tennis elbow on the same day Gorman was sent down. Since their departures, the team has gone with Blaze Jordan, a 23-year-old, 40-FV rookie, and José Fermín, a 27-year-old veteran utilityman. The former has hit just .237/.253/.355 (62 wRC+), the latter a respectable .259/.310/.392 (96 wRC+) — though he’s well ahead of his expected stats. At 50-45 and one game out of a Wild Card spot, this is a team that entered the season as presumptive sellers but must now reckon with its opportunity to snag a playoff spot. Still, I’d expect a conservative approach as the Cardinals continue to cycle through internal options.

Phillies

Unlike Turner, Alec Bohm is a regular at RLK Central, having made these lists in 2022 and ’23 and drawing mention in passing last year. This year, he’s returned on his own merits, hitting just .215/.278/.354 (73 wRC+, seventh lowest among qualifiers in either league) and slipping back into true liability territory defensively (-6 DRS, -5 FRV) after years of battling the position to a bloody draw. His performance against breaking pitches has eroded, from a .308 average and .521 slugging against them in 2024, to a .272 average and a .370 slugging last year, and now to .154 and .242. Meanwhile, his performance against four-seamers has collapsed from a .322 average and a .409 slugging last season to respective marks of .196 and .351 this year.

Bohm is a pending free agent, making this an area that Dombrowski can more easily address as the deadline approaches. Given the dearth of higher-end options — the Giants’ Matt Chapman doesn’t seem likely to waive his no-trade clause — Bohm may be a change-of-scenery candidate for another team here.

Braves

From 2021–23, Austin Riley totaled more home runs (108) than any other third baseman and more WAR (17.0) than all but one, future Hall of Famer José Ramírez. Since the start of 2024, however, Riley’s production has gone downhill, and while he hasn’t missed time this season due to injuries, as in 2024 (a fractured right hand) or ’25 (a recurrent oblique strain), his .207/.288/.329 (73 wRC+) hardly hints at what a force he used to be. His 32.4% chase rate is his highest since 2020, while his 29.4% strikeout rate is his highest since ’19, his rookie season. He’s in the midst of his third straight season with a slugging percentage of .362 or lower against four-seamers; he’s currently hitting .211 and slugging .321 against them with a 33.5% whiff rate. That might be manageable if he weren’t hitting .190 and slugging .257 with a 36.5% whiff rate against breaking balls or hitting .159 and slugging .227 with a 40% whiff rate against offspeed pitches. Yikes. All of that is particularly ominous given that Riley is the team’s highest-paid player, signed through 2032, but it likely means the Braves will keep hoping he can hit his way out of his current miseries.

Yankees

In late July of last season, the Yankees cobbled together a third base platoon of Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario from a pair of trades. Even with the latter limited by a shoulder injury, the moves allowed them to shift Jazz Chisholm Jr. back to second base and provided a substantial upgrade to their defense, if not their offense. A year later, the third base tandem isn’t working so well. McMahon is hitting just .214/.277/.379 (83 wRC+) with average-ish defense, Rosario .238/.285/.457 (102 wRC+) with dreadful defense (-4 DRS, -6 FRV in just 226 innings). If the Yankees had Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton raking as they did last year, they could probably maintain the status quo, but both sluggers are on the IL and at least a few weeks away from returning. The team has made no secret of its desire to upgrade its catching, but landing a better third baseman who can provide some offense ought to be a priority, too.