2025 Positional Power Rankings: Shortstop

The Royals and Bobby Witt Jr. experienced a scare last week when Witt took a fastball off the forearm, but fortunately he walked away from the plunking with just a contusion, which should mean minimal time missed for the Royals’ crown prince. Though Salvador Perez remains the club’s veteran leader, Witt is the clear successor to the throne, as the Royals committed more than double the years and money to Witt than they had to any other player in team history. The 24-year-old’s reign has started strong. In the year after signing his long-term deal, Witt posted 10.4 WAR and placed second in AL MVP voting.

Witt has improved in each of his first three seasons as a big leaguer, but in 2024, he made the leap to elite. His wRC+ shot up to 168, compared to 114 in 2023. He walked more. He struck out less. He hit for more power without sacrificing contact. He did it all. Such a large step forward, paired with a 60-point bump to his BABIP, might suggest some flukiness factored into Witt’s 2024 campaign. If that were the case, Witt’s expected stats might cast a cynical glance at his actual numbers; instead, they align almost perfectly (BA: .332, xBA: .315, SLG: .588, xSLG: .577, wOBA: .410, xwOBA: .407). Further, he hit the ball harder, increased his barrel rate, and dramatically improved his performance against sinkers and sliders — pitches he struggled with in his first two seasons. In the field, Witt is an above-average defender, ranking third among shortstops in fielding runs in 2024, and continuing his pattern of year-over-year improvement.

The Royals backup plan is Maikel Garcia, but everyone involved has to be hoping that Garcia only sees time at short when Witt needs a day off. Which is not to slight Garcia. Bobby Witt Jr. rules, his team deserves to sit atop this ranking regardless of who else they have in the fold, and the Royals were right to make Witt the long-term face of their franchise.

Typically, a fourth-place MVP finish is the result of a near-peak performance, but based on the numbers and his trajectory so far, there’s reason to believe 23-year-old Gunnar Henderson might levitate even higher before finding his ceiling. Currently, Henderson risks missing Opening Day due to an intercostal strain sustained while making a leaping grab in the field in late February. He resumed hitting last week and isn’t expected to miss much time, even if he’s unavailable for Baltimore’s opener in Toronto.

In 2024, Henderson continued to build on his past performance. He added 25-40 points to each component of his slash line while working more walks and striking out less. But a look at Henderson’s batted-ball and swing metrics reveals a hitter still settling into both his swing and his approach. His average launch angle came down a couple of degrees last year compared to 2023, leading to more groundballs and line drives. Typically that would result in a downturn in production, but Henderson made it work with his speed and an improved tendency to spray the ball to all fields. Additionally, he leveled up his swing decisions, as well as his ability to hit sinkers and breaking pitches, though he continued to struggle with borderline strikes, particularly on the inside black.

If Henderson can maintain the strides he made last year while getting under the ball as he has in prior seasons, he could outpace the 8.0 WAR mark he set in 2024. That goal becomes even more likely if he enhances his work with the glove. In his first full season at short, he graded out as an average defender, buoyed by his 88th-percentile arm strength and overall athleticism. Continued development of his softer skills at the position represents another viable upgrade to his game.

In the event Henderson does miss time or needs a day off, some combination of Jorge Mateo, Jackson Holliday, and Livan Soto will fill-in. Mateo is a capable defender but doesn’t offer much on offense. Assuming he can bounce back after a rough debut last year, Holliday will ideally serve as the team’s starting second baseman and won’t see much time at short. Soto is a fringy big leaguer who offers a solid glove and the roster flexibility of a minor league option.

We’ve seen this film from the Dodgers before, but they’re hoping for a different ending this time around. The offensive prowess of Mookie Betts is well established at this point. You can safely pencil him in for a wRC+ of 140 or higher every year, which is largely why the Dodgers merit a third place ranking here. Defensively, Betts was a negative contributor at shortstop last season, but he logged just 531 innings at the position before a hand fracture sidelined him for two months, and when he returned in August, the Dodgers needed him more in right field than at short. And given that Betts seems to be one of those obnoxious people (complimentary) who is good at everything they attempt, it’s too early to definitively say he can’t be a productive defender at short (though he’ll have to wait a little while to get going – he missed the Tokyo Series with an illness).

If one possible ending is Betts undergoing a makeover montage and emerging as a replacement-level defender, the alternate ending is something more akin to 2024, where Miguel Rojas was forced into more regular service and Tommy Edman filled in the remaining gaps. There’s no telling how we arrive at that ending, since any combination of injury or underperformance at any position on the roster could upend the entire thing and lead to Betts playing first and Freddie Freeman catching for some reason. But it should all be fine; Rojas managed an average performance at the plate last year and ranked seventh in OAA at shortstop despite only logging 596 innings. Then there’s Edman as the backup to the backup; he’s also a roughly average hitter and a reliable defender, as long as he’s not already occupied playing center field.

Whatever strange narrative the Dodgers are crafting is sure to be compelling, and it just might be wild enough to work.

Francisco Lindor hasn’t been the most consistent performer since joining the Mets in 2021, but if you’re forced to deal with inconsistency, his is the preferred type. The type kind where even his down years (or those with pronounced slumps) come out above average when all is said and done. In 2021 — his worst offensive season — he posted a 101 wRC+, but still played stellar defense. In 2022 and 2023, his offense rebounded to a wRC+ around 120, while his defensive numbers slid a little, slotting him closer to 10th among his peers at the position rather than his usual ranking in the top three. And in 2024, we saw near full-strength Lindor, providing optimism for his 2025 season.

But even within his good years, Lindor’s output fluctuates. He seems particularly susceptible to bad batted-ball luck. During down times, his expected stats consistently outpace his actual numbers. But expected stats don’t consider spray angle, and Lindor is at his best when he’s pulling the ball at a healthy clip, particularly in the air. No matter what his spray chart looks like, the Mets are all but guaranteed solid production from Lindor, so long as the back injury from late last season doesn’t recur the way back injuries so often do.

To the extent that any back injury has an upside, Lindor’s made way for Luisangel Acuña to make his big league debut. The then 22-year-old posted a 166 wRC+ in an admittedly small sample (40 PA) and amassed 3 OAA in just 89.2 innings at short. Acuña is poised to serve as the next man up for both middle infield positions, though if multiple injuries befall the Mets’ infielders, Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty may wind up in the mix at short as well.

The Rangers topped this list last year, but their slide to fifth isn’t because their outlook at the position has gotten worse so much as the teams in front of them are experiencing the ascendance of young superstars, or are seeing perennial MVP candidates return to form or change positions. Corey Seager wasn’t quite the sparkling performer in 2024 that he was in 2023, but he still had a very Corey Seager-like season, posting a 140 wRC+, landing in the top 10 defensively at shortstop, and missing multiple weeks of the season due to injury.

Heading into his age-31 season, it’s reasonable to expect his Corey Seager-ness to continue for a few more years, but it’s worth noting that Seager lost almost a full foot per second off his sprint speed last year. Seager has never been a burner on the basepaths, but he now sits in the bottom 10% of the league, and a huge chunk of his dip in performance from 2023 to 2024 is attributable to hitting just 21 doubles compared to 42 in roughly the same number of plate appearances. He’s holding at first more and beating the throw to first less (his time to first dropped from 4.67 seconds to 4.76 seconds). Maybe it was just a World Series hangover, but if his speed doesn’t return, it could be an early harbinger of decline.

Should Seager miss time, his primary backup is Josh Smith, who saw a decent chunk of playing time at third last year while covering for Josh Jung during the first three months of the season. In his first full season of playing time, Smith was good for a slightly above-average offensive showing, and though he’s certainly a downgrade defensively relative to Seager, he’s not a liability.

The top two names on the depth chart haven’t changed relative to last season, but the Reds jump from 17th to sixth in these rankings following the leap Elly De La Cruz made on both sides of the ball in 2024. The projections had De La Cruz hitting for a bit more power than he did in 2023, but they remained very skeptical of his baserunning and defense. What he did instead was hit for more contact and more power, provide top-five defensive value, and steal 67 bases. What he didn’t do was lower his strikeout rate in any meaningful way (31.3% in 2024 compared to 33.7% in 2023), though maybe he’s saving that for this year. But though he swung and missed a bit more, he put the ball on the ground less, boosted his barrel rate from 8.5% to 12.7%, and used the opposite field more. On defense, De La Cruz added to what he can do with his 90th-percentile arm strength by improving his range, particularly when coming in on the ball and when moving to his right.

With De La Cruz now firmly established at shortstop, Matt McLain will primarily play second, but should De La Cruz miss time, McLain, who came up as a shortstop and played over 50 games there in 2023, is more than capable of filling in, with the newly acquired Gavin Lux covering for him at second.

The Phillies are running it back almost across the board, and the shortstop position is no exception. After Trea Turner’s slow start to 2023, the team likely assumed he was due for a bit of positive regression in 2024, but what they got was a season with an eerily similar stat line to the one before and the spooky notion that the six- or seven-win player they thought they signed might be gone for good. But Turner likely would have reached 5.0 WAR had he not missed over a month with a hamstring strain, so the positive regression was there in his performance, if not his health. And batting leadoff this year may further recoup some of his missing value by getting him extra plate appearances and some clean stolen base opportunities without Kyle Schwarber clogging up the basepaths in front of him. If he can get under the ball a bit more and undo last year’s 7% spike in groundball rate, that’ll help too.

Just like last year, Edmundo Sosa is on the roster as a defense-first infield backup; he’s been good for 3.0 WAR in that role over the last two seasons.

Projecting Carlos Correa for 518 plate appearances doesn’t necessarily feel incorrect, but it does seem fairly optimistic. The error bars around that number probably span half of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. So it’s surprising and concerning that the Twins are relying on Brooks Lee, who is likely to see a decent chunk of playing time at second base, and Willi Castro, who is also first in line to take over for the oft-injured Royce Lewis at third and Trevor Larnach in left. As a result, a healthy Correa is likely the Twins’ only path to contention this year, because if any two starting position players are injured at the same time, Minnesota is suddenly fishing on very thin ice.

When on the field last year, Correa performed near his peak, striking out a career-low 16.6% of the time and posting a career-high 155 wRC+. His range on defense has started to shrink, as he has lost a step over time, but he’s still providing positive value in the field. If his name winds up on the lineup card for 120 games or more, the Twins might be able to hang with the rest of the AL Central; if not, they might finish fourth in the division. Which says a lot about both Carlos Correa and the Minnesota Twins.

Like Corey Seager, Dansby Swanson experienced a notable dip in his sprint speed last year, but he also sprained his right knee in May, so don’t start engraving his tombstone, or consider de-throning him as the league’s best defensive shortstop, just yet. Though the injury didn’t seem to inhibit him much on the basepaths (where even the slower version of Swanson is still much faster than most baserunners), the knee did seem to impact his ability to move laterally to his right on defense. With a full offseason of recovery, a return to peak defensive form is likely in order.

Swanson’s offense dances around a bit, in step with his batted-ball luck, but he hovers right around average. His luck improves when he puts the ball on the ground less and uses all fields. He rolled over balls more than usual last year, so if he can make better use of his lower half to drive the ball in the air, his outlook for 2025 may be sunnier than it appears at first glance. But even if the injury played no part in his performance whatsoever, Swanson’s floor is still a league-average hitter with elite defense, and when it comes to a premium position like shortstop, most teams would sign up for that kind of production in blood.

Since Swanson is typically good for at least 145 games per year, his backups shouldn’t need to spring into action very often, but Jon Berti is a reasonable stand-in for Swanson in the batter’s box, and while no one can match his prowess in the field, Berti won’t have Swanson cringing in discomfort while watching from the dugout.

The Giants ranked dead last on this list last year, and all it took to vault up to the 10th spot was cutting a $182 million check to Willy Adames. Considering the depth chart at this position used to be a rat’s nest of six players projected to scrape together just 1.3 WAR between them, Giants manager Bob Melvin must feel 50 pounds lighter knowing he can simply pencil Adames into the lineup every day.

After a bit of an offensive blip in 2023, where Adames chased a few too many pitches and perhaps got a bit pull-happy, he bounced back in 2024, finding a more consistent and slightly shorter swing. Tightening up his swing and approach brought his stat line back into alignment with his expected stats, which remained strong even when the results weren’t there at the plate. When he’s right, Adames is a moderately above-average hitter with a wRC+ between 110 and 120. In the eyes of the defensive metrics, his performance has fluctuated over the years, but it has been neutral to very good over the past three seasons. Adames provides San Francisco with much needed stability at the position, and offers a veteran presence to his new double play partner, Tyler Fitzgerald, who is entering just his second big league season.

The Giants have Brett Wisely in the fold to spell Adames as needed, but Adames is their guy for the foreseeable future.

The Athletics moved all the way up from the no. 25 spot on last year’s rankings thanks to Jacob Wilson. Selected sixth overall in the 2023 draft, Wilson debuted in July, but was sidelined almost immediately by a hamstring strain; he took over as the starting shortstop upon returning from the IL in late August. Those first 27 games don’t jump off the stat sheet, but his prospect report describes him as a “bat-to-ball savant who plays acrobatic defense to make up for his lack of range.” Wilson is still in the process of training his eye to track and time major-league quality pitching, and when he does, those bat-to-ball skills should self-actualize.

Given their current phase of roster development, the A’s are right to call up their top prospects and give them regular playing time to finish cooking at the big league level. If it doesn’t work, they have plenty of time to course correct, but this approach also gives their young players the best chance to put it together. In the event a course correction is needed, the team playing in Sacramento has another precocious infielder waiting in the wings. Darell Hernaiz has a longer swing and lower ceiling than Wilson, but the A’s gave him a long look last year as well, and he figures to factor into their plans as an infield backup while the team figures out if he can stick in the lineup.

The Blue Jays’ depth chart at short looks roughly the same as it did last year, but they’ve slid five positions down the rankings, following a season in which Bo Bichette appeared in just 81 games due to a twice-strained right calf and a fractured finger. Bichette had a slow offensive start to the season, and was just starting to get rolling in May when the plague of injuries descended upon him. A recurring soft tissue injury isn’t what any team wants for a player they’ve been dreaming on since drafting him in 2016, and the projection systems aren’t fond of them either. But there’s nothing to suggest a healthy Bichette can’t get back to reaching base 33% of the time and hitting 20-25 homers, all while playing decent defense. If he does, he’ll either contribute to a fun (likely) last ride with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or position himself to get traded to a contender.

When he’s not playing third, Ernie Clement, who came up as a shortstop, can capably slide over to cover for Bichette on rest days. If Bichette is traded, the Blue Jays would likely look to Leo Jiménez, a 23-year-old Panamanian shortstop known for his bat-to-ball skills and solid enough defense. Jiménez debuted last year, primarily to fill in while Bichette was out, and put up respectable numbers in his first 210 plate appearances in the bigs.

The Yankees once again enter the season with Anthony Volpe, Oswald Peraza, and Oswaldo Cabrera slated to cover innings at shortstop. But with two full seasons at the position, it’s clearer than ever that Volpe is QB1. In year two, Volpe did not progress on offense the way the team was surely hoping he would. Though he started 2024 strong, by season’s end, his overall production was roughly the same as in 2023. And though he hit for a higher average, his bat slowed and his contact quality diminished, leading to more groundballs and less power. However, Volpe did see progress in the field, amassing 15 OAA (fourth most among shortstops), compared to just 1 OAA the year prior. Volpe is entering his age-24 season, so there’s still time for him to figure things out at the plate and determine the right combination of contact and power.

Since Cabrera is slated to see playing time at third due to the uncertainty around DJ LeMahieu’s health and productivity, Peraza is next in the Yankees’ shortstop line of succession. One of these years Peraza might get enough consistent playing time in the majors to determine whether or not he can hang, but his odds aren’t looking good this season.

After an injury-addled 2023, Zach Neto spent 2024 announcing himself to the world as an everyday starting shortstop. The announcement would have carried farther if he weren’t on the Angels, but that’s not his fault. Unfortunately, Neto’s season ended with shoulder surgery in November. He’s still recovering from the procedure, and though he has resumed throwing and taking batting practice, his 2025 debut will have to wait until later in April. In the meantime, Kevin Newman or Tim Anderson are the most likely options to start on Opening Day. Anderson has struggled to make anything happen at the plate the last couple of years, but he has the type of pedigree that teams just can’t quit. Newman has the higher floor, but the Angels might decide to be the latest team to look at Anderson and think, “I can fix him.”

When Neto returns, he’ll be looking to build on a season in which he slashed .249/.318/.443 for a 114 wRC+. Assuming full health once he joins the active roster, he’ll be tasked with making the usual sophomore adjustments — better results on breaking balls, using the opposite field more, and improving his range on defense, particularly coming in on groundballs. He’s not the most likely candidate for an ascendant season à la Witt or Henderson, but it’s less farfetched than Mike Trout appearing in 140 games.

The Padres lost their 2024 starting shortstop to free agency, forcing a move down the depth chart, and yet, San Diego’s overall WAR projection at the position remains functionally unchanged. Their bold strategy this year is letting Xander Bogaerts return to the position he handled capably for the first 10 years of his career. The Padres glut of shortstops moved Bogaerts to second last year, where he played well defensively, but struggled uncharacteristically at the plate. There’s no way to know whether getting comfortable in a new position pulled his focus away from hitting, but the team probably hopes that moving Bogaerts back into his comfort zone will revitalize his bat. And given that nothing much changed in his underlying offensive metrics, the projections seem to agree that last season was more likely a one-off than the start of a downward trend.

Because the Padres can’t help themselves, they added another former shortstop to their infield mix in Jose Iglesias, who along with Tyler Wade will provide coverage as needed if Bogaerts is out. The projections here give precedence to Wade, since Iglesias is on a minor league deal, but if Iglesias looks like even 80% of the player he was for the Mets last season, he should easily leapfrog Wade on the depth chart.

Last year, the Cardinals brought in Brandon Crawford as a hedge in case Masyn Winn fell on his face after a shaky debut in 2023. If there’s hedging in St. Louis this year, it will be because the Cardinals decided to do some landscaping. In 2024, Winn established a baseline for himself as an average hitter and an above-average defender. With just one full season of data to work with, projection systems are unlikely to predict much more from a player beyond the existing evidence. But since Winn is just 22 (soon be 23), us non-projection systems are allowed to assume he didn’t hit his ceiling in 2024. His 90% zone contact rate showcased his already elite bat-to-ball skills, but his final prospect report notes Winn’s athleticism opens the door for him to develop more power than we typically see from contact-first hitters. Meanwhile, Winn’s 95th-percentile arm strength and 86th-percentile sprint speed suggest there’s more juice to be squeezed both on defense and on the basepaths.

Jose Barrero is the next man up behind Winn on the depth chart. He’s been on the Triple-A shuttle since 2021 and has struggled to develop a solid approach at the plate in the majors despite hitting well in the minors, but his defensive reputation on the infield keeps him in the conversation for a backup role. Based on the thin depth behind him, it’s clear that in 2025, the Cardinals are all in on Winn.

The Rays entered last season with a positional battle at short between three legitimate candidates. José Caballero and Taylor Walls wound up splitting playing time, but neither did enough to definitively win the starting job. Walls began the season on the IL while recovering from hip surgery. Following his June debut, he failed to put much together on offense, nor did he establish himself as the type of defender that makes light hitting tolerable. Caballero played well enough on defense to justify his 83 wRC+, but not well enough to stop the opportunistic Rays from scooping up Ha-Seong Kim when he hit the free agent market. Kim will start the season on the IL as he recovers from a late-September shoulder surgery. Consequently, Walls and Caballero will likely resume their timeshare at short until Kim makes his Rays debut in late May.

When Kim does take over the starting job, assuming a full recovery from surgery, the Rays will be getting a slightly above-average hitter with top-10ish defense at the shortstop position. Kim provides a clear upgrade over the options from last year’s squad, and the team was able to acquire him without giving up either Walls or Caballero. So if Kim doesn’t come back at full strength, the Rays are no worse off than they were before.

In 2023, J.P. Crawford posted career-bests in almost every offensive category. Not only did that prove difficult to sustain, but he posted a career-worst slash line in 2024 and missed two months of the season across separate IL stints for an oblique strain and a fractured hand. Crawford bounced back from the oblique strain well enough, but he was already in a slump when he took a changeup to the hand in late July, and when he returned roughly a month later, his offense stayed on the shelf. Still, he salvaged his season by continuing to play solid defense.

Hopefully, 2024 is simply a lost season for Crawford, one that can be cleanly lifted out of his career trajectory. While his 2023 may look fluky in the current moment, there is reason to believe that version of Crawford could re-emerge in 2025. Despite his diminished production last season, he continued to hit the ball hard, maintaining his gains from 2023 with respect to exit velocity and barrel rate. As a result, his expected stats painted a much kinder picture of his season than his actual numbers.

If 2023 Crawford is still in there, the Mariners are in good shape at short, and the five(!) potential backups in line behind him should look elsewhere for playing time.

Jeremy Peña is entering his fourth year as the everyday shortstop in Houston. After a lackluster sophomore season, Peña added some production on offense, but he turned around and gave it right back on defense. Peña lowered his strikeout rate even though he all but gave up trying to draw walks, and he was able to tap into a bit more of the power he flashed during his rookie season. But he suddenly struggled moving to his right on defense and lost three ticks of velocity on his throws, which lead to a negative OAA and FRV for the first time in his career.

Heading into 2025, Peña should be able to maintain his approach at the plate, and his added power is supported by an uptick in bat speed. If the 27-year-old can regain his arm strength and remember how to move laterally in the field, he should easily hit his 3.4 WAR projection, which would be his best mark since his rookie season.

Last year’s Tim Anderson experiment went about as poorly as possible. By the end of June, Anderson’s 27 wRC+ convinced Miami the time was right to pivot to Xavier Edwards. After getting his first taste of big league action in 2023, Edwards made the transition to the majors look like Elle Woods getting into Harvard: What, like it’s hard? The switch-hitter posted a .328/.397/.423 slash line, with a wRC+ of 128 over 303 plate appearances, and stole 31 bases. His expected stats clearly take umbrage at his 50% groundball rate, but with his speed, it’s probably fine for now. Some regression is likely imminent as pitchers adjust, and he’ll need to improve against non-fastballs, but his ability to make contact is so strong that unless pitchers stop throwing him anything that looks like a strike, he’ll be okay.

That said, his defense definitely needs work. Edwards had the second worst OAA and FRV among shortstops who played at least 500 innings last year. But his performance in the field is understandable considering only 107 of his 459 games in the minors were played at short. With additional reps, he’ll probably become less of a liability, but his defensive ceiling remains low. The Marlins tested him out in center field for 30 games in 2023 because his defense at second wasn’t good enough. But apparently all it took was 65 games of Tim Anderson to get the Marlins to believe Edwards could handle short.

Ezequiel Tovar doubled his projected WAR in 2024, and bless him for it — while Rockies fans don’t ask for much, they need at least a couple of exciting players to make the experience of being a fan worthwhile. Though defense is the main attraction with Tovar, last year Michael Baumann suggested the shortstop could improve his offense by swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone (because he does swing at so, SO many pitches outside the zone), to which Tovar seemed to say, “Thank you so much for the suggestion; it really is sweet of you, but I’ll pass.” Instead he decided to hit the ball harder and in the air more, which boosted his home run total to 26, as opposed to the 15 he hit in 2023. He even hit half of those on the road, so he has something to point to when the haters claim it was all because of the thin air in Colorado. It won’t stop anyone from shouting “Coors!” in his general direction, but at least he’ll have won a moral victory.

Tovar could still benefit from an offensive boost, and improving his plate discipline really isn’t a bad idea. Striking out less and putting the ball in play more always makes sense for a player with his speed. But Tovar’s dazzling defense is what really drives his value, so if it makes him happy to swing away, so be it.

It’s a testament to the gains CJ Abrams has made on offense that the Nationals aren’t even lower on this list, because Abrams was the worst defensive shortstop among starters and that includes a second-year player who did not play the position with any regularity in the minors. The projections figure on Abrams maintaining the power he tapped into last year, while also getting back to stealing bases at a clip reminiscent of his 2023 season and finding a way to be regular bad at short instead of tragically bad.

All of this is contingent on Abrams learning from the events surrounding his demotion late last season following an all-nighter at a casino. When asked about the incident last month, both Abrams and Nats manager Dave Martinez said the right things, indicating those issues are in the past and everyone is moving forward. From Abrams side, he spent the offseason focused on working out so that he can stay consistent throughout the long season. His performance tailed off in July and August, but he had begun turning things around in September prior to getting sent down.

Things are looking up for Abrams this spring. Granted it is spring training, and Abrams is incentivized to get back in the good graces of his coaching staff, but his numbers are hard to ignore. Even if we regress them by splitting the difference between his spring performance and his numbers from last year, he’d still be striking out just 13.1% of the time and slashing .277/.328/.499 with a .355 wOBA. If Abrams can carry this focus into the regular season and develop some better habits for staying consistent over the course of 162 games, then Nasim Nuńez should really only see the field as a late-inning defensive replacement.

After his first full season in the big leagues, Brayan Rocchio has something to build on as he heads into 2025. His first bit of major league action in 2023 did not go particularly well. He posted a 31.4% strikeout rate and a 60% groundball rate, with a wRC+ of just 64. But that was only 86 plate appearances. Over 442 plate appearances in 2024, Rocchia got his strikeout rate down to 20.4%, his groundball rate down to 45.7% and his wRC+ up to 79. The overall production is still substandard, but the trendlines are moving in the right direction. Though Rocchio doesn’t profile as a power hitter, he hit the ball hard and in the air much more often, and he developed some patience at the plate, swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone and bumping his walk rate from 4.7% to 10%. If he can continue inching closer to the rate stats he posted in the minors — something like .260/.340/.420 — he will continue to justify his role on Cleveland’s roster.

Rocchio’s real value-add is in the field. He was a top-10 defender last season, which is pretty good, but not good enough to make up for the lack of hitting. Defense-only shortstops need to be closer to “elite” than “pretty good.” Unfortunately, Rocchio is probably nearing his defensive ceiling as it is. The weak link is his arm strength; with an average of 83.7 mph on his throws, he’s down in the 40th percentile. And arm strength is a much harder trait to simply train up. Meanwhile, his range is nearly maxed out, as he’s currently posting 89th-percentile OAA numbers. So Rocchio will need to keep leveling up his offense as he continues to develop in the big leagues, though the good news from his perspective is that he doesn’t currently have any strong challengers for playing time.

The existence of even one hitter in the league with Steven Kwan’s plate discipline is baffling enough, but with Geraldo Perdomo, the count now sits at two. Perdomo only swings at pitches out of the zone 20.2% of the time, and when he does, he makes contact 75.9% of the time. When it comes to pitches in the zone, he swings 54.6% of the time and makes contact a staggering 94.1% of the time. With that approach as a foundation, Perdomo made modest improvements at the plate in 2024. He walked less, but he added more singles and doubles while cutting back on strikeouts. He also increased his average exit velocity by a couple of ticks, and added 6.6 points to his hard-hit rate and 2.2 points to his barrel rate. But despite the similarity to Kwan and the boost to his contact quality, Perdomo is managing just league average offense. Last season, Kwan realized he needed to swing more with the intent to drive the ball, rather than just make contact. Perhaps a similar mindset will be the key for Perdomo unlocking more offensive production. But that’s easier said than done for a switch-hitter who effectively has to maintain two swings all season.

In the event that Perdomo takes a step back this season, the Diamondbacks will be under immense pressure to call up Jordan Lawlar, the no. 14 overall prospect on our Top 100. Lawlar profiles as a power-hitter with strong defense. Currently, he is in the running for the backup infielder role, which became more likely, at least in the short-term, when Blaze Alexander went down with an oblique strain. Arizona would prefer Lawlar get consistent reps at Triple-A, but regardless of where he starts the season, it shouldn’t be much longer before he’s ready for regular playing time at the big league level.

The Brewers have waffled a bit over the last few weeks when asked whether Joey Ortiz or Brice Turang will be the club’s starting shortstop. Initially, they planned to leave Turang at second, where he has played most of the last two seasons, and move Ortiz, who came up as a third baseman, over to short. But then manager Pat Murphy became enticed by the idea of moving Turang to short, where he played in the minors, while Ortiz handles second. But now Turang is dealing with shoulder fatigue, which is impacting his ability to throw. The issue isn’t considered serious, but it is going to mean Turang stays at second, at least in the early going, since second basemen make fewer difficult throws.

Since both bats will be in the lineup regardless, the decision comes down to the optimal defensive alignment. Even though Ortiz was second in OAA at third last year, the projection believes he’ll be a negative contributor at short. But Ortiz derives his defensive value from his range, which ranks in the 96th percentile, while his arm strength is below average. There’s no denying shortstop is the more difficult position, but bringing his range to a position where he’ll be making shorter throws sets up Ortiz for an easier transition than most. Turang also has fantastic range, but the average velocity on his throws is more than four ticks behind Ortiz. It will come down to whether the Brewers prefer to go with Turang’s experience at the position, or to trust that Ortiz can apply his existing abilities on a different part of the infield. If Ortiz looks capable to start the season, then there’s no reason for a mid-season shake up.

The Tigers front office is really testing manager A.J. Hinch’s ability to optimize matchups. As it stands for now, the Tigers have a big stew of defenders who can play on the left side of the infield and every day they’re gonna scoop a couple out and pencil them into the lineup. Like Hansel and Gretel with more baseball and less cannibalism.

Trey Sweeney and Javier Báez were slated for a pretty even split of playing time at shortstop, but Detroit optioning Jace Jung to the minors puts Báez on the hook to help cover innings at third. That means Sweeney, who has exactly 36 big league games on his résumé, will handle a lion’s share of the reps at short. That’s either a heartening vote of confidence in Sweeney from the Tigers, or incredibly mean. Sweeney’s bat was relatively quiet during those first 36 games, but it’s reasonable to expect him to settle in around league average as he adjusts to the level and gets better at tracking big league pitches. His defense was adequate in a small sample and his prospect evaluation doesn’t hint at a ceiling much higher than that. When Báez mans the position, he’ll be looking to rebound from a down season in the field and hoping he can stay above the Mendoza Line at the plate.

It’s not a great sign that Trevor Story’s stint with the Red Sox has come closer to resembling a medical procedural than a baseball career. And not even a particularly exciting medical procedural at that! If he misses significant time due to injury this year, it better be because he got stabbed by a narwhal.

Last season, Story added a dislocated shoulder to his collection of maladies. One week into the season, he attempted to make a diving play on a groundball and wound up on the IL until September. As Story enters his age-32 season, putting together a full season of league average play on both sides of the ball is among the more optimal outcomes. If things go suboptimally, last year’s solution of splitting time between Ceddanne Rafaela and David Hamilton is still on the table. Beyond that, Boston’s hopes and dreams rest upon the shoulders of Marcelo Mayer, the 57th ranked prospect in baseball, who could probably use another year in the minors, but who projects as a power-hitting shortstop with solid defense. However, given the drama this spring over who should play third, the funniest option would be to slide Alex Bregman over to short and move Rafael Devers back to his preferred position.

The Pirates traded for Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the deadline last year, and when Oneil Cruz moved to center field in August, Kiner-Falefa took over as the starting shortstop for the Bucs. Despite his best efforts, Cruz couldn’t get it to click on defense at short, so now the Pirates have one year of IKF while they search for a more permanent replacement for Cruz.

Kiner-Falefa matched his career-high wRC+ in 2024, which sounds promising until you realize the aforementioned career high is 93. He also posted a startling 3.2% walk rate, and though he’s adept at making contact, he hits too many groundballs to be productive with his average speed. And while he played adequate defense at second and third, that’s not very helpful now that he’s expected to play short, where his career numbers aren’t exactly inspiring.

In a year where the Pirates don’t seem that set on contending, Kiner-Falefa is a fine option to stand at short. But since Nick Gonzales is slated to start at second, and neither Jared Triolo or Liover Peguero have played well enough in Pittsburgh to demand additional playing time, if the Bucs find themselves on the playoff bubble come the trade deadline, shortstop is definitely a position where they could stand to improve.

If you’re reading this it means you’ve managed to stop staring at the name Nacho Alvarez Jr., which makes it sound like the Braves built a shortstop out of fast food menu items (complimentary).

The version of Orlando Arcia who contributed on both sides of the ball in 2023 regressed back to the defense-only version in 2024. From where we stand now, it’s difficult to know whether last year was a blip and Arcia still has that 100 wRC+ in him, or if the two prior years were the blip and the first five years of Arcia’s career were the more representative sample. The underlying numbers don’t offer an obvious answer. His bat speed is down a bit, as is his hard-hit rate, and his sprint speed continues to decline, but none of it is definitive enough to say Arcia can’t get his wOBA over .300 again. Arcia’s backup, Nick Allen (acquired in an offseason trade with the Athletics), is another defense-first shortstop, so even if Arcia’s offense doesn’t reemerge, he’s not in danger of losing his job over it.

And maybe that’s why the Braves have collaborated with Taco Bell to build their next shortstop, scheduled to hit menus and lineups in 2026.

Colson Montgomery is expected to crack the big leagues at some point this summer, but he’ll start the season in the minors after sitting out most of spring training with a back issue. After a tough year at Triple-A in 2024, Montgomery fell from 14th to 58th in the Top 100 and dropped from a 55 FV to a 50. After posting a strikeout rate around 20% throughout most of his time in pro-ball, a full season of plate appearances at Triple-A produced a K-rate of 28.6%. Since Montgomery’s offensive profile is on-base plus power, bringing him up before he gets his swing-and-miss under control would be counterproductive, even for a team that can afford to let their prospects struggle a little at the big league level.

While the White Sox wait on Montgomery, Josh Rojas should see some reps as he looks to build on a so-so season with Seattle in 2024, but the start to his season will be delayed by a fractured toe, which he sustained earlier this month. Chase Meidroth posted solid numbers in the upper levels of Boston’s system before coming over in the Garrett Crochet trade, but his ceiling is limited by a lack of power and fringy defense. Jacob Amaya was claimed off waivers from the Orioles in February. He doesn’t hit for much power, but he defends well and has a polished approach at the plate. Brooks Baldwin got a limited look in the majors last season, during which he played average defense but didn’t do much else. However, Baldwin has hit well over his past two seasons in the minors.

Though the White Sox don’t lack for options at shortstop, it could take awhile to see which, if any, stick.