Positionless basketball doesn’t map perfectly into the world of baseball. While Giannis is more than deserving of his “Greek Freak” nickname, he’s not the NBA’s only skyscraping star who can handle the ball and roam the perimeter with all the fluidity of what we used to call a point guard. Perhaps no sport has shed rigid positional labels more thoroughly than basketball. “If he's an average or fringe-average shortstop but worse at third or the outfield,” Seidler said, “it might make sense to leave him at shortstop even if it is not in a vacuum ideal to sacrifice shortstop defense.” Why Oneil Cruz may not be an outlier for long Especially right now - after minor-league experiments in the outfield went poorly - that is shortstop for Cruz. Teams have every incentive to play a potentially excellent hitter like Cruz at the most challenging defensive position he can handle. It allows them to maintain roster flexibility and improve their lineups offensively. Part of the calculus there, as Seidler points out, springs from advances in defensive positioning that help teams cover more of the field with less stellar defenders. It’s notable that of those 18, five are active and two more were playing in the past two seasons.Įven Judge has increased his time at the more difficult center field position, playing a career-high 31 games there already this season as he paces the AL MVP race. Only 18 players 6-foot-5 or taller have managed even 100 career games at those positions since 1920. That, as Seidler points out, isn’t a walk in the park.īeing this tall and playing *any* position other than pitcher, first base or designated hitter would count as historic, but what’s especially striking is the dearth of tall players who have made careers at the crucial positions in the middle of the diamond: catcher, second base, shortstop and center field. Moving him off shortstop means finding a new position. “But he filled out without losing any noticeable range or agility.”
“The industry expectation when he was in A-ball was that Cruz was going to lose significant range as he continued to grow, and indeed he's listed 45 pounds heavier than when he signed,” Seidler said. So that's just completely uncharted waters.”īack in 2018, Seidler was bullish on Cruz’s chances at navigating the path to a shortstop job in the majors, in part because he showed such a reliable glove and dynamic arm.
Cruz is every bit of 6-foot-7, which is the same height as Aaron Judge, and three inches taller than Seager, Tatis, and Correa. “There's never been a regular shortstop listed above 6-foot-4. “It's worth noting that Cruz isn't just going to be the biggest regular shortstop in MLB history, he's going to be the biggest by a wide margin,” Seidler said this week. It was understandably difficult to comprehend how it would look in the majors. When Cruz was even younger and even ganglier, Baseball Prospectus prospect writer Jarrett Seidler was in the pack of scouts trying to foresee his future. Cruz, who is listed at 220 pounds, has a slender, lanky body type closer to Fernando Tatis Jr., who is 6-foot-3.
and has proliferated a bit in recent years with Corey Seager and Carlos Correa. That breed of quarterback-bodied shortstop began with Cal Ripken Jr. The tallest players to stake out actual careers in the six hole have been in the 6-foot-4 range.
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