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If you’ve stopped calling second base the keystone, or simply want to add a new name to the defensive position between first base and shortstop, you should probably consider the lead. Thanks to a wide funnel that guides players into position, second base has become a beacon we can follow as the forces of the game pull team priorities to and fro.
The 2023 MLB season is set as the beginning of a fascinating new era in second baseman history thanks to the dawn of MLB’s infield shift restrictions. Areas of the field that are most distorted, congested and studied by modern defensive tactics are (mostly) brought back to conventional placement by the force of the rules. Players in that position are faced with new (or old) responsibilities and demands, and those changes can lead to finding completely different people in the role.
Most of the attention regarding the new shift restrictions has naturally been directed toward understanding how hitters benefit, but how many left-handed sluggers can hit under the new rules? Who is better suited to walk the tightrope at second base without a shift-forgiving net? Positional recent offensive and traditional defensive trends Who will find the balance between
To understand the branching paths that may emerge, it is helpful to understand how the idea of second baseman evolved into its current form.
Limit position
Perhaps you have visual archetypes for second base: contact hitting, short, speed. And for good reason. His second basemen with the highest batting average in OPS+ since the merger are Joe Morgan and Jose Altuve. From the early days of the game to the present, a bevy of less-than-completed major-league games also somehow fit that mental mold, even without extreme stature or prominence. Being short doesn’t mean it’s an advantage. This is just a few of the second base status as Wild on his card, fallback plan, and frontier state on the defense his spectrum.
Maybe you also have the second baseman scout archetype: “I don’t have enough hands at shortstop”. Athletes with hands and agility, well-suited for the demanding duties in Nakano, have been shuffled to second base for years when long throws to first base go awry. Or if their bat doesn’t hit third base well. Or if they were simply robbed by a better player.
Maybe the archetype of the former second baseman is blurry. Where Chase Utley and Dustin Pedroia stood every day for the past 15 years, not-so-easily-labeled stars have moved in and out, joining the ranks of Altuve, Robinson Cano and Ian Kinsler to ensure that second base is exactly A super-utility player that is not a home has appeared. But the closest thing to it.
Ben Zobrist became the poster boy for the Keystone-centric Versatility Wizard, which eventually popularized the model. Since then, Jeff McNeil, DJ LeMahieu, Ketel Marte and others have all covered this no-novel cloak.
Second base is a limit position in a sense. But at its best, it’s a position that frees players of all shapes and sizes.
gently toss and carry a large stick
Second base never evolved from Pesky Slap Hitter Central to a diverse hitter’s paradise. The proliferation of infielder shifts, along with subtle advances in defensive positioning, have expanded the range of second baseman candidates in multiple ways.
More precise and dramatic positioning allowed the slower second baseman to hold his own on the field. As a result, a more useful hitter who might otherwise have been demoted to first baseman, left fielder, or designated hitter should, in theory, be weighed for defensive ability and offensive aptitude.
As teams became more confident in their shifts, more and more second basemen were picked for the bat rather than the glove in the little card in every player’s back pocket. It’s not that the typical second baseman was suddenly replaced by a slugger, but toss-up roster spots that might have gone to the Nakano defensive specialist instead began to go for at-bat-first options that could be managed at second base. (Wilmer Flores, Merwin Gonzalez, Brandon Drury).
In response to this reality, some players who might have been moved to another path due to their build or height made their careers second (Daniel Murphy, Matt Carpenter). Others carved out mid-career roles that included significant and sometimes jarring playing time at Keystone. Mike Mustakas turned a Milwaukee experiment into a lucrative deal with the Reds. The aesthetic peak of this shift may have occurred in Game 6 of his 2018 NLCS, when the Dodgers and Brewers started the beefy duo of Max Muncy and Travis Shaw in his second-place finish.
Meanwhile, a young player with a stellar bat and questionable range played a full-time role as a second baseman or utility type who often stops there: Brandon Lowe and Luis Arraez. Alaez, who traded to the United States, has a good chance of changing teams because his limited defensive ability means that Carlos Correa, Jorge Polanco and promising Royce Ruiz are locked out for playing time or jockeyed. Because it no longer fits the twins who are
The result, combined with MLB’s growing preference for defensive flexibility, is an increasing trend of better-than-average hitters playing at least a few second bases.
Overall, second basemen (and shortstops, catchers, and center fielders) have historically not hit as well as other lineups. This is the basis of his WAR positioning, an intuitive truth that can be gleaned from watching MLB Draft results and remembering where the most talented kids on Little League teams have played.
But these days, the gap between the second baseman and the average MLB hitter is closing.
In response to new batting philosophies and changes in baseball, it created a massive home run surge, making even the humble second baseman a slugger from 2015 to 2021. His average MLB hitter’s bar, a source of incredible offense and value for a properly balanced team.
Will shift limits reverse trends?
That balance is becoming more and more tricky. The MLB’s infield shift restrictions, which take effect in 2023, outlaw or significantly compromise the primary ways teams reduce defensive pressure on second basemen. There are many nuances to positioning beyond this, but broadly speaking, a) stand farther on the outfield grass and b) another fielder, usually shortstop, covers the rest.
The infielder must start each pitch on the dirt, and the second baseman definitely has more ground to cover, as extreme shifts where the shortstop moved to second are now prohibited.
Teams that employ second basemen who defensively paper over face the challenge of either shuffling their roster and moving those players off second base, or finding the best way to cover them within the new rules. Take a raise and a row.They have a stockpile of midfielders, most of whom are much better defenders than Lowe, but could really use his bat thumping When That of DH in the lineup after finishing 25th in MLB in last year’s extra-base hits. The Dodgers, on the other hand, could use their roster to keep Muncy further away from his No. 2 spot.
At first glance, it would appear that the long-increasing attack coming from second basemen is about to collapse. But the ultimate fate of the trendline is not destiny. This is a carefully selected product.
The same thought process that turned Altuve and 5-foot-8-inch Ozzy Albies into 30-home run mashers pushed a lot of the action off the ground and into the air. The league-wide ground ball percentage, which was 45.1% ten years ago, has fallen below 43% in each of the past four seasons. It may not sound like much, but roughly he has 2,734 grounders lifted into the air. That’s about 91 balls per team per season that are likely to fall into the outfield.
Given the relative reliability of predicting offensive performance and the possibility of finding new ways to crack defensive code, it’s possible teams will roll with these hitters as they try to adapt. , may also find themselves needing to return to more agile fielders.
Either way, the condition of the second baseman tells us something about the direction of the game. However, it is one of the things that he is not new.
Follow Zach Crizer of Yahoo Sports on Twitter @.Zukraisers.
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