![]() ![]() ![]() The thing is, that career slash line is inflated by his rookie season, the same way his 2022 numbers are inflated by the two hot streaks that book-ended his season.Įdman was great as a rookie, hitting. 269/.322/.410 hitter across his first four campaigns. 265/.324/.400 slash line is right in line with what he has done in his career as a. 286/.339/.473, as he posted yet another stretch where his wRC+ was 132. To Edman’s credit, the Cardinals went back to him as the starting shortstop and he delivered across the last 31 games. The DeJong experience lasted about a month, with Edman playing 23 games primarily at second base between July 30th and August 25th, posting a 100 wRC+ over that span. On July 30th, DeJong was promoted back from Triple-A and reclaimed his position starting at shortstop. 250/.296/.337, with three home runs and a 81 wRC+ as the Cardinals starting shortstop. Brendon Donovan and Edmundo Sosa made some starts in the meantime, but eventually the Cardinals decided Edman was the answer.Īcross the following 61 games played, Edman hit. It was not until May 20th that Edman made his first start at shortstop, as the Cardinals were concerned about ruining the flow from his hot start with the bat. Paul DeJong began the year as the Cardinals starting shortstop, but he was demoted on May 11th. In 2022, Edman started the first 37 games of the year at second base., hitting. ![]() Still, considering him a top-10 shortstop in the game feels like a stretch to me. Splitting time between second base and shortstop (while also playing some outfield and third base), Edman’s immense defensive value resulted in a 5.6 fWAR that was fifth among shortstops.Įdman did create a lot of that value playing second base, but the metrics are close enough between the two positions that we can simply conclude that he is a fantastic defender wherever you put him on the diamond. Things changed for Edman though in 2022, when he had a career year offensively. It was his second-consecutive year with a 90 wRC+, with his 2020 campaign looking awfully similar across 55 games. The following is the argument I plan to take into battle against Colby, as I explain my reasoning for putting Peña over Edman in my top 10.Įdman posted a 2.8 fWAR in 2021, in a season where he hit. Now though, I get to revisit this debate with Colby Olson on my new show, Who’s Better Baseball, a debate-oriented podcast where we get to bring all of our behind the scenes arguments to the surface. I was forced to go with consensus and Peña became an honorable mention, while Edman grabbed the 10th spot. If memory serves, Jack and Peter agreed with Colby, while Aram lied somewhere in the middle and his vote didn’t count anyway when they had majority. Ultimately the reason we had five people on that Zoom call was so it didn’t become the 20-hour long debate Peter Appel has been waiting his whole life to have and we could take a vote on things. I believed despite stats, that were admittedly inferior to those in our top 10, Peña showed enough in year one and racked up enough accolades to bet on his upside moving forward and acknowledge him as a top 10 shortstop in the game. A guy who replaced a Platinum Glover and won a Gold Glove as a rookie, before going on to lead his team to a championship as the ALCS and World Series MVP. Meanwhile I viewed Peña as an up-and-coming star at the position. I felt Edman should be an honorable mention.Ī guy who started last season as a second baseman, before earning the starting shortstop job for the Cardinals with a 5.6 fWAR season. When Colby Olson said Tommy Edman should be in the top 10 instead of Jeremy Peña though, I was quick to fight him back on it. I ranked Carlos Correa ahead of Xander Bogaerts initially, but when the rest of the guys said we should put Xander third coming off the better year, I relented quickly. It was myself, the Just Baseball Show hosts Peter Appel, Aram Leighton and Jack McMullen and our analytics expert Colby Olson on the call.Īs the managing editor, I organized a list of my own top 10s and a few honorable mentions, then the five us hashed it out to come to some form of a consensus at each position. To take you behind the curtain, when we met as a staff to decide on our top 10 positional rankings, there was five of us on a Zoom call that spanned over four hours. I don’t believe Tommy Edman should be considered a top 10 shortstop in baseball. Yet I don’t agree with one thing in our list. It was a list that I myself wrote, breaking down who we believe to be the best players at baseball’s most premium position. This week, Just Baseball released our top 10 shortstops in MLB heading into the 2023 season. ![]()
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