This offseason, the Yankees seemed to have a very specific goal of improving the infield defense. It was really bad last year for several reasons, but three of four infielders became free agents in the offseason, so the Yankees had a clean slate. They could start fresh and bring in any type of players they wanted, and they prioritized defense.
The improved infield defense did not show up the first few weeks of 2015. Chase Headley made an alarming number of errors early on — 14 errors in the team’s first 60 games! — but has since settled in and played well (four errors in 58 games since). Stephen Drew never really had a defensive slump this year. He just hasn’t hit. Didi Gregorius, for a while, didn’t hit or field.
The start of the season was quite ugly for the team’s new shortstop. Gregorius wasn’t hitting — not that many expected him to have an impact at the plate — and he wasn’t fielding well either, specifically when it came to decision making. Looking back on it, it sure seems like replacing Derek Jeter was overwhelming at first. I was too quick to toss that aside as something that could wear on Gregorius.
“I just think he’s maturing as a player,” said Joe Girardi to Erik Boland last month when asked about Gregorius looking more comfortable. “He got off to a slow start and we’ve just kind of seen an upward kick the whole season and this has been his best month. I think June was better than May, May was better than April, and he continues to improve.”
Didi’s bat has come around — he’s hitting .257/.306/.340 overall and .278/.314/.377 since May 15th, and this year the league average shortstop is hitting .257/.304/.373 — and so has his defense. It feels like we see a play like this once a game nowadays:
It wasn’t going to take much for Didi to be an upgrade over last year’s version of the Cap’n, both at the plate and especially in the field. Check out the defensive spray charts for 2014 Jeter and 2015 Gregorius:
Gregorius has far more range to his left — some of that is due to the shift, but not all of it — and he’s been better at making tough plays. Notice the different shades of the dots. The dark green ones are the routine plays, according to Inside Edge. Everything else is a non-routine play, with red representing the toughest plays. Gregorius has way more light green, yellow, orange, and red dots in his spray chart than Jeter did all of last season. He’s not just making more plays, he’s making tougher plays.
The AL average is a .092 BABIP on ground balls hit towards the shortstop position this year. Against the Yankees it’s a .098 BABIP, but that’s for the entire season, and Gregorius was pretty bad in the field early on. Since the calendar flipped to May, when Didi first started to look comfortable in the field, it’s a .091 BABIP on ground balls hit to short against the Yankees. So it’s been below-average overall but better of late, so at least it’s moving in the right direction.
“For me, his head is in a better place,” third base coach Joe Espada told Brendan Kuty last month. “He’s more comfortable, he’s more relaxed. You start seeing the things I know he’s capable of doing. It’s more of the state of mind, and that’s why he’s performing, in my opinion, much better than the way he started.”
Those first few weeks were not pretty at all. Gregorius looked like he was in over his head and there was reason to think the Yankees might need to find a new shortstop in the offseason. Now? Now Gregorius is a borderline top ten shortstop by WAR and he’s trending in the right direction on both sides of the ball. His offense is about on par with the league average shortstop and his defensive ability is becoming a major asset.
The Yankees acquired Gregorius because of his glove first and foremost, and although it took a little while for his defensive tools to turn into consistent and occasionally spectacular outs, Didi has now transformed himself into a top notch gloveman at short. The Yankees have shown a lot of patience with young players this season, and for the most part they’ve been reward. No young player has rewarded their patience more than Gregorius.
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