Fangraphs released its baseball positional rankings this week. The rankings at catcher, first base, and second base had previously been made public before today.
Matt McLain helped the Cincinnati Reds finish at number six in the second base rankings, despite their poor performance at first base and strong catcher rankings. They advanced in the series today and fell in the shortstop rankings. Similar to second base, the Reds had another strong ranking, although they were ranked #6.
You might not be alone if you were thinking that it would be difficult to find five better shortstops in Major League Baseball than Elly De La Cruz. However, the position is completely loaded, especially at the top. To put that in perspective, the Texas Rangers were baseball’s best second base team. They would have dropped from first to ninth place if they had been assigned to the shortstop position.
De La Cruz is batting in this series, according to Fangraphs’ Fangraphs Depth Chart forecasts. 259/.332/.468 with good defensive and baserunning value. The total comes to 4.9 WAR. That is sufficient to place fifth overall among all shortstops.
If you’re wondering why he’s in fifth place while the Reds are in sixth, it’s because Corey Seager isn’t far behind him individually, but he’s expected to play 28 fewer games, and the Rangers are ahead of the Reds because to the worth of his backup.
This brings us to the title’s query: Is Elly De La Cruz underappreciated? Depending on where you stand, I suppose. The Reds shortstop had 6.4 WAR in the previous season, according to Fangraphs’ calculation of WAR. According to their preferred statistic, he should bat almost as well this season as he did the previous one. However, according to the prediction, he is significantly less important in the field and on the bases.
De La Cruz would jump up to the third position with 6.4 WAR and the Reds shortstop position, where De La Cruz is responsible for 665 of the 700 total plate appearances estimated in these forecasts. The stat that varies the greatest is defensive value. It’s not always a statistic that the athlete has complete control over.
In addition to hitting the ball in their general direction, players must hit it far enough in their direction to allow for playmaking without hitting them directly, making it easy to do so. It is more of a mix of opportunity and skill set than a straight correlation to a player’s skill set. Similar to RBI, it requires a certain set of talents to obtain a lot of them, but it also depends on how many opportunities you have to demonstrate those skills in order to cash in on those plays.
Elly De La Cruz and the Reds are ranked sixth here, which is interesting, but according to the article’s particular prognosis, he will significantly deteriorate in his game outside of the batter’s box. His defense and baserunning are projected to be 41% less useful than they were in the 2024 season, even though it still believes he will be a solid baserunner and fielder. This prediction has a lot of “room for improvement,” and it seems to be seriously undervaluing him.
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