Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Goals For Shortstop In 2021

Next up in our series of looking at three goals for each of the Pittsburgh Pirates positional groups is shortstop.

The Pittsburgh Pirates current shortstop situation is one of the more interesting positions to look at. This is due there is still no clear cut starter for Opening Day, which, all of a sudden, is only nine days away.

The Pittsburgh Pirates currently have three players that are all competing to win the starting shortstop job. These players are  Cole Tucker, Kevin Newman and Erik Gonzalez. This position has been a carousel of starters since the 2018 season.

2018 was the fifth year in a row that Jordy Mercer held down the starting role, but that all changed when the Pittsburgh Pirates let him walk in free agency that offseason. Ever since then, there has not been a certain long term starter for this position.

In 2019, Gonzalez was the Opening Day starter, but that was not the case in 2020. In 2020, the starting role was handed over to Newman. While he was the primary starter for the most of last season, this may not be the case this year, which leads into the first goal for this season.

Goal Number One – Find A Starter

The first goal for the shortstop position in 2021 is to determine the every day starter for this season. Like mentioned before, Tucker, Newman and Gonzalez are all fighting for their right to claim the role here.

If you go off of who has gotten the most time this spring starting at short to be the every day starter there, Gonzalez would have the slight advantage here. Gonzalez has started a total of seven games this spring, where as Newman has only started five games.

Coming in last for starting games this spring is Tucker, who is sitting at four. Even though Tucker has started the least amount of games, this should not be the only thing that is considered when trying to figure out who is going to start for the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 1st in Chicago. This is so, since Tucker was out for a chunk of this spring for a hand contusion that he suffered earlier this year. The other aspect to look at would be who is hitting the best currently this spring.

There is a clear advantage for who should get the starting nod on Opening Day when you compare the hitting stats between the three players. Newman is leading the others by miles. Newman is batting .643 with and on-base percentage of .722 and an OPS of 1.437.

The next closest player to these stats would be Gonzalez, who is batting .375/.400/.900. All of these categories are all at least .250 lower than those of Newman’s, which is a considerable difference.

Based on everything that is given, it should be safe to say that while not set in stone, Newman should end up being the starting shortstop on Opening Day this season.

Goal Number Two – Improve The Defense

The second goal is to improve defensively for all three shortstop candidates. Last season was a poor season for the shortstop position defensively. Gonzalez started the most games last season, 36, and had five errors in that span. That is an average of about one error every seven games.

Next was Newman who started 22 games and also managed to commit five errors. This equates to an error about every four and a half games. Newman and Gonzalez both tied for eight for the most errors committed by National League shortstops.

The damage defensively does not stop here though. The defensive runs saved above average per 1,200 innings (Rtot/yr) totals were astronomically bad last season. Gonzalez had a Rtot/yr of -4, which is not horrid but was still four runs under the league average.

The real problem in this category was Newman. Newman managed to get a Rtot/yr of -20. This total is just completely unacceptable from a defensive perspective. The Pittsburgh Pirates were not expected to win many games last year as it was, but stats like these certainly helped to get the number one pick, especially with how bad the hitting was last season.