[lex24]

Crawford won a gold glove in ‘ 21. He was hurt a good portion of last year.  Looked awful?  Seriously? 

Villar hasn’t played enough to make any conclusions on.  

Flores is a utility infielder.

Yes, Crawford looked seriously awful. In 2022, the Bleacher Report ran article on the top 25 shortstops in MLB.  In other words, they only left out five of them. Brandon Crawford was one of them, despite the fact that he was third in the league in games played by a shortstop. Among the major fielding categories in 2022, he only finished in the top five in one category: errors, in which he was #3. He had fifty fewer chances in 2022 than in 2021 and nearly double the errors. Team fielding at shortstop, the Giants finished 28th of 30, and oh by the way, the other shortstops on the team actually lifted the Rtot rate. 

As for Villar, you're right, he doesn't have much experience. The Giants finished 13 of 15 at 3B in the NL. Villar had 5 errors, the others playing 3B had 17. Hope Casey Schmitt is ready soon. He had two errors in 29 games at 3B in AA.

Agreed, Flores is the very definition of a utility infielder. Whatever he is, statistically speaking, he's considerably better at 1B than he is anywhere else.

 Crawford is the anchor of the defense.  Not an issue. He had some injury issues. Struggled mid season, no question. But he’s a 4 time gold glove winner.  He’s also gonna have a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  I don’t expect him to hit much.  But defensively, he is the one guy in the infield I trust.  

BTW - check out Giants record  with and without Crawford last year.  That’s a “metric” that matters a bit.

Crawford is a classic “seeing is believing” kinda player.

I don’t care what the stats say, while Crawford may have lost a step over the years, he is still in the top quartile of SS’s in the game.  And, he still has the BEST arm among all shortstops in MLB not named Oneil Cruz.  He made a number of plays late in the season that defied description.  They had to be seen to be believed.

Spot on.  I love to watch him go to his right, backhand and throw.  He does that as well as any SS I’ve  seen.

He’s not going to be able to play as deep as he did at times. Which will hurt his range a little bit.

[lex24]

Crawford won a gold glove in ‘ 21. He was hurt a good portion of last year.  Looked awful?  Seriously? 

Villar hasn’t played enough to make any conclusions on.  

Flores is a utility infielder.

Yes, Crawford looked seriously awful. In 2022, the Bleacher Report ran article on the top 25 shortstops in MLB.  In other words, they only left out five of them. Brandon Crawford was one of them, despite the fact that he was third in the league in games played by a shortstop. Among the major fielding categories in 2022, he only finished in the top five in one category: errors, in which he was #3. He had fifty fewer chances in 2022 than in 2021 and nearly double the errors. Team fielding at shortstop, the Giants finished 28th of 30, and oh by the way, the other shortstops on the team actually lifted the Rtot rate. 

As for Villar, you're right, he doesn't have much experience. The Giants finished 13 of 15 at 3B in the NL. Villar had 5 errors, the others playing 3B had 17. Hope Casey Schmitt is ready soon. He had two errors in 29 games at 3B in AA.

Agreed, Flores is the very definition of a utility infielder. Whatever he is, statistically speaking, he's considerably better at 1B than he is anywhere else.

 Crawford is the anchor of the defense.  Not an issue. He had some injury issues. Struggled mid season, no question. But he’s a 4 time gold glove winner.  He’s also gonna have a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  I don’t expect him to hit much.  But defensively, he is the one guy in the infield I trust.  

BTW - check out Giants record  with and without Crawford last year.  That’s a “metric” that matters a bit.

Crawford is a classic “seeing is believing” kinda player.

I don’t care what the stats say, while Crawford may have lost a step over the years, he is still in the top quartile of SS’s in the game.  And, he still has the BEST arm among all shortstops in MLB not named Oneil Cruz.  He made a number of plays late in the season that defied description.  They had to be seen to be believed.

Spot on.  I love to watch him go to his right, backhand and throw.  He does that as well as any SS I’ve  seen.

He’s not going to be able to play as deep as he did at times. Which will hurt his range a little bit.