by Valerie Davies
Clearly unhappy with their performance both offensively and defensively at shortstop last season, the Nine made two free agent signings designed to shore up the position.
In an unusual payment of $5,555,555 (perhaps to mirror Juan Silva's $2,222,222?), GM Rob McMonigal inked the best defensive shortstop on the market, Quintin Trewartha for one year, following shortly after signing Asil Colasan, a clear back up middle infielder, to a two year deal worth $1,750,000 each year, the second year being an option with a $350,000 buyout.
After a season in which the backup middle infielder, Tristan Colenutt, didn't even bat .200, and the primary shortstop, Cesar Aybar, had a -3.1 ZR in 111 games at the key position, it's no surprise that the Nine were looking to make changes. Though they do have up and coming shortstop Leslie Hartman on the horizon, with several league GMs I spoke to anonymously telling me he's ready to begin his BBA career, it's clear that McMonigal didn't want to rely on a rookie to succeed immediately.
He confirmed as much when I asked him about the deals.
"Oh, absolutely we could have gone with Leslie and thrown him to the wolves with a ton of pressure. Or we could use some of our financial flexibility and given us a way to transition him in slowly. Hartman absolutely will see the field in Yellow Springs in 2062. But not with the burden of resurrecting this franchise on his back. That's just unfair, Valerie."
I can see that to a degree and it really doesn't change much about signing Colasan. No one is picking him to be a starter. Instead, he's designed to be the guy who can play 2B/3B/SS about once a week or sometimes twice in order to ensure your starter isn't gassed. Paired with Aybar, who will be moving to a backup role as well, the Nine actually have two solid contributors for those off nights of their starters. I like that deal a lot, especially for less than two million and with an escape clause.
Colasan, 36, is in the final years of his career, not unlike Bill Bowers, which has worked out great for the Nine so far in the outfield. He's a career hitter of .252 with just a modest 4.9 WAR but he won't embarrass you at the plate, given his career OPS+ of 82, including 94, 92, 94, and 93 the past four years. And he wasn't being protected, either. Mexico City played him in 114 games in 2061, including 74 starts. That's far better than the Nine have had in their reserve fielders for several years now.
Now the flip side of that is he's also a career negative fielder. That's not ideal in your backup, but when he doesn't play regularly, it's not as bad. Asking him to start over 100 games at short, as Mexico City did in 2060, is not a good idea, as his -14.7 ZR that year at short clearly indicates. But as McMonigal notes Hartman is nearly ready. If Trewartha gets hurt or performs poorly, they're not looking to Colasan to take over. His goal is to keep them from having an automatic out two or three games a week.
Unfortunately, "automatic out" is something that increasingly is applied to Trewartha. He batted .202 in 2060 and .211 in 2061 and hasn't hit above .250 since 2056. Yikes! But his defense is off the charts good. A career 292.1 ZR at shorstop. Never more than 15 errors in a BBA uniform, though it's perhaps concerning that he did that just last season. His career efficiency is 1.099 and his career range is 4.53. A two-time Zimmer winner, the 35 year old should patch up the big hole in the infield between second and third that's been an increasing problem for the Nine over the past several seasons as Colenutt's shortcomings increasingly presented themselves.
Will these two make a huge difference for a team that lost 103 games last year, and has lost 100 or more games four times in the past ten seasons under McMonigal? Probably not more than a win or two here and there. But the road to the journey of respectability is taken one step at a time. If these two work out, at worst they're trade bait. At best, they can help McMonigal and his team stop being the butt of nearly every joke going around the circuit right now.
Either way, the fans win. And maybe, against all odds, the Nine will, too.
