The Padres Are Set To Field a Lineup Of Shortstops
Image credit: Jackson Merrill (Photo by Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images)
Whenever a team with a quality shortstop drafts a shortstop in the first round, we at Baseball America will get questions asking why a team would pick a player at a spot where they are already set at the big league level.
And invariably, we’ll answer that shortstops are very versatile, and many of them can handle moves elsewhere if needed as they climb the ladder. Seeing a player play shortstop as an amateur is a strong indication of a player’s all-around athleticism.
The San Diego Padres are currently providing a stunning example of that. With top shortstop prospect Jackson Merrill playing regularly in the outfield, the Padres are experimenting to see if he can help the big league club by handling a new position. So far, the results are promising.
It’s not unusual in itself that a shortstop is being converted to another position. But the Padres’ reliance on shortstops is extremely unusual. If Merrill makes the team as a regular center fielder, the Padres could regularly field a lineup with a converted shortstop at every position other than catcher.
It’s a perfect example of how the Padres’ target athleticism, and it’s also a clear sign of how righthanded the club is as far as throwing, even if there are two lefty hitters and a switch-hitter in the lineup.
When we say ex-shortstops, we don’t mean players who dabbled with playing shortstop at the start of their MiLB careers, every one of these seven projected regulars or semi-regulars was at one point a legitimate shortstop.
In left field, there’s Jurickson Profar. Profar is now 31 years old, but when he was a teenager, he was one of the best prospects in baseball as a shortstop. He arrived in the majors as a shortstop for the Rangers, but soon slid to second base in deference to Elvis Andrus.
In center field, there’s Merrill. He’s trying center field in spring training, but he’s been almost exclusively a shortstop throughout his pro career. He first played another position after he was promoted to Double-A San Antonio last year. For his career, he has 178 games at shortstop, two at second, one at first and five in left field.
In right field, there’s Fernando Tatis Jr. Tatis was the Padres’ everyday shortstop in 2021. After missing the entire 2022 season, he moved to right field full time in 2023.
At third base, there’s Manny Machado, who was an everyday shortstop in Baltimore and Los Angeles in 2018 before sliding to third base for good in 2019 with the Padres.
At shortstop, there’s Ha-Seong Kim. What’s remarkable is Kim has beaten out a team of shortstops to be the shortstop, but when he signed before the 2021 season he was viewed as a versatile multi-position infielder. It was only when Tatis was suspended in 2022 that Kim proved so valuable at shortstop that he claimed the job. And the arrival of Xander Bogaerts meant he moved off the position again in 2023 before reclaiming it this spring.
Bogaerts is now at second base, which will be the first time he’ll be playing regularly at a position other than shortstop since 2014.
And at first base is Jake Cronenworth. Cronenworth has played all over the infield as a major leaguer, but he was a minor league shortstop with the Rays and he played 41 games for the Padres at shortstop in 2021.
Seven positions, seven players who have played shortstop either for the predominance of their MiLB career (Merrill) or in the major leagues.
Unfortunately, the Padres run of shortstops doesn’t extend to catcher, where Luis Campusano was a catcher stretching back to his high school playing days and Kyle Higashioka has never played a different position anywhere during his now 17-year pro career.
But the Padres’ did recently have an ex-shortstop behind the plate. Austin Nola, one of the team’s catchers as recently as 2023, never played shortstop in the majors, but he broke into pro ball as a shortstop in the Marlins system in 2012 and played primarily at shortstop until 2014. He converted to catching in 2017.
And the Padres don’t have a converted shortstop in their bullpen these days. But as recently as 2022, Javy Guerra pitched in the pen. Guerra actually made it to the majors for the Padres as a shortstop in 2016-2019, but his struggles as a hitter led him to convert to pitching.
So the Padres won’t be able to field a full nine-man lineup of shortstops, but they came close to pulling off that bizarre feat.
