There are four big-name free-agent shortstops available in the market this winter — Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, Dansby Swanson, and Trea Turner — and in some ways, it’s quite easy to tell them apart. Which one is the youngest? Correa, though they’re all within two years of one another. Which one is the best hitter? In 2022, it was Correa; during all their careers, it’s also been Correa. Which is the fastest? Turner, obviously.
Now: Which one is the best defender? The answer is: It’s complicated.
It is, of course, a vital question for a shortstop you’re going to have to commit five-plus years to, and it’s an issue that’s more than a little messy, simply because three of them are coming off fielding seasons that — by the leading metrics, anyway — weren’t exactly in line with what they’d done in the past.
