Everyone Needs To Just Chill Out And Respect MLB Network's "The Shredder" Rankings After It Named Gunnar Henderson #1 And Bobby Witt Jr. #4 On Their List Of Best Shortstops In Baseball
Don't shoot the messenger here, I'm just relaying what I watched on TV last night. MLB Network is in the middle of their "Top 10 Right Now" series where they have "The Shredder" rank the top 10 at each position, last night we got our top 10 shortstop and woooooooo boy is it an interesting list that has many folks talking.
First off, The Shredder is a ranking system that is based on previous seasons' performance, defensive and offensive metrics, traditional stats and analytics, plus analysis from MLB Network hosts. Just your average offseason list show, but with this position we had some people upset with how the rankings were played out, specifically in the top 4.
1. Gunnar Henderson
2. Corey Seager
3. Francisco Lindor
4. Bobby Witt Jr.
That's your top 4 and you could make a case that those guys are 4 of the top 10 players in baseball, let alone their respective position.I happen to think The Shredder is a very respectable and knowledgeable machine that spits out nothing but correct rankings. Who am I to argue with something called The Shredder? If it says Gunnar Henderson is the best shortstop in all of baseball, that's who I roll with. So again, lets just try and respect The Shredder and it's findings for the list. I don't make the rules but you now must refer to Gunnar as the best shortstop in baseball, hang the banner in Camden Yards baby.
The rest of the list is where people are upset, mainly at Bobby Witt Jr. at #4. Yes, the same Bobby Witt Jr. who just had a top 5 season a shortstop has ever had, the same Bobby Witt Jr. who was an All-Star, Gold Glover, Silver Slugger, and finished 2nd in the MVP voting with a 9.4 WAR season with 211 hits, 45 doubles, 11 triples, 32 home runs, 31 stolen bases and slashed .332/.389/.588. In what world is he the 4th best shortstop in baseball, let alone the third best in the AL? He's easily #2! Gunnar is #1 strictly because The Shredder said it, but I truly think some calculation messed up and put Witt at 4. It's insane. In all seriousness, Gunnar is a hell of a player but Bobby Witt is ahead of him right now. They may go back-and-forth like a Ray Allen tweet all season long, but as of right now you'd be hard pressed to find a shortstop better than BWJ. Hell, I think you can only say Judge and Ohtani are better overall players than him, no way he's only the 4th best shortstop in the game, he's 3rd best in baseball.
I truly don't see how you can put Seager or Lindor above Witt? If you're projecting for this season, Witt is still much younger, much more durable, out performs them in nearly every category (Gunnar too) and is just flat out better. If you're going off last year, again I don't know how you watch 162 and put Bobby that far down. Even Mets and Rangers fans would look you in the eye and say it's laughable that their guys are ahead of Witt after the season he had last year. Gunnar and Bobby are truly in a class of their own when it comes to their play, the rest of the guys are a tier or 2 down, truly laughable to put Lindor and Seager up that high over Witt, at least The Shredder got Gunnar's spot right.
As expected, baseball Twitter blew up over this post and Royals fans wet to town on it. I get where they're coming from, it's that time of the offseason where you can smell baseball coming up and Royals fans are bored waiting for the AFC Championship game,, so they took that out on MLB Network. If you ever find yourself working with a program that calculates a value that shows that Bobby Witt Jr. is the 4th best shortstop out there, I highly suggest you light that machine on fire and keep it moving. Probably the most loaded position group out there, young studs as far as the eye can see. Was this just offseason clickbait content? Did MLB Network purposely put Witt Jr. as the 4th best SS to distract from the fact that Ichiro missed unanimously going into the hall by 1 vote? Is that what's going on here? Because it has the baseball world talking. Maybe they did, but again we should respect The Shredder for at least putting Gunnar #1, they got that right…..but Witt Jr. has to be moved up! It's a crime, but until then we should refer to Gunnar as the #1 shortstop, probably just because he was part of the molar roll call.
If you take away one thing from the MLB offseason just remember that Gunnar is better than Bobby though, The Shredder said so, so it has to be true. I don't make the rules, I just follow them.