Under the contract from johnson to swanson, how long does swanson have to deliver a credit report?
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The official start of Summer is upon us and Dansby Swanson is putting up the best season of his career. It is too early to know if this - his last season before free agency - will be his swan song with Atlanta, but we at Battery Power have thoughts about him and you can read some of them here and here. Show Regardless of how the rest of this season plays out for Swanson, it is hard to believe he has been the starting shortstop for Atlanta for most of the past seven seasons. Surely he must rank at the top of shortstops to play for Atlanta since 1990, right? After all, his tenue with the Braves has him on pace to appear in 800 games with Atlanta before this season ends. You’ll have to wait to see where Cobb County’s favorite shortstop slots among those from the last three decades who have manned the position. Before we jump into this most-modern era of Braves baseball, let’s take a look at some of the notable shortstops who played for Atlanta from 1966 through 1989.  When the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, they brought with them Denis Menke, the 25 year-old shortstop who had posted 11.2 bWAR in the prior three seasons in Milwaukee, despite only playing in 71 games in 1965. His 1964 season was the best of his career, when he produced 6.7 bWAR on the back of a 136 OPS+. Although he ended his career as a two-time All Star, those appearances were with the Houston, because Atlanta traded him to the Astros for team’s next starter, Sonny Jackson. Jackson debuted in 1963 as an 18 year-old and finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting when he appeared in 150 games for the Astros in 1966. After being acquired by the Braves in 1968, he spent three seasons as the team’s starting shortstop before moving to centerfield in 1971. He ended his playing career in 1974 but stayed in the game as a minor league and major league coach for the Braves for almost two decades. Jackson was followed by Marty Perez, whose three years at the position were the most of any player until Rafael Ramirez became the starting shortstop in 1981. Ramirez anchored the position for five seasons in the 1980s. He finished 16th in the NL MVP voting in 1983 and was selected to the NL All Star team in 1984. His best season, at least according to bWAR, was the NL West Division winning season of 1982, when he produced 3.5 bWAR for the Braves. His tenure with the team ended after the 1987 but during parts of eight seasons he provided 7.2 bWAR. Andres Thomas shared shortstop with Ramirez in 1986 and 1987 before going on to become the full-time starter in 1988. Thomas, who was only 22 years old in 1986, peaked in those 100 games in 1986 as he posted negative value in every other season of his career. From 1987 through 1990, his final season in MLB, he yielded a -6.2 bWAR, nadiring at -1.8 in only 84 games in 1990. (In case your are wondering, FanGraphs does view his body of work with a slightly more positive slant, but still rates his career as worth -4.6 fWAR with 1986 still being his only positive value season.) Despite his career not panning out, that doesn’t negate the fact that Thomas was a well-regarded prospect in the mid-1980’s. Baseball American ranked him as the Braves fourth best prospect for 1986. Thomas was so well regarded that the Braves declined to trade him in both 1987 and 1988. Five years before the Braves famously almost traded for Barry Bonds in 1992 - and the details of how that deal fell apart is still subject of debate - the Braves reportedly turned down a deal that would have seen them acquire Bonds for Thomas in 1987. The following year, reports in late 1988 indicate that the Braves declined a deal with the Pirates for Thomas because they wouldn’t include Bonds. Regardless of the validity of those purported deals, the primary reason that the Braves were willing to entertain trades for Thomas was because of a high-touted prospect whom the team had selected fourth overall in the secondary June 1984 draft. That player, Jeff Blauser, will move us into the 1990s. As you may-well know by now, this ranking of players is based off of data from Baseball-Reference, and while that may not be your cup of tea, for this purpose it works out just fine. The single qualifier for this ranking is that a player must appear in 65 games at this position in a single season. For that reason, the 2020 season is omitted. Although this review is based primarily on offensive performance, it is ludicrous to ignore the defensive performance at this position. We will touch on defense later on in this article. Let’s get on with it and take a look at the best shortstops since 1990. Best Single Seasons Since 1990Here are the best single seasons by a shortstop for the Braves since 1990. Top 5 Seasons, by bWAR Rafael Furcal, 2005, 6.5 Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 5.8 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 5.7 Rafael Furcal, 2003, 4.9 Jeff Blauser, 1997, 4.8 Top 5 Seasons, by OPS+ Jeff Blauser, 1997, 130 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 125 Edgar Renteria, 2007, 124 Jeff Blauser, 1992, 123 Yunel Escobar, 2009, 115 Top 5 Seasons, by HR Dansby Swanson, 2021, 27 Jeff Blauser, 1997, 17 Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 17 Dansby Swanson, 2019, 17 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 15 Rafael Furcal, 2003, 15 Alex Gonzalez, 2011, 15 Top 5 Seasons, by RBI Dansby Swanson, 2021, 88 Yunel Escobar, 2009, 76 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 73 Jeff Blauser, 1997, 70 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 70 Top 5 Seasons, by Runs Rafael Furcal, 2003, 130 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 110 Rafael Furcal, 2004, 103 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 100 Rafael Furcal, 2005, 100 Top 5 Seasons, by OPS Jeff Blauser, 1997, .886 Edgar Renteria, 2007, .860 Jeff Blauser, 1993, .837 Yunel Escobar, 2009, .812 Jeff Blauser, 1992, .811 Top 5 Seasons, by SB Rafael Furcal, 2005, 46 Rafael Furcal, 2000, 40 Rafael Furcal, 2004, 29 Rafael Furcal, 2002, 27 Rafael Furcal, 2003, 25 Top 5 Seasons, by BA Edgar Renteria, 2007, .332 Jeff Blauser, 1997, .308 Jeff Blauser, 1993, .305 Yunel Escobar, 2009, .299 Rafael Furcal, 2000, .295 Top 5 Season, by OBP Jeff Blauser, 1997, .405 Jeff Blauser, 1993, .401 Rafael Furcal, 2000, .394 Edgar Renteria, 2007, .390 Walt Weiss, 1998, .386 Best Single Seasons by DecadeThese are the best single seasons for shortstops per decade based on qualifying seasons only. Top 5 bWAR, 1990s Jeff Blauser, 1993, 5.7 Jeff Blauser, 1997, 4.8 Walt Weiss, 1998, 2.8 Jeff Blauser, 1992, 2.3 Jeff Blauser, 1994, 2.1 Top 5 OPS+, 1990s Jeff Blauser, 1997, 130 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 125 Jeff Blauser, 1992, 123 Jeff Blauser, 1991, 111 Jeff Blauser, 1990, 101 Top 5 BA, 1990s Jeff Blauser, 1997, .308 Jeff Blauser, 1993, .305 Walt Weiss, 1998, .280 Ozzie Guillen, 1998, .277 Jeff Blauser, 1990, .269 Top 5 HR, 1990s Jeff Blauser, 1997, 17 Jeff Blauser, 1993, 15 Jeff Blauser, 1992, 14 Jeff Blauser, 1995, 12 Jeff Blauser, 1991, 11 Top 5 Hits, 1990s Jeff Blauser, 1993, 182 Jeff Blauser, 1997, 160 Jeff Blauser, 1990, 104 Jeff Blauser, 1994, 98 Walt Weiss, 1998, 97 Top 5 bWAR, 2000s Rafael Furcal, 2005, 6.5 Rafael Furcal, 2003, 4.9 Yunel Escobar, 2009, 4.3 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 4.2 Edgar Renteria, 2007, 4.1 Top 5 OPS+, 2000s Edgar Renteria, 2007, 124 Yunel Escobar, 2009, 115 Rafael Furcal, 2003, 105 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 104 Yunel Escobar, 2008, 102 Top 5 BA, 2000s Edgar Renteria, 2007, .332 Yunel Escobar, 2009, .299 Rafael Furcal, 2000, .295 Edgar Renteria, 2006, .293 Rafael Furcal, 2003, .292 Top 5 HR, 2000s Rafael Furcal, 2003, 15 Rafael Furcal, 2004, 14 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 14 Yunel Escobar, 2009, 14 Rafael Furcal, 2005, 12 Edgar Renteria, 2007, 12 Top 5 Hits, 2000s Rafael Furcal, 2003, 194 Rafael Furcal, 2002, 175 Rafael Furcal, 2005, 175 Edgar Renteria, 2006, 175 Edgar Renteria, 2007, 164 Top 5 bWAR, 2010s Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 5.8 Andrelton Simmons, 2015, 4.5 Andrelton Simmons, 2014, 2.6 Dansby Swanson, 2018, 2.2 Alex Gonzalez, 2010, 1.6 Top 5 OPS+, 2010s Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 90 Dansby Swanson, 2019, 89 Dansby Swanson, 2018, 87 Andrelton Simmons, 2015, 84 Alex Gonzalez, 2010, 83 Top 5 BA, 2010s Andrelton Simmons, 2015, .265 Dansby Swanson, 2019, .251 Andrelton Simmons, 2013 .248 Andrelton Simmons, 2014, .244 Erick Aybar, 2016, .242 Top 5 HR, 2010s Dansby Swanson, 2019, 17 Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 17 Alex Gonzalez, 2011, 15 Dansby Swanson, 2018, 14 Andrelton Simmons, 2014, 7 Top 5 Hits, 2010s Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 150 Andrelton Simmons, 2015, 142 Alex Gonzalez, 2011, 136 Andrelton Simmons, 2014, 132 Dansby Swanson, 2019, 121 Best Cumulative Qualifying SeasonsThese are the best cumulative totals from qualifying seasons for Atlanta’s shortstops since 1990. Top 5 bWAR, Qualifying Seasons Rafael Furcal, 21.9 Jeff Blauser, 18.9 Andrelton Simmons, 12.9 Yunel Escobar, 9.1 Edgar Renteria, 8.3 Top 5 HR, Qualifying Seasons Jeff Blauser, 93 Dansby Swanson, 64 Rafael Furcal, 53 Andrelton Simmons, 28 Edgar Renteria, 26 Top 5 RBI, Qualifying Seasons Jeff Blauser, 393 Rafael Furcal, 266 Dansby Swanson, 263 Yunel Escobar, 155 Andrelton Simmons, 149 Top 5 Runs, Qualifying Seasons Rafael Furcal, 554 Jeff Blauser, 520 Dansby Swanson, 265 Yunel Escobar, 188 Edgar Renteria, 187 Top 5 Games, Qualifying Seasons Jeff Blauser, 884 Rafael Furcal, 777 Dansby Swanson, 563 Andrelton Simmons, 449 Yunel Escobar, 339 Youngest and Oldest QualifiersTop 5, Youngest Rafael Furcal, 2000, 22 Rafael Furcal, 2001, 23 Andrelton Simmons, 2013, 23 Dansby Swanson, 2017, 23 Four tied at 24 Top 5, Oldest Walt Weiss, 2000, 36 Walt Weiss, 1999, 35 Alex Gonzalez, 2011, 34 Ozzie Guillen, 1998, 34 Walt Weiss, 1998, 34 Heading into the 1987 season, Jeff Blauser was the top Atlanta Braves prospect according to Baseball America. After being drafted with the fifth overall pick in the secondary 1984 draft, he debuted as a 21 year-old in 1987, playing 51 games at shortstop, but he appeared in only 18 games for Atlanta in 1988. In 1989, Blauser broke through and appeared in 142 games as a utility player, appearing at at each infield position but first base and in center field for Atlanta. In 1993, he became the Braves’s full-time shortstop, after sharing time with the ulta-light hitting Rafael Belliard. Blauser was an All Star in 1993, finishing 16th in the MVP balloting, with a slash line of .305/.405/.436 and leading the league in hit-by-pitch. He appeared in 161 games and set a career high in hits (182) and steals (16). Both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs rated Blauser’s defense above average at the positions that season. Blauser didn’t get enough credit, in my opinion, for his ability to get on base through his Braves career. From 1991 though 1997, he posted a walk rate of 11.3% or better in each season other than 1994 and posted an OBP that exceeded .400 in both 1993 and 1997. Although his low BABIP-fueled 1994-1996 seasons were only slightly above average (and included missing almost 80 games to injury in 1996), he bounced back in 1997 with another All Star game selection, his only Silver Slugger award and another down-ballot appearance for NL MVP. In 1997, he set a career high in numerous offensive categories, including is triple slash line of .308/.405/.482 and OPS+ with 130. FanGraphs viewed his season almost on par with 1993, with a career best wRC+ of 135 and a fWAR of 5.2 vs. a 5.4 fWAR in 1993. Blauser signed as a free agent with the Chicago Cubs prior to the 1998 season and saw his career end after the 1999 season at age 33 despite posting positive value in a utility role for the Cubs that season. For his career, he posted 20.9 bWAR/19.7fWAR, during 11 seasons with Atlanta and two with the Cubs with a 102 OPS+ and a 106 wRC+. He posted the highest bWAR of any player drafted in the secondary 1984 draft (the next highest was pitcher Blaine Beatty, who proved only 0.5 bWAR for his career). If you include both 1984 drafts, his 20.9 bWAR was the fourth highest of all the first-round draft choice, behind only Mark McGwire, Jay Bell and Shane Mack. Notably, the top two bWARs from the 1984 draft were from two Braves legends and Hall of Famers, as Greg Maddux posted 106.6 bWAR after being taken with the third pick (31 overall) in the second round by the Cubs and Tom Glavine’s 80.7 bWAR after being taken with the 19th pick of the second round (47 overall) by the Braves. Rafael Furcal signed with Atlanta in 1996 as an international free agent. Despite having not played at AA or AAA, the Braves summoned Furcal to the big leagues in 2000 after losing starting shortstop Walt Weiss to injury. At the time, Furcal was thought to be 19 years old. He would win the 2000 NL Rookie of the Year award, playing in 131 games and stealing 40 bases. (Furcal’s time with Atlanta was marked with controversies about his age, which you can read about in greater detail in this piece from Battery Power earlier this year.) A shoulder injury in 2001 caused him to miss the last half of the season. But from 2002 to 2005, he appeared in 150 or more games three times. The high water-marks for his Braves career were 2003 and 2005. Furcal was an All Star in 2003, a season that saw him lead the NL in triples and collect a career-high with both 294 total bases and runs scored with 130. His slash line led to his highest OPS of his time with Atlanta, at .794. After a slight step back in performance in 2004 - and a mid-season DUI arrest that caused him to serve jail time after the season due to a violation of parole stemming from a 2000 DUI arrest - Furcal rebounded in 2005 for one of the best seasons of his career. Although Baseball-Reference values his season more than FanGraphs (6.5bWAR vs. 4.5fWAR), both provide context for his overall performance. He set a career high with 46 stolen bases and posted a .777 OPS while playing in 154 games in 2005. In six season with Atlanta, Furcal stole 189 bases and scored 554 runs - including scoring more than 100 runs per season in his last three seasons with Atlanta. What I forgot - and maybe you did as well - was how good Furcal was after he left Atlanta as a free agent. After signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he spent six seasons with the team appearing in another All Star game in 2010 and finishing 14th in the NL MVP vote in 2006. Although he appeared in 200 fewer games in his six seasons with LA than his six seasons in Atlanta, his slash numbers were almost identical. For his Atlanta career, he posted .284/.348/.409 whereas his time in LA generated a .283/.351/.406 triple slash line. His last All Star game selection occurred in 2012 during his second season with the Cardinals. After missing the 2013 season, his career ended with a nine games stint with Marlins in 2014. For his career, Furcal stole 314 bases and collected 1,817 hits but only had a 96 OPS+ and 99 wRC+. There’s a sizable difference in his WAR valuations with his bWAR at 39.5 and fWAR at 33.1. Who is the best shortstop between the two? Offensively, Blauser bettered Furcal during their Braves tenures. Blauser’s OPS+ was 106 with Atlanta while Furcal’s was only 95. Blauser appeared in 367 more games than Furcal, regardless of qualifying status per season. That led to a Baseball-Reference oWAR total of 26.3 for Blauser while Furcal only produced 16.8 oWAR. Defense is where Furcal separated himself from Blauser, although Blauser’s defense was not as bad as the older readers might recall based on Bobby Cox’s use of Rafael Belliard as a starter and then as a frequent defensive replacement for Blauser throughout Blauser’s career. Admittedly, I am not an advanced statistical savant, and many advanced defensive metrics aren’t available for much of Blauser’s career but FanGraphs does provide some context for Furcal, with a UZR/150 (which started with 2002 totals) providing positive value to his 2002 and 2005 seasons, but those totals were offset by negative valuation in 2003 and 2004 at shortstop. Additionally, FanGraphs credits Furcal with 36 DRS from 2002-2005, including a career best 24 in 2005. While Furcal was not an elite defensive shortstop, he was better than Blauser, who provided average defensive performance during his best seasons. Baseball-Reference gives Furcal a dWAR of 9.4 as a Brave while Blauser earned only 0.5 dWAR. Relying on WAR isn’t optimal, especially for two players whose career were separated by one offseason. However, if we look at FanGraphs fWAR for each of their qualifying seasons we end up with a tie. Yup, each player posted 17.9 fWAR during their qualifying seasons starting with the 1990 season. Tied. We can’t go through all these words and end this in a tie so this will come down to a tiebreaker. This is tough because I am someone who values availability and longevity more than high peaks with a shorter tenue. But, despite Blauser playing in two more seasons than Furcal, the number of games the two played a shortstop is only separated by about half a season’s worth of games, with Blauser playing in 884 games to Furcal’s 777. Because of that, I will give Rafael Furcal the slight edge based on a similar performance in less games and the value Furcal provided as a defensive player. Notable TidbitsShortstop provided a lot of value for the Braves since 1990, so let’s take a look at some of the interesting data for the position.
A few final thoughts to wrap-up this positional retrospective. The productivity the position provided in the 2000s was something I had forgotten about. For the decade, the average qualifying season provided 3.56 bWAR. With due respect to a handful of pre-1990 players, the Braves dedication to drafting and developing shortstops jumps off the page with Blauser, Furcal, Escobar and Simmons all being draft or signed players. That’s 62.8 of 81.8 bWAR from in-house players in qualifying seasons. If you subtract the negative value from Thomas, that’s still 61 out of 81.8 bWAR. Throw in another 5.1 bWAR if you want to include the trade for Swanson, since he was a minor league player at the time of his acquisition. When you include the performance of two still-active shortstops that were traded by Atlanta as prospects in the last 20 years - Elvis Andrus with 30.7 career bWAR in 14 seasons and Nick Ahmed with 12.4 bWAR in nine seasons - the Braves organization has had quite the pipeline of talent at the position. And that’s to say nothing of guys like Mark DeRosa and Tony Graffanino who both provided double-digit career bWAR value in careers - both of which spanned more than a decade. Nor does that include Chipper Jones and Ozzie Albies who were both shortstop prospects who found success with Atlanta at other positions. Whatever happens next at shortstop, the Braves will be hard-pressed to get the same value from the position as they have for the last three decades. |
