With a big home run on Sunday, San Diego Padres shortstop Freddy Galvis put an exclamation point on the shortstop struggles of his former team.
Last December, trading Freddy Galvis to the San Diego Padres seemed like a defensible idea although some Philadelphia Phillies watchers didn’t like it. After all, Galvis had been with Philadelphia for a while as their starting shortstop, and he carried only a .245 career average. His defensive play was sterling, but never quite Gold Glove level, or at least the people who gave out that trophy viewed it that way (incorrectly at least one year).
Also, the Phillies had two players who could possibly take over short, and both had seemingly higher ceilings. They were J.P. Crawford and Scott Kingery. Crawford was a “natural” shortstop who was taller and seemingly stronger than Galvis, and Kingery, a second baseman, was plowing through the minors, getting better as he rose through the ranks. Both were several years younger than Galvis, and by dint of just becoming an everyday player, the Phillies shortstop had cost his team almost $4.5 million in 2017.
So, Galvis was traded to the Padres for Enyel De Los Santos, a double-A pitcher who has pitched sparingly for the Phillies in 2018, but not horribly. His MLB sample size is too small to discuss, but his triple-A numbers this season are encouraging.
More important, what became a half-year-plus of Crawford and Kingery at shortstop began in Philadelphia. (Other players also appeared for the Phillies in that position, but let’s not sidetrack ourselves into Gabe Kapler’s love of shuffling players around the field.)
Fast forward to the Phillies arrival in San Diego for a three game series against the Padres starting Aug. 10. Galvis hugged his old teammates, seeming happy to see them. He had to have mixed emotions, however. His old team was at the top of the N.L. East, and the Padres were in last place in the N.L. West.
In terms of numbers, Galvis had slipped a bit in batting average, but his defense was still fit for highlight segments on TV. He stood a good chance of matching his career high in RBI (67), if not his best year in home runs (20).
In contrast, Philly’s two principal shortstops – as things were working out – were not yet justifying the jettisoning of Galvis. Crawford was about to return to somewhere, possibly triple-A, after a DL stint with a broken hand, and had slashed only .194/.312/.333 in 34 games. Kingery was doing slightly better, hitting .223 going into play Aug. 10, but he was one of only a few qualified players with an OPS under .600. Worse, the Phillies had traded for Asdrubal Cabrera and were playing him at short most of the time.
Oops!
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The weekend seemed to turn the Phillies’ “Oops!” into “Double oops!” as the Padres took two of three games from them with Freddy Galvis contributing significantly to both of their wins.
In the first game he pounded an RBI single into center field in the second inning, putting the Padres up 1-0 in an eventual 2-0 win. Then, on Aug. 12, he deposited a grand slam over the center field wall off Jake Arrieta. It was the first of his career. The Padres won that game by 9-3. Galvis’ big blow put the team up 5-0 in the third inning.
Galvis had accumulated ten hits and nine RBI in 22 at-bats against his former team by mid-August. After the game he went all Crash Davis, saying what players who have been traded often say after doing well against their former teams: “I just treat those guys like any other team and play hard.”
He had not made an error all weekend, playing his usual graceful and inventive shortstop. It all seemed designed to make Padres GM A.J. Preller look like a genius.