Tampa Bay Rays: Has Willy Adames saved his job as the starting shortstop?

Two factors for Adames

Two things are going to stand out about Adames that are going to either make him or break him as the potential starting shortstop of this Tampa Bay Rays team for the foreseeable future.

First and foremost, Adames is doing absolutely abysmal in the strikeout department. He strikes out way too much. 153 punch-outs last year.

This year, Baseball Savant has him in the 4th percentile for K-rate in the league as well as the 7th percentile for whiff percentage. Striking out has found a home in today’s game for position players, but among active shortstops, Adames is the third-worst in baseball in strikeouts behind only Javier Baez and Adalberto Mondesi.

The other major factor that will go into deciding what to do with Adames is how good the Tampa Bay Rays feel he is defensively. I gathered together pretty much every starting shortstop in the game right now and compared Adames’ defensive success rate and estimated success rate at the shortstop position to theirs by way of Baseball Savant’s fielding section.

In 2020 (as of September 14, 2020), we have:

• Willy Adames- 83% success/87% estimated success
• Corey Seager– 82% success/85% estimated success
• Gleyber Torres– 87% success/89% estimated success
• Jorge Polanco– 84% success/83% estimated success
• Francisco Lindor– 91% success/88% estimated success
• Marcus Semien– 88% success/90% estimated success
• Tim Anderson– 82% success/85% estimated success
• Fernando Tatis Jr.– 88% success/88% estimated success
• Didi Gregorius– 93% success/92% estimated success
• Xander Bogaerts– 85% success/85% estimated success
• Paul DeJong– 84% success/89% estimated success
• Carlos Correa– 89% success/89% estimated success
• Dansby Swanson– 88% success/88% estimated success
• Bo Bichette– 83% success/90% estimated success
• Javier Baez– 89% success/87% estimated success
• Andrelton Simmons– 88% success/89% estimated success
• Adalberto Mondesi– 92% success/90% estimated success
• Niko Goodrum– 93% success/89% estimated success
• Trea Turner– 88% success/86% estimated success
• Trevor Story– 89% success/86% estimated success
• Amed Rosario– 87% success/83% estimated success
• Elvis Andrus– 85% success/88% estimated success
• Nick Ahmed– 90% success/88% estimated success
• Brandon Crawford– 91% success/87% estimated success

In 2019, we had:

• Willy Adames- 87% success/86% estimated success
• Corey Seager- 88% success/87% estimated success
• Gleyber Torres- 87% success/89% estimated success
• Jorge Polanco- 83% success/87% estimated success
• Francisco Lindor- 88% success/85% estimated success
• Marcus Semien- 88% success/88% estimated success
• Tim Anderson- 85% success/85% estimated success
• Fernando Tatis Jr.- 83% success/88% estimated success
• Didi Gregorius- 82% success/90% estimated success
• Xander Bogaerts- 88% success/89% estimated success
• Paul DeJong- 91% success/89% estimated success
• Carlos Correa- 89% success/84% estimated success
• Dansby Swanson- 89% success/88% estimated success
• Bo Bichette- 86% success/89% estimated success
• Javier Baez- 88% success/84% estimated success
• Andrelton Simmons- 93% success/88% estimated success
• Adalberto Mondesi- 90% success/89% estimated success
• Niko Goodrum- 93% success/89% estimated success
• Trea Turner- 89% success/88% estimated success
• Trevor Story- 91% success/88% estimated success
• Amed Rosario- 86% success/87% estimated success
• Elvis Andrus- 86% success/85% estimated success
• Nick Ahmed- 90% success/87% estimated success
• Brandon Crawford- 85% success/86% estimated success

By the looks of these comparisons, it’s fair to say Adames is very middle-tier in the league, maybe even towards the bottom among starting shortstops. He’s negative four this year and was plus-one last year in percentage points of success rates.

In 2020, he’s about where Paul DeJong, Corey Seager, Tim Anderson, and Elvis Andrus are, though DeJong is a fluke because he was fantastic last year, defensively. Last year, Adames was in the same ballpark as Andrus and Seager once again.

I’d also have to imagine based on the eye test that he’s better than the likes of Amed Rosario, Jorge Polanco, and Gleyber Torres at the position even though it appears the numbers say otherwise. Adames is middle of the road- right about where guys like Seager, Andrus, Anderson, and Xander Bogaerts are, defensively.

Based on those defensive comps, he should be a starting shortstop in this league, but what’s going against him is that guys like Tim Anderson are winning batting titles, Xander Bogaerts is competing for MVPs, Corey Seager and Elvis Andrus are both in the top 82nd (Seager) and 90th (Andrus) percentiles in K-rate this year, and Seager is absolutely demolishing it right now ranking in the 98th percentile in exit velocity, 99th percentile in hard-hit percentage, 100th percentile in xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG, and the 96th percentile in barrel percentage.