I've said more than enough of my piece on Cruz, but I don't disagree with the substance of that, really. What I find worrying in general is the lack of a clear direction under BC with regard to him. If the decision was firmly that he cannot play shortstop in MLB, then I would disagree with it based on the eye test, but at least it would be a decision that was actually taken. He could have been playing CF or one of the corners last year in AAA.
He's played 3 games in LF this year, and made the one pretty bad error on a fly ball that he lost. As best as I can tell, the plan is that he'll be able to move around to different positions and be a DH sometimes, too.
What frustrates me is that there is a misconception about his defense. Simply put, he can make plus plus plays at shortstop and do so with consistency. The other night, he had to sprint quickly to his left in order to get a ball going up the middle, glove it, and not really be able to set his feet from the momentum as he fired a perfect chest-high strike to first base.
He does make bad throws at times, but when he has the quickness and instinct to get to those kinds of balls, I don't think his defensive value is so straightforward. I'm not sure errors are extremely predictive. I won't make an argument against his head not being in the right place (but would stop short of any psychological speculation beyond that), as some of that might be registered with the errors. Last year he had 16, which is a high number that would scale higher if you extrapolate beyond the 500 or so innings he did play, but there are very good MLB shortstops who commit a pretty high number of errors.
My main dead horse with defense/shortstop is that you have to play it out and see. Errors simply do not tell you enough about a player's defensive profile, and defensive metrics are hazy at best. The eye test says he's more than capable at shortstop, giving enough value back with the above average plays and especially the bat to not be worried about it. There are also no other viable options, and he has not been developed to play other positions. When the time comes, they should just stick him at shortstop and assess the situation in the future.
Offensively, I will also make no argument against the idea that he needs to improve at the plate before a call up makes sense, but I also don't think he needs to crush the pitching. He needs to be in a good place at the plate. He has been for the last week and a half, and last night was a good example. Early in the game, he was working the count and then whiffed on a good breaking pitch to go down to two strikes. He battled back in the count and then was able to hold off on the same pitch for a walk.
A few weeks ago, in the Iowa series, he was clearly pressing, leading to quick plate appearances where he got his ass handed to him and was regularly behind in the count. But based on the last year plus of watching him, these kinds of ABs are more the exception than the norm from him, which is why a comparison to Polanco or others doesn't sit well with me.
Something that hasn't been commented on much this year is that Cruz's BB% is also up this year. He's seeing a lot of pitches, and I think sometimes pitchers are just completely working around him. All told, what I fundamentally remain unconvinced about is that there is anything to "prove" at the AAA level. This is something that people seemed to be on board with regarding Cherington before, and now that Cruz has had a few bad weeks without a scorching week to make the basic numbers look better, attitudes seem to have reversed. I think he has to continue to look better at the plate through the weekend and in the next series, and then he's ready for the level he should have been at on merit in the first place.
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