With Nick Gonzales, Pirates have stockpiled surplus of shortstop talent
It was no surprise when the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Nick Gonzales at No. 7 overall in the first round of the MLB Draft on Wednesday, given multiple mock drafts had them picking the New Mexico State star. When Gonzales was announced as a shortstop, however, it raised eyebrows.
It’s a position of organizational depth for the Pirates, perhaps their best when it comes to talented prospects. The Pirates have stockpiled shortstops to the point of creating a logjam. They added Gonzales to a group that includes a pair of former first-round picks in Kevin Newman and Cole Tucker, two of their top five prospects in Dominicans Oneil Cruz and Liover Peguero and international signing bonus baby Ji-Hwan Bae of South Korea.
“Certainly when it comes to the draft, we’re going to take the best player available. That would be the case anytime, really, any year, any round,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “The more middle-of-the-field players we can have, the more that have a chance to be everyday players in the middle of the field, the better.”
The Pirates love Gonzales for his bat — he led the NCAA this season with a .448 batting average, 12 home runs and 36 RBIs in 16 games — but are intrigued by the versatility he showed in playing second base his first two seasons before switching to shortstop this spring.
“They haven’t said anything to me, and it doesn’t really personally matter,” Gonzales said. “I’ll play anywhere on the diamond. Anything to help the team win is where I’ll be. I feel comfortable at second, short. Up the middle is kind of where I really enjoy.”
Gonzales has drawn comparisons to Dustin Pedroia, the 2008 AL MVP and four-time All-Star and Gold Glove second baseman for the Boston Red Sox. And the Pirates have a history of moving players from shortstop to second base, most recently 2019 NL Gold Glove finalist Adam Frazier and 2015 second-round pick Kevin Kramer.
“He’s played both sides of second base. We think he can do both, but he’ll come to the Pirates as a shortstop,” Cherington said of Gonzales. “We want to take a look at that position and see where it goes down the line.”
Cherington left the door open that Gonzales or other players could switch positions before they reach the majors. Newman solidified the starting job at short with a strong rookie season, so they tinkered with Tucker at second base in spring training.
At 6-foot-7, the 21-year-old Cruz is an anomaly. The Pirates love his left-handed power potential, and he’s ranked their No. 2 prospect by Fangraphs and No. 3 by MLB.com. Now, they have to decide whether to keep him at shortstop or move him to third base — where top position prospect Ke’Bryan Hayes has Gold Glove potential — or another position, where he could be a future replacement for Josh Bell at first base or Gregory Polanco in right field.
Peguero, acquired from Arizona in the Starling Marte trade in January, is a 19-year-old with dynamic defensive potential who batted .326 with 11 doubles, five triples and five home runs in two Single-A levels last year. He is the Pirates’ No. 5 prospect by MLB.com, No. 6 by Fangraphs. Peguero has the speed to play center field.
And then there’s Bae, who signed for a $1.25 million bonus in 2018. He was suspended without pay for 30 games at the start of last season for a domestic violence incident involving an ex-girlfriend on New Year’s Eve 2017 but returned to slash .323/.403/.430 with 25 doubles, five triples and 31 stolen bases for Single-A Greensboro.
The surplus of shortstops is a problem the Pirates don’t mind having. Not only does it give them depth and versatility in their system but an array of prospects to use as trade chips.
Cruz was the return from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Tony Watson trade.
For now, the Pirates prefer having too many talented shortstops than risking the alternative.
“In a single major league game, obviously, one player’s playing shortstop, but if you look around the field, there tends to be a lot of guys who either are middle infielders or started as middle infielders,” Cherington said. “If you’re a middle infielder, there’s a lot of places you can go. There’s a lot of different ways you can use guys on the field. Shortstop is such an important position that we’d want to have as much depth as we possibly can in that area. ll of those guys can play short. That was certainly the expectation coming into this year, that that’s where they’d be. At some point, you start to introduce other positions just because versatility is so valuable at the major league level. Cole’s done that a little bit now, and in time, guys like Cruz and Peguero might. But we’re going to focus on developing them as shortstops now.”
Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
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