Six Phillies players started a game at short in 2021. Only one of them, Freddy Galvis, has played more than 162 games there in that time.
Since Jimmy Rollins was traded after the 2014 season, 19 players have started a game at shortstop for the Phillies. They have cycled through shortstops in recent years, but it’s been a long run since they had one for, well, the long run. If he is, he’ll afford the Phillies quite the luxury. “But in the long run, this kid is going to be a shortstop.” “It’s always good to get the versatility,” said new Phillies farm director Preston Mattingly, who watched Stott play in person last week alongside his boss, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Some forecast an inevitable shift to second base or third base, positions at which Stott made cameos during the regular season and in the Arizona Fall League over the past several weeks.īut Stott’s own focus on his first step at shortstop suggests he sees a future in the six-hole, and the Phillies seem to agree. And scouts do have some questions about that first step. That doesn’t preclude him from having success - two tall shortstops, Carlos Correa and Corey Seager, are going to be paid handsomely this winter - but it does invite more scrutiny from evaluators. If anything, it’s the question that lingers over his future at shortstop.Īt 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, Stott is on the bigger side for a shortstop. “You can never think they’re too good and you can never stop working at that.” Then again, nobody has accused Stott’s first step of being too quick.
“Your first steps can never be too good,” Stott told a reporter after stepping off the field. It was a drill designed to hone the 24-year-old’s first-step quickness, a crucial ingredient in the game of any infielder. Stott had only a fraction of a second to react, his legs churning into gear as he darted left and right, forward and backward, all within the invisible confines of that four-cornered chamber. Not far away, on the grass behind the pitcher’s mound, a coach peppered him with groundballs. Phillies prospect Bryson Stott stood on the infield dirt one sunny morning at Peoria Sports Complex, hemmed in on all sides by an imaginary box.
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