Mack - Didi Gregorius

This is another in a series of posts on various shortstops that have been rumored to be available in possible trades.

Gregorius was signed as an international free agent by the Cincinnati Reds in 2008, out of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

He played for five seasons in the Reds organizations, including 20-AB in the majors (.300).

After the 2012 season, the Reds traded Gregorius to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of a three team trade that also involved the Cleveland Indians. The Reds sent Gregorius to Cleveland along with Drew Stubbs in exchange for Shin-Soo Choo and Jason Donald. The Tribe then flipped Gregorius to Arizona with reliever Tony Sipp and infielder Lars Anderson for pitchers Trevor Bauer, Bryan Shaw and Matt Albers[i]

He had 357 at bats for Arizona (as their starting shortstop) in 2013 with a stat line of: .252/.332/.373/.704, 7-HR, 28-RBI, 65-K, 37-BB.

Gregorius is a pure shortstop with a lifetime minor league fielding percentage of .946 (1,970-TC, 107-E) and .971 last year with Arizona (13-E).

MLB Prospect Watch said on 12-11-12:

He's not an offensive force.  What  he is,is a prospect who has the arm to play anywhere in the infield. The Reds have used Gregorius exclusively at shortstop, and he has plenty of range and arm to handle the position.  The knock on him is his ability to make the routine play. Before the 2012 season, Marc Hulet of FanGraphs.com said about his defense, "Gregorius has a very strong arm and good range at shortstop but he makes sloppy errors at times."  Baseball America had a similar scouting report on him at the same time.  During the 2012 season, Gregorius knocked his error total down to 18 in 122 games, having made 21 in just 80 games the previous year.  That's significant progress.  It doesn't mean Gregorius' defense is out of the woods just yet, but it's a good start.

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didi_Gregorius