Jim Stoeckel took a phone call on Friday from Terry Reynolds, a colleague with the Cincinnati Reds, who shared some exciting news about Didi Gregorius, one of their old scouting discoveries. Gregorius, Reynolds said, had just become the new shortstop for the Yankees, and Stoeckel said he smiled at a coincidence.
Stoeckel, who helped sign Gregorius from Curaçao for $50,000 in 2007, is the former baseball coach for the Dutch national team. It occurred to him instantly that the two shortstops who will probably flank Derek Jeter in Yankees history were born in the Netherlands.
One is Robert Eenhoorn, the Yankees’ starting shortstop on May 28, 1995, the day before Jeter’s major league debut. Now that Jeter has finished a storied 20-year career, Gregorius is next in line.
“There are some very similar parallels there,” Stoeckel said. “Didi’s very quiet, extremely competitive, extremely well-mannered.”
But, Stoeckel added: “Didi will be Didi. He would not want to be Derek Jeter, and I think people will really respect that about him. He is who he is, and he won’t try to be anything different.”
The Yankees acquired Gregorius from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday in a three-team trade that sent starter Shane Greene to the Detroit Tigers. The Diamondbacks received pitcher Robbie Ray and the infield prospect Domingo Leyba from Detroit.
Gregorius has played only once at Yankee Stadium, in April 2013, when he hit a home run in his first game for the Diamondbacks. Their former general manager, Kevin Towers, compared Gregorius to Jeter, though no one can reasonably expect Gregorius to collect five titles and 3,465 career hits.
Still, for the temperament to handle the scrutiny, the Yankees may have chosen wisely.
“They couldn’t have gotten a better personality type for that,” said David Bell, the former major league infielder who managed Gregorius at Class AAA Louisville in 2012. “Didi understands that he doesn’t have to be anybody else. He’s very confident, but he’s not in your face about it. There’s an inner confidence that’s going to serve him and that team very well.”
Last season was a victory lap for Jeter, who played 146 games with soft offensive impact and below-average defense. He deserved his warm send-off, but he could not help the Yankees avoid the worst season of his career.
Atlantic
Ocean
DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC
PUERTO
RICO
Caribbean Sea
COLOMBIA
Area of detail
45 miles
200 miles
VENEZUELA
Caribbean Sea
ARUBA
(Netherlands)
CURAÇAO
(Netherlands)
BONAIRE
(Netherlands)
Willemstad
Bonaire Basin
Coro
45 miles
VENEZUELA
Gregorius hit just .226 with six home runs last season, yet his combined on-base and slugging percentage, .653, was still higher than Jeter’s .617. He should be capable of exceeding Jeter’s on-field production last season, and he gives the Yankees, at last, a player who might be better than we have already seen.
The Yankees’ other major move Friday came in their more typical way, by acquiring the power reliever Andrew Miller, a left-hander, with a four-year, $36 million contract. Gregorius, their only projected everyday player in his 20s, came with perhaps more savvy. They sold high on Greene, who gave them a solid half-season but has a pedigree — a former 15th-round draft pick with an ordinary minor league career — that suggests a low ceiling.
In Curaçao, Gregorius grew up with other future shortstops, including Andrelton Simmons, the Gold Glove winner for the Atlanta Braves, and Jurickson Profar, a promising Texas Ranger. Gregorius’s father was a pitcher, and his mother was a softball player on the national team.
“Didi was a pitcher also, when he was young, but he did not want to pitch because his dad was a pitcher,” Stoeckel said. “He made it clear he wanted to be a shortstop. So the first thing that stood out about him was his arm strength.”
The Reds nurtured Gregorius through their farm system but traded him in a December 2012 deal that brought them outfielder Shin-Soo Choo. With the Diamondbacks, who changed general managers this season, Gregorius could not quite separate himself from a glut of young shortstops.
Replacing a Legend
Still, said Wil Nieves, the veteran catcher and a former Arizona teammate, Gregorius stood out as a top defender who was bound to keep improving.
“He’s got a lot of range, great hands and an unbelievable arm,” Nieves said. “He’s young, he likes to work hard and he likes to learn, so he’s just going to get better and better. He has what it takes to be a great player in the big leagues.”
Bell, now the bench coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, called Gregorius one of his favorite players and praised him for his instincts, intellect and quiet intensity.
“This guy can be a game changer, a difference maker at that position — a guy that not only makes the routine plays but can make the extraordinary plays look routine,” said Bell, who also cited Gregorius’s arm and range. “Being able to do that, at that position, makes everybody in your infield better. He’s constantly putting himself in a good position, and he’s always thinking along with the game.”
According to Mark Simon, a writer and statistician for ESPN, Gregorius’s ratio of good fielding plays to misplays and errors ranked sixth among the 35 shortstops who played the most innings last season. Jeter, he said, ranked third from the bottom.
Of course, when Jeter was Gregorius’s age, he was a transcendent offensive star; in 1999, when Jeter turned 25, he hit .349 with 24 homers and 102 runs batted in. Gregorius will most likely never approach those numbers, but he profiles as a decent bat with a solid all-around game.
All Gregorius really needs, Stoeckel said, is a chance to play every day; in two seasons with Arizona, he never played enough to qualify for a batting title. In a full season, Stoeckel guessed, Gregorius could hit .240 to .250, with 10 to 15 home runs. He would handle the bat well and show good instincts as a base runner, though he is not a threat to steal very often.
“The sum of everything about him is better than any one of his parts,” Stoeckel said. “If you just go by the five tools — hit, power, speed, arm and field — his arm is exceptional and the other things are O.K., kind of average in the big leagues if you’re evaluating him.
“But when you put it all together and see the whole package, over time, it’s going to be impressive. I don’t think he’ll disappoint anyone.”
Gregorius brings another tool to the clubhouse: a pencil. He is a skilled sketch artist who shares his drawings on Twitter.
“I’ve seen his book, and he’s good,” Nieves said. “He’s got a gift for drawing.”
Gregorius has drawn Batman characters, animals, nature scenes and baseball players. The most recent sketch he posted, just after the regular season, was of a player in pinstripes tipping his helmet to the crowd: Derek Jeter.