After two years of two-way futility at shortstop, Dee Gordon crossed over to second base this season — his fourth in the majors, at age 26 — and is off to a flying start, batting .336 with an MLB-high 24 stolen bases in his first 35 games.

One narrative for a successful SS-to-2B transition goes like this: “Defensive woes got in his head, dragging his whole game down. Playing second eased that pressure, freed his mind, and let his other skills shine.” More on that angle, after the jump.

Gordon fits that pattern, at least superficially. He does possess other skills: He was a consistent .300 hitter throughout the minors, and averaged 65 steals and 100 runs per 650 plate appearances. But he always seemed stretched at SS, with many errors and few DPs. His big-league stats at short continued that trend: 33 errors and just 66 DPs in about one full year’s playing time. After hitting .304 in 56 rookie games, Gordon plunged to .229 with a 61 OPS+ over 2012-13, with defensive problems that became a lightning rod on an underperforming team.

L.A. acquired Hanley Ramirez in mid-2012, after Gordon went down with an injury. Gordon filled in at SS last May, while Han-Ram was hurt, but he struggled again and went back to the minors even before Ramirez came back. L.A. was in last place at 20-28 when Dee was sent out; by the time he came back, they were 62-50, with a 5-game lead. He had become an afterthought. But now, almost miraculously, he’s their sparkplug.

We don’t know yet if Gordon’s shift will be a long-term success. But how many others really fit this narrative? I tried to identify those who successfully moved from short to second for defensive reasons, fairly early in their MLB careers, with additional focus on their batting results.

Caveats first:

1. Most moves from short to second are made in the minors, before the player even gets a long look in the bigs.
2. No one set of selection criteria will find all relevant players. In particular, I’ve used defensive WAR, whereas the player’s perceived defense matters more to this storyline. But I’ve no practical way to collect that “data.”
3. The normal growth curve complicates any such study. Most players peak as hitters around 26-28; so when tracking those who started at short and moved to second after a few years, we’re often looking at hitters whom we’d expect to improve anyway, no matter their defensive situation.

So, this will be more general overview than analytic study.

Anyway, I made a pool of the 150 shortstops with the worst defensive WAR over their first 5 years, from 1901-2011, with at least 150 games at SS and 600 PAs. This pool is about one-third of those meeting the games and PAs criteria. Their dWAR ranged from -5.2 (Chris Gomez) to 1.1 (Frank Taveras and Derek Jeter).

From those 150, I made a second pool of the weaker hitters: 118 players with 90 OPS+ or less, with a median 71 OPS+. If a player from this second pool was moved from SS to 2B, it could mean the team hoped not only to minimize his defensive damage, but also that stress relief would improve his hitting.

Presto-Chango!

From the second pool, how many of those 118 players went on to significant careers at second base?

• Any 3-WAR year at 2B: Three
  — Cass Michaels, Jose Offerman, Jay Bell (one apiece)
• Three or more years with 100 games at 2B: Five
  — Doug Flynn 6; Cass Michaels & Marty Perez 4; Jose Offerman & Marco Scutaro 3
• 50% of career games at 2B: Three
  — Cass Michaels, Doug Flynn, Bill Cissell

There are seven distinct players here, but Bell and Scutaro don’t fit the target pattern, staying at SS through age 32 or later.

Of the other five players in those bullet points, how did they hit after the move, compared to before?

Doug Flynn just never hit, period. His 58 OPS+ ranks 6th-worst of all modern players with 3,000 PAs. His OPS was about the same while playing second (.561) and short (.552). His dWAR did improve at 2B, from 0.0 for his 2 years of semi-regular SS play to +2.5 for his 6 years as a regular 2B (totaling each period). Total WAR per year improved by 0.8, from -1.6 to -0.8.

Marty Perez hit better after the move, at least enough to keep him in the lineup: 63 OPS+ in 3 years as a regular SS (age 25-27), 77 OPS+ in 4 years as a regular 2B (28-31). His dWAR improved from -0.1 to +1.7. Total WAR per year improved by 1.9, from -1.1 to +0.8. So, a successful move, but still a marginal player.

Jose Offerman hit better after moving, but the leap came in his last year at short. His OPS+ was 91 in 4 years as a regular SS, age 23-26 (but 112 the last year), and 101 the next 6 years (27-32) when he mostly played second. The team that moved him off shortstop didn’t do it hoping he’d hit better; they already saw him as a good hitter, and in fact played him most at first base that year. The move was purely defensive, and in that sense it worked, as Offerman improved from horrific (-2.8 dWAR) to merely poor (+0.2 dWAR); he has the 3rd-worst career dWAR of 26 modern players with 400 games at both SS and 2B. Total WAR per year improved by 1.6, from +0.8 to +2.4. So, a successful move, but it doesn’t really fit our pattern.

Bill Cissell is hard to read. He started with 2 full-time years at SS, then played a year at 2B; back to SS for a year, then one more year at 2B; and bounced all over in his last two years of regular play. We don’t have his positional splits, but his OPS+ was 78 in those first 2 years at SS, and finished at 73, so it’s a safe bet that his hitting didn’t improve while playing 2B. His dWAR was better at SS.

Cass Michaels is also hard to fit into this pattern, for two big reasons. First, his career arc: Debuted at 17 during WWII, and was the regular SS just one year before the move, posting a 78 OPS+ at age 19 in 1945. Played mostly 2B the next two years, and his OPS+ improved as you’d expect of someone leaving his teens, to 80 and then 103. Moved back to SS at 22 and slumped to 82 OPS+; then back to 2B for his best hitting year, 126 OPS+ at 23. His OPS+ settled to a steady 87 for his last 4 years as regular 2B, age 24-27. Moved to 3B at 28 and was hitting well when a beaning ended his career. We have only partial positional splits, which are misleading. A straight average of his 2 years at short shows an average 80 OPS+, and 94 in his 7 years at 2B. WAR per year was about 1.0 at SS, 1.7 at 2B, although dWAR was better at SS.

But here’s the second complication: His initial move from SS to 2B in 1946 surely was caused more by Luke Appling’s return from service than by any hope that Michaels would blossom at the plate with less defensive responsibility. But perhaps his second move from SS to 2B was motivated by such hope, so we’ll count him as a moderately successful move.

Even so, that’s just two players who:

• like Gordon, were moved from SS to 2B fairly early in their MLB careers, arguably for both defensive and offensive reasons; and
• hit better after the move, in significant careers at 2B.

“He’ll hit, but where can we hide him?”

Now let’s shift back to the larger pool of 150 players — substandard defense at SS, without regard to offense. Besides those detailed above, how many played second base for any length of time? Raising the standards just a bit:

• Two or more 3-WAR years at 2B: Six
  — Buddy Myer 6; Lonny Frey 5; Julio Franco, Dick McAuliffe & Pete Runnels 3; Mark Loretta 2
• Four or more years 100 G at 2B: Seven
  — Myer 8; Frey & McAuliffe 6; Franco, Loretta, Runnels & Bill Sweeney 4
• 50% of career games at 2B and 1,000 career games: Four
  — Myer, Frey, McAuliffe, Sweeney

Let’s look at the seven distinct players in those bullets, before and after the move, especially in terms of hitting:

Buddy Myer
— 2 full years at SS (age 22-23), avg. 95 OPS+, 1.6 WAR, 2.6 off., -0.2 def.
— 10 full years at 2B (age 25-34), avg. 111 OPS+, 3.6 WAR, 3.5 off., 0.5 def.
+2.0 WAR per year, +0.9 off., +0.7 def.
Overall, hit better after the move. But improvement didn’t come until his 4th year away from SS, so it would be a stretch to credit the move for the improved hitting.

Lonny Frey
— 4 full years at SS (age 23-26), avg. 106 OPS+, 2.1 WAR, 2.7 off., 0.1 def.
— 6 full years at 2B (age 27-32), avg. 104 OPS+, 4.6 WAR, 3.1 off., 2.1 def. (omitting last full year, after WWII gap).
+2.5 WAR per year, +0.4 off., +2.0 def.
The BJHBA says that Reds manager Bill McKechnie “realized that Frey just didn’t have a shortstop’s arm, and that this was putting so much pressure on him that it was causing his whole game to fall apart.” James further implies that Frey’s offense improved after he gave up switch-hitting, which sources say happened after 1938 (his first year at 2B). I can’t see the foundation for either claim. Not only Frey’s OPS+ but also his basic stats are slightly better before the changes. His SS defensive problem is clear, but his offense was pretty consistent in the four years before joining the Reds. Anyway, he did become a great glove man at 2B, with the biggest def. gain of all the players I’ve looked at in this project. And McKechnie’s maneuvers took the Reds from the cellar to 82-68 in his (and Frey’s) first year, followed by two pennants and a WS title.

Dick McAuliffe
Hopped around between SS/2B/3B his first 2 full years, so we’ll measure after that:
— 4 full years at SS (age 23-26), avg. 116 OPS+, 3.9 WAR, 4.1 off., 0.7 def.
— 7 full years at 2B (age 27-33), avg. 111 OPS+, 3.2 WAR, 3.2 off., 0.5 def.
-0.7 WAR per year, -0.9 off., -0.2 def.
McAuliffe’s defensive metrics rose sharply in his 4th season; he eventually moved to 2B only because Detroit came up with defensive wiz Ray Oyler. His defense at SS (and 2B) was fine, if not elegant; one writer said “he looked like a miner trying to take a shovelful of coal out of the ground,” but then, such things were said of of Honus Wagner, too. McAuliffe started two All-Star games at short, and was certainly good enough to stay at the position longer than he did.

Julio Franco
— 5 full years at SS (age 24-28), avg. 99 OPS+, 2.3 WAR, 3.1 off., 0.1 def.
— 4 full years at 2B (age 29-32), avg. 129 OPS+, 5.1 WAR, 5.2 off., 0.3 def.
+2.8 WAR per year, +2.1 off., +0.2 def.
Like Jose Offerman, Franco’s batting gains began when he was still at short, but Julio kept raising his ceiling. And like Offerman, his 2B defense wasn’t much improvement over SS; Franco switched to DH at 32, never to return.

Pete Runnels
— 3 full years at SS (age 24-26), avg. 98 OPS+, 2.1 WAR, 2.8 off., 0.1 def.
— 4 full years at 2B (age 27, 30-32), avg. 117 OPS+, 4.2 WAR, 4.4 off., 0.4 def.
+2.1 WAR per year, +1.6 off., +0.3 def.
From age 28, Runnels was sort of an every-day utility man, and he wound up with more games at first than either short or second. Hitting improved after leaving SS, but not in a straight line; declined in his first year at 2B, compared to his last at SS, then moved to 1B for 2 years (one better, one worse). His return to 2B coincided with his move to Fenway; Runnels hit .340 at home in his 5 BoSox years, .299 away, but of course OPS+ is meant to neutralize park effects.

Mark Loretta
Never a full-time SS, so no strong basis for “before/after.” Had 2 years playing more at SS than any other spot, but never more than 90 games in a season. But I’ll run the numbers anyway:
— 6 full years before settling at 2B (age 25-30), avg. 96 OPS+, 1.1 WAR, 1.4 off., -0.2 def.
— 4 full years at 2B (age 31-34), avg. 109 OPS+, 3.0 WAR, 3.2 off., 0.0 def.
+1.9 WAR per year, +2.1 off., +0.2 def. (But again, no real transition from SS to 2B.)
Pete Runnels Redux. His 4 years at 2B came after 6 years of playing every day all over the infield, totaling 291 G at SS, and 147-160 at each other spot. The 4 years at 2B included his two best WAR seasons, but also two of his worst. Total Zone Rating suggests he was more effective defending 2B than SS. Finished with not quite half his games at 2B, about 1/4 at SS, and the other 1/4 split between 1B/3B — the only player ever with 200+ games at all four infield spots. (Runnels and Franco are the only ones with 400+ at SS, 2B and 1B.)

Bill Sweeney
— 1 full year at SS (age 24), 103 OPS+, 1.5 WAR, 3.0 off., -0.5 def.
— 4 full years at 2B (age 25-28), avg. 108 OPS+, 2.3 WAR, 2.6 off., -0.2 def.
+0.8 WAR per year, -0.4 off., +0.3 def.
Sweeney played only 8 seasons, 1907-14 (7 full), and 157 games at SS. Started out at 3B, with an 87 OPS+ in 2-1/2 years. Moved to SS, his year-to-year OPS+ rose from 82 to 103. Moved on to 2B and rose to 124 and then 135, placing 3rd with .344 BA and 2nd with 100 RBI, all for the last-place Braves. Slipped in 1913, and they dealt him to the Cubs for Johnny Evers (simplifying a complex transaction that wound up as a big win for Boston). Slumping to .218, Sweeney was released, and was done with baseball at 28.

So, most of these guys were more valuable players after moving to 2B. But there still aren’t many clear cases of better offense whose timing coincides with a move from short to second.

Not Pictured

A couple of notables slipped through the previous criteria:

Mariano Duncan was in the bad-both-ways pool, and he did move to second fairly young. But he missed on the other criteria: no 3-WAR seasons; only 2 years with 100 games at 2B; finished with less than 600 games at 2B and less than half his career games there. Duncan’s bat came alive in his first year away from SS; overall, he had a .628 OPS when playing SS, .737 at 2B, each in about 2,000 PAs. His overall defensive marks didn’t improve, scoring about equally bad at both positions. (Those who only remember Duncan at 2B for the ’96 WS champs might argue that point; for what it’s worth, that’s the only full year he scored positive dWAR.)

Mike Tyson was not in the pool, because his defense was solid, totaling 2.7 dWAR in his 3 full years there, for the 1973-75 Cardinals. Hit poorly his first 2 years, then got up to 80 OPS+ in his 3rd. But the Cards dealt for Don Kessinger. Tyson moved to second in ’76 and had his best hitting year, .305 at the All-Star break; then he got hurt, and finished at .286 and 117 OPS+ in half-time play. Kessinger was on his last legs, but then Garry Templeton came up, so Tyson stayed at second. His OPS+ fell back to 68 in his last 4 years of regular play; final career splits were .598 OPS at 2B, .620 at SS. Defense scored well his first 2 years at 2B, but declined quickly.

Granny Hamner wasn’t in the pool, lacking 150 SS games in his first 5 years; he debuted at 17 (1944) and sat the bench for 4 years. A utility regular his first full year, then settled at SS for 4 years (age 22-25), averaging 85 OPS+ but up to 102 his last year; totaled a fine 6.0 dWAR, behind only Rizzuto and Reese in that span. In 1953, the Phils brought up 19-year-old Ted Kazanski, and Hamner slid over to 2B mid-season. Kazanski didn’t hit, but Hamner had played well at 2B, so in ’54 they got Bobby Morgan from Brooklyn, and he had a pretty good year. Hamner aged fast; from 1955-57 (age 28-30), he moved among 2B, SS and 3B, declining on both sides of the ball. Never a regular after that.

Postscript: Sticking It Out

Lastly, a quick look at two from this pool who stayed at SS and improved their defensive metrics in the rest of their career:

Bert Campaneris — Maybe his early D stats aren’t being interpreted correctly. Campy debuted on July 23, 1964; he homered in his first AB, hit a tying 2-run shot later, and henceforth had a leg-lock on both the A’s shortstop job and the AL steals crown. But over his first 3-1/2 years, he averaged -0.4 dWAR. Starting in 1968 — the year they moved to Oakland and leaped over .500 — Campy rates outstanding for 10 straight years, averaging 2.2 dWAR. He trailed only Mark Belanger among all positions in that span, and for his career, ranks 40th in modern dWAR, 25th among shortstops. He did cut down his errors after ’68, so that’s at least some concrete basis for the dWAR change. But it sure seems odd for an infielder to improve dramatically at 26 after many years at the same spot. But if that’s odd….

Luke Appling — Became the regular SS at 24. Averaged 0.1 dWAR his first 4 years, then 1.5 dWAR from 28-36. Went off to war, came back to short at age 39, and racked up 2.4 dWAR. Scored 1.1 dWAR at age 42, his last full year at short, ranking in the top half of regulars. Wound up 30th on the dWAR list for SS.

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So, what do you think? What are the odds that Dee Gordon will make it as a second baseman? What other noteworthy players have I overlooked?