On Tuesday, we took a look at Minnesota Twins second baseman Brian Dozier and noted that his performance is certainly trending in the right direction, and that continued on Wednesday night in Kansas City. Today, we’ll shift to the other side of the infield and try to determine whether Dozier’s keystone combination partner Pedro Florimon is meeting or exceeding expectations.

If I’m being honest, my expectations for Mr. Florimon were not terribly high. In fact, when I posted my 2013 Twins hitting predictions, I thought that he would be Designated for Assignment in June with an OPS below .500.

Strangely, I was not all that impressed by his defense in his late-season run at shortstop with the Twins. Looking at some defensive metrics, they lined up pretty closely with those of Brian Dozier, who many fans thought was pretty bad at shortstop.

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So, let’s start with the defense. When the Twins claimed Florimon after he had been DFAd by the Orioles, he was known as a tremendous defensive shortstop. Offensive expectations were very low, but that only meant that his defense must be incredible. Reports I was hearing out of New Britain and Rochester last year didn’t disagree with that. They were seeing a great glove man. But again, I thought he was disappointing, relative to expectations, with the glove in 2012.

So, let’s jump to 2013. How is Florimon doing defensively. He had four errors in about the first week of the season. Not a great start to the season, but in total, he has just ten errors this season. Now to the more advanced defensive metrics.

• According to fangraphs, Florimon ranks third among MLB shortstops with a 7.7 UZR. Only the Braves Andrelton Simmons (17.7) and the Rays Yunel Escabar (8.2) rank ahead of him right now.
  
• By DWAR (Defensive WAR), Florimon’s (1.9) is second to Simmons’ 4.2. Third on the list is former Twins shortstop, JJ Hardy at 1.5.
  
• If Range Factor is what you prefer, then Florimon is Number One on your list. His 5.46 is 0.50 ahead of Simmons’ 4.96. The Number Two AL shortstop is Seattle’s Brendan Ryan at 4.30.
  

So, from a defensive perspective, he has been very good. For me, that’s actually a little bit better than I expected.

So, let’s turn to the offense. My expectations were incredible low so it won’t take a whole lot to be better than my expectations for him with the bat. Overall this year, in 300 plate appearances, he is hitting .232/.286/.353 (.639) with 12 doubles, seven home runs and 35 RBI. Looking at those numbers with no context says that they are not very good numbers. So, let’s look at how his numbers rank with other big league shortstops.

• Of 14 shortstops with more than 200 plate appearances, only Seattle’s Brendan Ryan has a lower batting average.
  
• Of the 14 shortstops, only Ryan and Kansas City’s Alcides Escobar have a lower on-base percentage.
  
• Of the 14 shortstops, only Ryan, Escobar, the Yankees’ Jayson Nix and the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus have a lower slugging percentage.
  
• Those same four players are the only ones who have an OPS of lower than the .639 that Florimon boasts.
  

In general, Florimon’s offense has been pretty poor, but he’s not the worst shortstop in baseball offensively, which is what I expected. Imagine if the Twins were paying him as much as the Rangers are paying Elvis Andrus!!

So, when you combine the offense of Pedro Florimon with his defense, what happens? Well, if you believe in WAR, the answer might surprise you. Here are the WAR rankings for the shortstops with more than 200 plate appearances:

SUMMARY

So, has Pedro Florimon met or exceeded our expectations? Well, my expectations were immensely low. Again, I expected his defense to be like he was last year, which is to say, look like he should be a good shortstop but the numbers don’t match. I though he wouldn’t hit at all, especially over the course of a full season where his weaknesses could be more and more exposed. He hasn’t hit great at all, but much better than I expected. So, maybe not to the extent as Brian Dozier, but Pedro Florimon has exceeded my expectations by a decent amount. We said before the season if he could post a .600 OPS and play great defense, we would be happy. I think we can be happy with Pedro Florimon.