Giants-Cubs Game 1: What tracking NL's best shortstops from press box taught us

In Game 1 of Giants-Cubs, we kept our eyes on Brandon Crawford and Addison Russell

CHICAGO -- Here's where I kept my eyes on Friday night ...

I kept my eyes where shortstops roam.

Game 1 of the the NLDS between the Giants and Cubs at Wrigley Field ( CHC 1, SF 0) provided one the opportunity to admire the craftsmanship of the best defensive shortstops in the National League -- Brandon Crawford of the Giants and Addison Russell of the Cubs.

Defensive evaluations are uncertain things, but when the numbers, the eye test, and reputation coalesce, you have something. So it is with Crawford and Russell. Having them both ply their trade in a high-stakes affair? Baseball fans like us are privileged to witness it.

Given the occasion and perched in the Wrigley Field press box, I decided to devote my full attention to the fielding means and methods of Crawford and Russell and undertake an inning-by-inning deep dive. That is, for the entirety of Game 1 in Chicago, I did nothing but watch Russell and Crawford man their position. Along the way, I learned some obvious and perhaps not-so-obvious things about what makes them the masters of baseball's most premium position ...

Top of the first: Addison Russell

Russell plays deep in the hole against right-handed batters. His "ready position" is to get in almost a wide squat position with hands out as the pitch reaches the plate.

As you would expect, Russell shades the left-handed hitting Brandon Belt a little toward second base. That puts him in nice proximity to the bag for a putout of Gorkys Hernandez on a steal attempt. Russell's quick to the bag (he signaled to Javy Baez just prior to the pitch that he'd be covering second) and drops to one knee while receiving the throw and makes a deft tag ...

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David Ross' throw was a bit to the third-base side of second, so Russell had to adjust, reach back a bit, and then execute a blind sweep tag, which he did to great effect.

So far, there doesn't seem to be a lot of batter-specific or pitch-specific positioning for Russell -- in the hole and deep for right-handers and shaded toward second for lefties.

Bottom of the first: Brandon Crawford

Crawford, who's known for having an arm that's powerful even by shortstop standards, warms up almost directly behind third baseman Conor Gillaspie, presumably to stretch his throws out and ready himself for some powerful pegs ...

For the left-handed Dexter Fowler, Crawford shades even more than Russell did for Belt and is positioned deeper, almost on the grass. For the right-handed (and powerful) Kris Bryant, it's deep and in the hole -- traditional for a righty bat. As for Crawford's ready position, it's somewhat similar to Russell's. He's a little more bent over, but like Russell he goes into a wide squat just as the pitch leaves the hurler's hand.

As Anthony Rizzo digs in, Crawford visits the mound, says three or four words to Johnny Cueto and then sets up in the grass and almost directly behind second base -- a little more extremely positioned than he was against Fowler ...

Against Rizzo, Crawford does the infielder's creep toward the plate to get that extra step if needed.

Top of the second: Addison Russell

One thing I like to do when watching a game in person is kind of non-specifically focus my gaze on the infield and keep it there until there's a ball in play. You can tell a bit about how quick an infielder's first step is just by trying to notice who moves first. I did that in the top of the second, since Russell is known for his hasty first move.

On Hunter Pence's tough grounder up the middle, Russell and Baez are the first to react, but if pressed I'd say Baez reacted an instant more quickly. Baez, of course, looks like an impact fielder, too, thus far in his career.

On Angel Pagan's shallow pop-up to left, however, Russell's move seemed almost instantaneous. You hear about some rare fielders who observers say can be seen moving in the direction of the ball before it's even hit. I'm tempted to say Russell did that on Pagan's ball.

Bottom of the second: Brandon Crawford

Crawford likes to spread and smooth out the dirt almost as much as a pitcher on the mound does. Once, between pitches to Ben Zobrist, Crawford walked a good 10 feet from where he was positioned to tend to some infield dirt.

Crawford plays the lefty Heyward much closer to the hole and almost more like a right-handed batter than a lefty. Heyward, like most hitters, has pull tendencies on the ground, but Crawford wasn't really playing him as such. Sure enough, Heyward grounds out to the right side.

Top of the third: Addison Russell

With Johnny Cueto up and in a bunt situation with Conor Gillaspie on first, Bryant and Rizzo play way in, leaving Russell to man his territory and balance that with having to cover the second base bag. To do this, he shades to second and stands in almost a runner's staggered stance as the pitch leaves Jon Lester's hand. Moments later, David Ross extinguishes his second runner of the night, this time nabbing Gillaspie off first base.

Bottom of the third: Brandon Crawford

Cueto's shimmies and hesitations also seem to throw off his infielders on occasion, as I've seen Crawford kind of get caught in between his ready-position squat from time to time. It's probably not enough to compromise a first step or anything like that, but it's visible at times. Cueto keeps everyone on his toes, I guess.

Anyhow, Baez brings us our first overshift of the night, as Kelby Tomlinson plays him on the shortstop side of second base. Crawford plays him pretty much in the hole. Baez pops out to the right side.

Stellar play by Hernandez in hawking down David Ross's deep drive. He slides to make the catch, and Crawford appears to be almost halfway to the left-center wall in preparation for a cutoff that winds up not being necessary. Cutoff men of course need to know their outfielders' arm strengths without thinking, but they also have to read the play in the outfield to know what kind of throw they can expect. With Hernandez ranging far and sliding, Crawford surely knew that if there were a bobble he'd need to be reasonably near at hand to maybe make things interesting at second base with a 39-year-old catcher running.

Top of the fourth: Addison Russell

This time Russell plays Belt closer to the hole for whatever reason.

With Buster Posey on first and the right-handed Pence at the plate, you can almost see the tension in Russell -- yoking himself where he needs to be to defend Pence, but the other half of his body cheating to second to cover. It's almost like a negotiation with himself. I'd imagine he can use that energy and tension in his favor.

Once again, Russell's first move on a ball hit to the left side looks instantaneous. He seems to be moving a hairsbreadth before the ball hits Pence's bat for a fly-out to Zobrist in left.

Interesting pre-pitch setup with Pagan at the plate. Russell has one foot on the grass and the other foot -- his left foot -- almost angled toward third base. From the press box it almost looks like he's facing the home dugout.

Now Russell's turn to be the cutoff man, as Pagan puts a humpback liner just in front of Zobrist's glove. As the ball skips past Zobrist, Russell is there calling for the ball, and he gets it, set up glove-side forward, and quickly assumes throwing position. Giants third base coach Roberto Kelly initially waved Posey home, but after Russell popped up trigger-ready, he held the catcher at third. What probably helped is that Posey slowed up rounding second. If he's going full speed, he scores easily. No reason to hesitate with two outs.

In a nifty bit of symmetry, Crawford hits a two-hopper to Russell, and Russell makes a quick transfer to nip Crawford at first and extinguish the threat. Crawford can run, so Russell had to make a crisp play. He did. He built some rhythm by hopping his far foot to where his glove had been, which got him moving in direction of first base and also aided the brisk exchange ...

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Bottom of the fourth: Brandon Crawford

Crawford's shading of Fowler toward second pays off, as he turns the 6-3 on a ball up the middle. The Wrigley crowd reacted as though it was a sure hit, but Crawford had it easily thanks to his positioning. He fielded the ball on the side-shuffle, even. Nice low arm angle on the throw, as he knows he doesn't need to air it out that close to first base.

Crawford's one of the best at making the routine play at the position. The Inside Edge fielding system available at FanGraphs puts plays into buckets based on the percentage of time a major-league fielder at the position in question should make the play. The topmost bucket is the 90-100 percent grouping -- i.e., routine plays that big-league fielders (shortstops, in this case) should make almost all the time. It's also the only bucket that contains a meaningful sample of plays, as, really, the vast majority of balls in play are either ordinary outs or a no-doubt hit. Anyhow, Crawford this season has converted 98.2 percent of such plays, which ranks fifth among all shortstops.

Top of the fifth: Addison Russell

Gillaspie pops out to the grass behind second base, but Russell once again was off like a lightning bolt on a pop-up. He was locked in and tracking it, and I don't doubt he would've had it if Baez weren't already in position. Good communication by the middle infielders. You have to think Russell, as infielders go, is one of the best in the game today at reading and tracking balls in the air. As well, Russell told us that his time at second base during his rookie season helped him as a shortstop with knowing where his middle infield partner would be at any given moment.

Bottom of the fifth: Brandon Crawford

You see Crawford glance back at left and center field quite a bit between pitches. Presumably he's getting a quick check on where those outfielders are positioned.

This time he hews a bit more toward second base with Heyward at the plate. Regardless of who's at the plate, Crawford usually plays deep, at the edge of the outfield grass, with only modest inward creep from time to time at release. Crawford's arm allows him to do that, I'd suppose.

If you like nice, straight lines, then you'll appreciate seeing the second baseman and shortstop line up on base hits to right field. That's mostly Tomlinson's work, and when Baez hit a line-drive single to Pence, Tomlinson positioned himself up on a perfect line between his right fielder and Crawford, who scurried over to cover second base.

Top of the sixth: Addison Russell

Russell no doubt remembers that leadoff bunt by Hernandez, and he breaks toward the plate on the first pitch. Nothing going, though. On that soft liner, though, you really saw the sense of readiness and balance in Russell's pre-pitch setup. He got into that wide squat with his weight shifting from side to side.

That fluidity -- staying "between" his feet -- really allowed him to make a smooth move toward the ball to haul in that soft liner with ease. If you just saw the end of the play, you didn't see the highly athletic first step that put Russell in position. Ordinary-looking play, but it was ordinary-looking only because Russell was so light on his feet at the time of the pitch.

Bottom of the sixth: Brandon Crawford

It's getting late out there, and Crawford's still working those deep throws between frames ...

You might think Crawford would be getting more of a workout tonight. That's because Cueto this season was one of 16 qualifiers to have a groundball percentage north of 50 percent. While that's a bit above his career norms, Cueto's also been a bit heavier on the sinker and changeup this year. Look at that blob of balls to shortstop this season ...

Source: FanGraphs

Ah well. Still some time.

Top of the seventh: Addison Russell

Speaking of which, Lester's also groundball-inclined. He's top 30 among qualifiers with a groundball percentage of 46.9, so it's a bit of an unexpectedly quiet night for Russell, too. During the regular season, he averaged 3.65 putouts/assists per game. Tonight, he's had three of them, and one of those is the putout on the stolen base attempt in the first.

Bottom of the seventh: Brandon Crawford

Crawford's playing Zobrist pretty much the way he's played Fowler the last couple of times. As the Cubs' lefty bats go, he plays Rizzo closer to the second base bag than he does anyone else.

Russell just barely nicks a cutter, and we get to see Crawford's instincts at work. He was obviously on high alert with a right-handed batter at the plate, and based on my overall view of the San Francisco infield, Crawford reacted well before anyone else did. There's strong evidence that a player's fielding declines well before his other skills do, and Crawford at age 29 may have seen a little of the shine come off. That was some quick-twitch reaction on that false alarm, though.

Top of the eighth: Addison Russell

It's impressive that Russell is regularly reacting and in motion on balls hit well to the right side. Baez has seen much more action than Russell tonight, but the shortstop is anything but a passive defender when the ball's not hit to him. He's moving with the sound of the bat, and he's en route to the play -- even a play on the opposite reaches of the infield -- just in case he's needed.

Bottom of the eighth: Brandon Crawford

Crawford's creeping in a bit more aggressively on each pitch with Baez at the plate. Baez has speed, and Crawford's surely aware that getting an extra step or two could be critical on a Baez ground ball to the left side.

And there's the home run in the basket by Baez. Looked like a playable ball -- perhaps a catchable one -- and Crawford was set up well into the outfield for a throw that never came.

Top of the ninth: Addison Russell

In comes Aroldis Chapman, so it's possible Russell will have an uneventful ninth inning. In any event, he's playing a little deeper than he has for most of the night -- one and sometimes both feet on the outfield grass.

On the Posey double, Russell set up shallow for the cutoff -- too shallow it looked at first -- but it turned out to be the right spot, as Zobrist's throw made it to him and put him in position to get it to Baez in a hurry had there been a play. But there wasn't.

Speaking of shortstops, it helps to have two up the middle, which is what it seems like the Cubs have with Baez at second. On that point ...

David Ross: "(Javier Baez) is THE best defensive player I've ever played with."

— Mark Gonzales (@MDGonzales) October 8, 2016

Yep, two shortstops.

Cubs prevail in a game of connoisseur's baseball. Thanks to the two best shortstops for showing us their stuff, at least to the extent that Messrs. Cueto and Lester and the respective gems they twirled would cooperate.