Today I’m going to profile Cardinal shortstop Masyn Winn. I have a narrative in my head that this guy is really pretty good. Like a guy I think they should extend to keep his prime-year production in St. Louis. But that is my own narrative, and I want to see how he would be clinically viewed by someone just looking through the numbers.
The first number I start with is his age, 23. A young 23 as well, as he won’t turn 24 until just before the start of the 2026 season. He is in his second full year, which would end his control years in St. Louis at the conclusion of the 2029 season. He would be all of 27 years old on the day he’d ostensibly become a free agent. Free agent contracts, by definition, pay for decline years. They do not often include multiple prime years. Think Soto, Guerrero.
Is Winn in this class? Or might he be? Or how close is he? Let’s look. It will be particularly challenging, since a shortstops’ primary value is typically defense, and these other guys I mentioned are hitters. Neither is renowned for their defensive prowess. Elite shortstops are good both offensively and defensively.
First, just an overview of what he is right now.
Masyn Winn’s 2025 Statcast Overview Data courtesy of Baseball Savant
At the highest-level summary, I read him as a major league average hitter who doesn’t provide super impactful offense (not a lot of power, not a high OBP), but average MLB hitter is nothing to sneeze at. It does help to remember that he is 23 and likely not a finished product offensively. Look at his xwOBA (lower right). It bumps along just below league average. Statcast board power figures like hard hit% lag league average. Batting run value (upper left) is almost spot on league average. Note that his K and Whiff rates are pretty good, and he doesn’t chase, so he’ll likely never be an easy out. Impactful offense (hard hitting, slugging, high OBP, etc.) isn’t his game. At least not yet. He’d do well to hit average power numbers by the time he reaches his prime. Hitting-wise, Soto and Guerrero he is not. By a long shot. But how about among Shortstops?
Offensively, Masyn ranks 17th out 25 qualified SS in 2025 with a wRC+ of 102. His OBP of .322 ranks 15th. Let’s just say he is average (or maybe slightly below average) among shortstops, offensively, as well as average (offensively) across the league. Again, nothing to sneeze at. But why do we like this player so much?
Let’s flip to the other side. Check out that fielding. Figuring there are about 200 position players that qualify, that 100th percentile range factor suggests that maybe 1 other guy in all of baseball has his range. And maybe 20 guys have a better arm (I’d like to know who they are). That fielding run value (FRV) of 14 so far in 2025 puts him on par with Nick Allen and just ahead of Bobbi Witt Jr among shortstops in MLB. His DEF, with or without the positional adjustment, is second to none, also. Fair to say, he is in elite company defensively. Arguably the best.
If you combine the overall (offense + defense + baserunning) performance, Winn grades out so far in 2025 as 20th highest WAR out of 157 qualified players at 3.5 fWAR (so far). So, top 15% of all players, but not elite like Witt (5.2 fWAR), who grades out well above average offensively. Ok, that’s more like it. Pretty much the best defensive shortstop in baseball. If not THE best, at least in the small group that is.
That said, while Masyn is top 15% in all of baseball in fWAR he is a more mortal top 25% just in shortstops, coming in 6th in fWAR among 26 qualified shortstops. In a way, one could say, as shortstops go, he is just a cut below elite. By fWAR.
If you look at the list, you see Masyn clustered in the same fWAR area code as Perdomo, Lindor, Henderson. All really good players. I don’t see Winn ever being in the offensive class with Witt Jr, or Lindor or Turner, but you never know. We’ve seen this young player improve a fair bit in just less than 2 years of MLB play, so hard to rule it out. Even if he never reaches those offensive heights, I think it would be fair to say that it would be hard for the Cardinals to improve upon what they have. Moreso, to get better it would have to come with more offense, which often comes at a trade off on the defense side. To me, what they have is more than good enough.
All this adds up to a 3.5-4.5 WAR player today. Very good, but not quite elite. What might he do to get to that next level? At 23, he is 3 years short of entering typical prime years, so there is room (and time) to improve. ZIPs expects his walk rate to improve (it’s not horrible now) as well as his K-rate. Experience will likely help this along. Really the biggest improvement area could well come from improving that walk rate and getting his OBP closer to .350. He is likely to grow into a little bit more power, but in his case that might mean his .140 ISO might tick up to .160. If you look at his spray charts between 2024 and 2025, he has trended toward more pull hitting, but I’m unsure if this has helped or hurt. TBD.
He could stand to improve his baserunning, particularly in the stolen base arena, to add more value. He certainly has the sprint speed, which is a nice starter kit for good base runners. These incremental improvements seem like they would carry him closer to and perhaps over the 5-win mark. That would be enough to put him in the premier player category.
So, should he be considered elite overall? Probably not yet. Very good, with a good chance to move up. To me, he is a keeper, for sure. I hope they extend him. That move seems like a no-brainer to me.