{"id":64228,"date":"2025-05-29T17:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T17:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/64228\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T17:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T17:24:09","slug":"marlins-plan-to-move-xavier-edwards-to-second-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/64228\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlins Plan To Move Xavier Edwards To Second Base"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marlins are planning a position shift for one of their most promising young talents. Infielder Xavier Edwards<\/a>, currently on the injured list due to back strain, will move from shortstop to second base once he returns from the 10-day IL, reports<\/a> Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. Otto Lopez<\/a>, who\u2019s been filling in at short in Edwards\u2019 absence, will continue to be Miami\u2019s primary shortstop. Edwards begins a rehab assignment today and will play second base for Triple-A Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sensible change for the Marlins to make. Edwards was the brightest spot in last year\u2019s lineup, hitting .328\/.397\/.423 in 303 plate appearances as a rookie, but defensive metrics have panned his glovework at short since he first logged an inning at the position last year. Edwards has tallied 949 2\/3 innings at shortstop in his young career and been dinged for minus-12 Defensive Runs Saved, minus-17 Outs Above Average and a minus-5.8 Ultimate Zone Rating. Statcast has him at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of infield range, and his arm strength ranks in the 11th percentile of MLB infielders.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Lopez has seen the lion\u2019s share of playing time at second base dating back to 2024, and he\u2019s ranked as one of the best defensive players not just at second base but in the entire sport during that time. He grades out right alongside second basemen like Andres Gimenez<\/a>, Brice Turang<\/a> and Marcus Semien<\/a> in the eyes of Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average. Lopez is tied for the 22nd-best DRS total at any position in MLB since 2024, while Statcast is even more bullish and credits his second base wizardry as a top-three performance in all of baseball, by measure of OAA.<\/p>\n

Lopez\u2019s numbers at shortstop haven\u2019t been so gaudy in a tiny sample, but he\u2019s looked comfortable enough and been so good at second base that the Fish understandably are seeing how a flip of their two middle infielders would look. If they can go from the combination of one elite defender and one liability to one good defender and one even average defender up the middle, that might be a preferable arrangement.<\/p>\n

A position switch for Edwards shouldn\u2019t come as a major shock when looking at his minor league track record. Originally drafted by the Padres with the No. 38 overall pick in 2018, he played more shortstop than second base in \u201918 following that draft but has been used far more frequently at second base in every season since. The Rays, who acquired Edwards and Hunter Renfroe<\/a> in the 2019 trade sending Jake Cronenworth<\/a> and Tommy Pham<\/a> to San Diego, didn\u2019t play Edwards at shortstop at all in 2021 and only gave him 178 innings there in 2022. The Marlins played him at short for all of 34 innings in the minors in 2023, his first full season after being traded over from Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

In many ways, this is a move back to a more natural position for Edwards. He\u2019s always going to be more of a hit-first player anyhow, so his future hinges far more on his offensive output than whatever he\u2019s doing with the glove. Last year\u2019s terrific output never looked fully sustainable, as that batting line was propped up by a .398 average on balls in play despite very poor batted-ball data; Edwards was tied for 352nd among 405 hitters (min. 100 batted ball events) with an 86.1 mph average exit velocity. His EV50 (the average exit velo on the top half of his hardest-hit balls) clocked in at just 95.1 mph \u2014 393rd in that same subset.<\/p>\n

Even still, Edwards\u2019 bat has slipped more in 2025 than would have been reasonably expected. He\u2019s batting .263\/.337\/.292 and has just four extra-base hits in 194 plate appearances. No one should\u2019ve forecast a prospect who hit one home run in the majors last year to clear the fences much, but Edwards ripped a dozen doubles and hustled out five triples in last year\u2019s 303 plate appearances. This type of power outage is still a surprise. He\u2019s maintained a nice walk rate (9.8%) and a 17.5% strikeout rate that\u2019s right in line with last year\u2019s 17.2% mark, but Edwards hasn\u2019t found the gaps in the outfield often enough to eke extra bags out of his elite speed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still plenty of time to right the ship. Edwards reached one full year of service time in 2024. The Marlins control him for four additional years beyond the current season, and he\u2019ll reach arbitration for the first time in the 2026-27 offseason. He still has a minor league option remaining, if Miami eventually decides that further Triple-A seasoning is required. Lopez is on the same trajectory with regard to arbitration and free agency, but he\u2019s out of minor league options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marlins are planning a position shift for one of their most promising young talents. Infielder Xavier Edwards,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,1753,6878],"class_list":{"0":"post-64228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-otto-lopez","11":"tag-xavier-edwards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114592289199383307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}