We can't stop talking about Francisco Lindor of the Cleveland Indians, who, with an OPS around 1.000 in the early going to go with his Gold Glove-caliber defense at short, seems to be having a breakout season. But there's a lot more than just the young star in Cleveland happening at shortstop in 2017. We're seeing a rare explosion of excellence at the position in history as a whole.
Back in the late '90s and early '00s, when the sabermetrics community was on its initial ascent, most of the shortstop debates centered around the Big Four shortstops of the era: Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter and, post-2000, Miguel Tejada. They weren't the only star shortstops of the era -- Omar Vizquel and Edgar Renteria had their moments, and Barry Larkin was in the twilight of his Hall of Fame career -- but they were the shortstops who jostled for position at the pinnacle, and each personified his franchise in some way.
The end of that struggle was an anticlimax. In the end, Jeter took the crown, with A-Rod finished at short by his age-28 season, Nomar's last good season at the position occurring before he turned 30 and Tejada fading away by his mid-30s.
Still, when we weren't worried about the Y2K bug destroying civilization, we thought we were in a golden age for the shortstop position. It was our generation's version of Willie, Mickey and the Duke.
