Strong Defense Lands Giants Second Baseman Among Game's Best at Position

The San Francisco Giants pride themselves on defense, and one of their players has lived up to the high expectations they put on their players.

Sep 24, 2024; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; San Francisco Giants shortstop Brett Wisely (0) makes the play against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the ninth inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images / Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

For many years now, defense has been the calling card of the San Francisco Giants, especially throughout the infield, with Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Matt Chapman, and Buster Posey behind the plate.

It has worked wonders for the team, especially as they have employed many groundball pitchers.

That continues to be the case, for the majority of the infield, with Chapman employed at the hot corner, and Brett Wisely spending the majority of his time on the field as the second baseman.

Wisely's defensive prowess this season was strong enough to land on Joel Reuter's final second base power rankings of 2024 for Bleacher Report as an honorable mention.

Defense has been the role player's calling card throughout his young Major League career so far, and that was been no different this year.

Wisely made at least one appearance at five different positions this past season, including all of the infield spots except catcher, and one appearance in center field.

Per Baseball Savant, the utilityman tallied a total of five Outs Above Average across all positions, placing in the 89th percentile in MLB.

At second base, Wisely accrued two Outs Above Average, which would rank him inside the top 15 at the position had he played enough to qualify.

The young infielder's overall offensive production was nothing to write home about, as he batted .238/.278/.345 with four home runs, 31 RBI, and a 79 OPS+ across 272 plate appearances in 91 games.

His output while serving as the second baseman was on par with his overall numbers, as he batted .236/.279/.331 with two home runs, 15 RBI, and a 79 OPS+ across 137 plate appearances in 44 games at the keystone.

While defense has served as the calling card for both the Giants and Wisely, the offensive numbers that the young player produced are nowhere near good enough to have him in the lineup regularly.

San Francisco has another option available to them in Casey Schmitt who is not much of a downgrade defensively from Wisely, while providing much better production at the plate, albeit in a small sample size.

Wisely's role would be much better served as a late-inning defensive replacement, and he has shown that he can be a serviceable option at multiple positions on the diamond, especially across the infield.

With his bat in the lineup regularly, he will only drag the Giants down in their quest for contention moving forward unless he can improve drastically between now and the 2025 campaign.