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Scott Spratt, Special to ESPN.com 7y

Who are baseball's best defensive infielders?

MLB

Baseball is riding an incredible wave of young talent these days, which makes it more difficult than ever to try to identify and rank its best players, even in terms of specific skills such as defense. At Baseball Info Solutions, we have these arguments every day, and thanks to our history of research in defensive analytics, we have plenty of ammunition to support our arguments.

As we head into the summer, it seems to be the perfect time to bring those debates to the masses. What follows is my best attempt to distill everything I know and have learned about defense into a ranking of the best 10 defensive infielders in baseball today. I am not following a specific formula to make these rankings, but I am synthesizing player valuation metrics such as defensive runs saved (DRS), skill-specific metrics, research into the relative difficulty of the individual infield positions (which in this case includes first base, second base, third base and shortstop) and my own observations and instincts.

10. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks: I debated whether I wanted to include any first basemen in the top 10. That may sound crazy, but even the best first basemen with the most range, players like Brandon Belt and Wil Myers, have nowhere near the same agility and quickness as other infielders. First base is typically a place where teams prioritize hitting over glove work, and defenders with good defensive numbers at first often have bad defensive numbers when they try other positions. Myers is a perfect demonstration of that -- as an outfielder, he was 16 runs below average in his career. Since moving to first base, he's five runs above average.

In the end, I decided that Goldschmidt deserved the 10th spot. I do not think that his good range numbers mean he could play anywhere else in the infield, but he excels at many of the skills specific to playing first. In particular, he's the best first baseman at handling poor throws from other infielders. His 93.2 percent scoop rate on bad throws is 1.3 percent better than any other active regular, and he's saved nearly five runs since 2015 with that skill alone.

9. Ian Kinsler, 2B, Detroit Tigers: To a lesser extent, second basemen faced a similar uphill climb to make my top 10. Second basemen also face a few challenges distinct to their position, but our research on players who have changed positions suggests that about 10 shortstops could move to second base today and immediately be in the conversation as the best defender at the position.

Even if that happened, one second baseman would remain near the top. Much like Chase Utley did in the 2000s, Kinsler has quietly dominated at second base defensively in the past decade. Most impressive is the fact that Kinsler has done his best work since turning 30. He has finished each of the past three seasons as the top-ranked second baseman in DRS. Albert Pujols (1B, 2005-07) and Andrelton Simmons (SS, 2013-15) are the only other players who have led their position in DRS in three consecutive seasons in the DRS era (2003-present). Kinsler is ranked first in DRS among second basemen in 2017 -- if he can finish the year that way, he would be the first player to accomplish such a feat in four straight seasons.

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