As you watch Joey Bart hit bombs for another team, it’s important to remember that position player development has never been one of the strengths of the San Francisco Giants organization. They’ve always been better at adding guys from outside to improve their position, and Nick Ahmed is a near-perfect example of this.
Sure, the shortstop doesn’t hit all that well, but he’s not completely unplayable. His defense and stick-to-it-ness is what creates that value. He’s a classic veteran scrapper, a species of ballplayer you’d have thought the Statcast era would’ve purged by now. And yet, he’s basically the second coming of 2019 Kevin Pillar and I think that means he’s going to be a fixture in the Giants lineup for the rest of the season.