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SPORTS

Price: Zack Cozart is Reds' starting SS

C. Trent Rosecrans
crosecrans@enquirer.com
Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart (2) turns a double play. Manager Bryan Price said Cozart will be the Reds' starting shortstop in 2015 during Spring Training.

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Zack Cozart is the Reds' starting shortstop, and there is no competition at the position this spring, manager Bryan Price said Saturday.

Cozart is coming off of a terrible offensive season, hitting just .221/.268/.300 in 2014, and the team acquired 23-year-old Eugenio Suarez in a trade with the Tigers. Suarez played 85 games at shortstop for the Tigers last season, hitting .242/.316/.336.

But Suarez, Price insisted, is not competition for the incumbent.

"I like Zack Cozart as our shortstop. I do. What we did with Eugenio is we went out and got the two best players we would be able to get in the (Alfredo) Simon trade," Price said of the trade that brought Suarez and former first-rounder Jonathon Crawford to Cincinnati. "We look at him as an outstanding defensive player, which is the primary concern with a shortstop, the defensive aspect of the position. And we felt that he had a lot of room to grow as an offensive player."

Added Price, "If you talk about the football draft, some people will draft for position, and some people will draft to get the best player. We felt like we were going after the the best player. We have to have depth. If there's a way for him to fit on our ball club in a different role, then so be it."

In six seasons in the minors, Suarez is a career .278/.362/.415 hitter. In 54 games between Double-A and Triple-A in 2014, Suarez hit .285/.360/.510 with eight home runs. It should also be noted that Cozart was a .270/.332/.421 hitter in his five minor-league seasons.

Suarez is still very much a prospect more than a regular in the big leagues. Last season, he played in just 12 games in Triple-A before being promoted to Detroit to replace an ineffective Andrew Romine, himself a fill-in for Jose Iglesias, who missed all of 2014 with stress fractures in both of his legs.

Suarez had a hot start with the Tigers, hitting .279/.324/.485 with three home runs in June (80 plate appearances), hitting all three homers in his first eight games. From July 1 to the end of the season (197 plate appearances), he hit .227/.297/.278 with one home run. While talented, he still has room to grow.

"I'd like him to be playing everyday," Price said. "I don't think we traded for him to be a utility infielder for us. We traded for him to be a player. I don't think we have to go any further than that in regards to creating a Suarez-Cozart competition. I'm very happy with what Zack provides."

Not that anyone was happy with Cozart's offensive production in 2014. While playing Gold Glove-caliber defense, his offense was at an all-time low, something that gnawed at the 29-year-old shortstop.

As soon as the season was over, Cozart said he started watching video of his swing. He then watched more and more video.

On his computer was 2014 Zack Cozart — a .221 hitter with four home runs and 18 doubles — and on his iPad was the guy from the two seasons before, hitting .250 with an average of 13.5 homers and 31.5 doubles a year.

"It's probably the first time I started getting into looking at stuff that early. I usually take some time off, but there was some stuff that needed to be fixed," Cozart said. "And I found it."

What Cozart noticed in the two videos was the placement of his hands in 2014 — closer to the plate — not cocked back and ready, like he'd been previously. That change in where his hands were might have been a way to compensate to get to the ball quicker, but it sapped his power. He could tell; before 2014 his hands were in one place, during 2014 another. It was consistent — he looked at video from home games, just to make sure the camera angle was consistent. Time and time again, it was there.

He then looked at video of other offensive players he admired like Joey Votto, Todd Frazier, Yadier Molina and more. He saw a similar cocking mechanism in all their swings. Then, he worked hard at getting back.

"I've already had really good conversations with (hitting coach) Don (Long), and we're on the same page," Cozart said. "It's been really good in the cage and at batting practice. I've been a lot more fluid than before than the past."

Not only were the rate stats down — the batting average, the on-base percentage — but Cozart wasn't hitting the ball as hard. He noticed the power wasn't there. In the past, he had power, hitting 15 home runs in 2013 and adding at least 30 doubles in each of his previous full seasons. That was gone in 2014. He managed just 27 extra-base hits all season.

"I know how good I can be offensively, so it is frustrating to look back on a year like that. At the end of the day, it happened," Cozart said. "I'm going to make last year make me stronger mentally. Because I had it as bad as I can have it. My power wasn't there, I wasn't consistently hitting anything. That's over with. It's a new season for me. I'm one of the guys on this team that I'm here to prove myself. I know the guys in this clubhouse know what I can do, but I want to prove to everybody else, I know I can hit. At the end of the day, that's all that matters, I believe in myself and I know last year is not me."

His manager believes that as well, in part, because Cozart still contributed to the team defensively. Even with his paucity of offensive contributions in 2014, Cozart had a 2.4 WAR season, according to Baseball-Reference.com on the strength of his defensive contributions. According to the the SABR Defensive Index, an aggregation of two defensive metrics distributed to voters in Gold Glove voting, Cozart was the best defensive shortstop in baseball, better even than Gold Glove-winner Andrelton Simmons of the Braves.

That defensive prowess, at perhaps the game's most important defensive position, is precisely why the Reds aren't giving up on Cozart.

As impressive as his overall play was, Price commended Cozart for not taking his offensive struggles onto the field.

"It's very challenging. As much as this is a physical game, it's a mental game. I think from a defensive standpoint Zack was outstanding. Sometimes where you can see the mental challenges is dropping your head between pitches. He is our most active infielders in terms of holding runners at second base and running pick plays, communicating with the pitcher and interacting with his teammates on the infield. He's our most engaged infielder in that regard. That really speaks to him separating himself defensively."

Many saw the trade of Suarez as a way to push Cozart — Reds general manager Walt Jocketty alluded to that as well when the trade was made, but the trade won't push Cozart. Cozart is already pushing himself.

"I saw the trade. I'm not worried about it, because I know what I'm doing on this team," he said. "I know that at the end of the day, this team knows I help this team win out there."