GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The scouting report on the Diamondbacks' Nick Ahmed reads differently, depending on which of the shortstop's tools is being addressed.
As a prospect, FanGraphs considers him a below-average hitter at 30 to 40 on the 20-80 baseball scouting scale. Defensively, the site views him as a high-level talent, rated at 65. The Diamondbacks might be willing to call that defensive figure inaccurate, even though it's a fine compliment as a subjective statistic could be.
"Nick Ahmed, we feel like he's a guy defensively who's as good as anybody in the major leagues," Arizona manager Chip Hale said at the beginning of spring training. "The rating system, when people scout, an 80 is the best you can be, like a (Albert) Pujols in his prime, a Barry Bonds when he was in his prime. This guy is close to that, as a defender."
And that explains why the 24-year-old is considered a potential option at shortstop as Arizona decides upon an Opening Day roster -- even though Chris Owings, who could be shifted to second base, is on track to return from shoulder surgery in October.
With such high praise toward Ahmed's defensive instincts and abilities, it's fairly obvious what is biggest challenge is in earning a starting job.
"We need to score runs," Hale said. "We need to put people across home plate. That's why I say about Ahmed, the defense is fantastic, we just need to get his offense up to speed with that. Chris (Owings) is pretty much the total package with that."
Ahmed, acquired in 2013 as part of the trade package that sent Justin Upton to the Atlanta Braves, recorded one hit in his final 18 at-bats of 2014 while filling in for the injured Owings. He finished the year hitting .200 with an .233 on-base percentage, but he feels the spot duty wasn't representative of where his swing was or is now.
Ahmed's bat showed some life last summer at Triple-A Reno after a tough 2013 season in Double-A Mobile in which he hit just .236. The 24-year-old finished last year with a slash line of .312/.373/.425 and scored 57 runs in 104 games at Reno, known as a hitter's paradise. Ahmed's big adjustment was lowering his hand placement on the bat.
"Everybody says, oh, it's Reno," Hale said. "You still have to do it."
"That role was something new to me," he said. "Definitely, didn't really take hold of that role and hit and produce to the best of my abilities, I don't think. It was definitely a learning process. I've gotten a lot better."
On Sunday, Ahmed's seventh-inning double pushed a run across the plate during a 12-2 win against the San Francisco Giants. He followed up that two-hit outing Monday with a 0-for-3 peformance in the D-backs' 3-3 tie against the White Sox.
The most important thing is he's getting a lot of at-bats.
Heading into camp, the staff asked the shortstop if he felt good about his swing. He did. So there's been little tinkering with his mechanics, and the D-backs have allowed Ahmed to go after a roster spot with the tools he's already comfortable with.
"I heard (former MLB player) Kevin Millar talk about, one time, what the minor leagues exist for in baseball, compared to other sports where there's not a minor league system," Ahmed said. "He said, baseball's a game of failure, the minor leagues are designed to teach players how to fail. I kind of took that to heart in 2013 when I was in Mobile and just failed day after day after day for the first two months. I learned more about myself in those two months than I have the rest of my career."
He hopes to use the rest of March to show the D-backs staff how much he's learned from it.
The D-backs already knows he's more than prepared as a shortstop.
Follow Kevin Zimmerman on Twitter
