No one loves a good debate quite like baseball fans, and with that in mind, we asked each of our beat reporters to rank the top five players by position in the history of their franchise, based on their career while playing for that club. These rankings are for fun and debate purposes only.
Here is Steve Gilbert’s ranking of the top five shortstops in D-backs history.
1. Geraldo Perdomo, 2021-present
Fun fact: Looked up to Cal Ripken Jr. because "he was the Iron Man who never missed a game."
Signed by the Diamondbacks out of the Dominican Republic in 2016, Geraldo Perdomo made his big league debut in 2021, and by 2022, he had established himself as the team's everyday shortstop.
Perdomo played good defense from the start and made steady progress at the plate each year. After hitting just .195 in 2022, he posted a .712 OPS in 2023 while helping lead the Diamondbacks to the World Series.
The 2025 season was when Perdomo really arrived as an all-around player, leading National League position players with 7.1 bWAR while slashing .290/.389/.462. Those numbers were good enough for a fourth-place finish in the NL MVP voting.
Looked at as the captain of the infield, Perdomo won his first career Gold Glove in 2026. Like the man he looked up to, Ripken, Perdomo detests taking days off. He played in 161 games in 2025 and 157 in 2026.
2. Tony Womack, 1999-2003
Key fact: Womack is the franchise leader in stolen bases (182).
Fun fact: His walk-off hit in Game 5 of the 2001 NL Division Series against the Cardinals came right after he missed on a bunt attempt.
Tony Womack is one of those players where the advanced metrics didn’t show his worth per se, but managers, coaches and teammates have a far greater opinion of him.
“All he did was win,” Bob Melvin said. “He was a winner, and winners show up in the end. And he always showed up at the end. I don’t know that there was a guy on that team that got bigger hits for us than Tony Womack did.”
In addition to his walk-off single to win the NLDS, Womack delivered a clutch RBI double in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. The hit tied the game, which the D-backs would go on to win thanks to Luis Gonzalez’s walk-off single.
3. Stephen Drew, 2006-12
Fun fact: His first baseball glove as a kid was one his dad found for him in a dumpster. Drew treasured that glove, and his custom-made Rawlings gloves had the same webbing to remind him of it.
Stephen Drew likely would have been the No. 1 pick in the 2004 MLB Draft, but because he was represented by agent Scott Boras and demanding a large signing bonus, he slipped to 15th, where the D-backs scooped him up.
Drew made his big league debut during the 2006 season and became the team’s primary shortstop after that. He was slightly above average defensively, but well above average for the position offensively.
“He had to deal with incredibly high expectations from the minute he put a Diamondback uniform on,” said Melvin, Drew’s first manager in Arizona. “That’s difficult to do. We had some pretty high-profile guys there at that time, but no more so than him based on the position that he played. He was so smooth that sometimes it looked like he wasn’t playing 100 percent, but he always was, and he was a great teammate. He made it to the big leagues pretty quickly, and he had a tremendous impact on our teams when he was very young.”
4. Craig Counsell, 2000-03, ’05-06
Key fact: MVP of 2001 National League Championship Series.
Fun fact: Counsell was told by Melvin during his second stint in Arizona that he was going to be a big league manager one day.
If we had a category for multi-position player, Craig Counsell would rank No. 1. He played roughly the same percentage of games at second base, shortstop and third base during his time with the D-backs, so he could have been slotted into any of those rankings. Here, he just edges out Tony Womack for third.
In 2000, Counsell was released by the Dodgers during Spring Training and the D-backs jumped at the opportunity to sign him. He had two different stints in Arizona, and the first included a World Series championship. Counsell played a key role in the postseason in 2001, winning NLCS MVP honors and delivering a home run in the first inning of Game 1 of the World Series -- which manager Bob Brenly credited with sending the Yankees a message that the D-backs were there to play.
“[Counsell], he was terrific anywhere,” Melvin said. “He’s plus-plus wherever you put him on the diamond. You knew he was going to be prepared. You knew he was going to make all the plays, and he brought a leadership quality to the field every day. All you had to do was tell Couns where he was playing on a particular night and he would be ready. You knew he would be sound defensively and put together some really, really good at-bats.”
5. Nick Ahmed, 2014-23
Key fact: Won Gold Glove Awards in 2018 and 2019
Fun fact: Both sets of great-grandparents came to America from Italy through Ellis Island in New York
Nick Ahmed was acquired by the Diamondbacks in the 2013 trade that sent Justin Upton to Atlanta. A wizard with the glove, Ahmed's defense was his strongest tool.
"Put it this way, if Nick Ahmed made an error, you assumed he had the flu." said Mark Grace, a four-time Gold Glove winner.
One of the longest-tenured players in franchise history, Ahmed's Arizona career came to a rather ignominious end when the Diamondbacks designated him for assignment in September 2023 in order to call up top prospect Jordan Lawlar while in the hunt for the postseason.