May 31, 2005

Second Thinking

In the eighth inning of last night's unfortunate affair vs. the Orioles, The Sox sent Kevin Youkilis out to play second base.  He's been taking grounders at the position this week, and may start to see more action there if Bellhorn struggles.  This is an idea I am hugely in favor of; while Youk's numbers are average-to-decent at third and mediocre at first, at second he's a very good offensive player.  If he can handle the position defensively, and Bellhorn continues to see his OBP (.351, as compared to .373 last year)  and SLG (.365 to .444) flounder, we could see him at second more and more often.

This is something I'll address tomorrow, while assessing the Sox lineup to this point, but it's nice to see that - first - management is toying with a few creative ideas, a second, that Youk is the kind of player who's willing to make those kinds of shifts.  It certainly seems as though we have a lot of those kinds of players in our infield, likely by design.  I like the versatility a ton.

Posted by 12eight at 12:44:40 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |
Comments
1 - Heh. At the beginning of the game, when I saw Vazquez at 2nd, I was wondering, "Why don't they get Youk to play 2nd? He hits a ton better than Vazquez." I gave up on the game around the 7th so I didn't get to see Youk there, but it seems to me (not an expert) that if he can handle 3rd he could probably handle 2nd--I guess the biggest difficulty would be covering a larger area, and I don't know how quick he is. But here's hoping. (Comment this)

Written by: Adam at 2005/05/31 - 18:27:54
2 - Well, I don't know about 'a ton' (and, honestly, everyone seems to be looking at different Youkilis stats than I am... I like the guy, but I haven't really seen anything in eiher his ML or ml numbers that suggest he's really that far above average), but yeah, it's a nice idea that I would like to see continue. The difference between playing third and playing second, at least according to the common wisdom, is that third base requires a quick first step, while second and short require greater range. Youk has very quickreflexes and a good first step, from what I've seen, but it's tough to get a read on his range. He's not particularly fast, but that's only part of it, and really the only way to tell is to see him play there on a regular basis. (Comment this)

Written by: Andrew at 2005/05/31 - 18:59:41
3 - it's interesting...hard for me to imagine youks playing 2nd full-time, but what do i know...i do think they're probably just looking for another way to get youks atbats rather than thinking about him as replacing bellhorn.. bellhorn's struggled, but a .350 obp's still pretty good, and he can really turn the dp...i think he'll end up with an obp around .360, a slg of .420, and about 220 strikeouts...on another note renteria has looked fucking awesome..hope he keeps it up. (Comment this)

Written by: Nick at 2005/06/01 - 03:34:49
4 - .350 is solid... but Youk can do that with a better SLG than Bellhorn has put up. If he can cut it defensively, why not give it a shot? I like Youk's numbers way better t 2nd than at 1st or 3rd... this probably won't go anywhere, but hey. We gotta talk about something. (Comment this)

Written by: Andrew at 2005/06/01 - 05:17:12
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