Luke Keaschall Expands His Defensive Toolbox

40 minutes ago, arby58 said:

In fact, this IS a game where you can just move players around.  Most teams have a player or two they can just 'move around' as needed. 

It isn't a brand new thing either. I remember the 1968 World Series, where Detroit manager Mayo Smith made the gutsy move of OF Mickey Stanley to SS - the criticism then sort of sounds this now. It worked out well, as it allowed Al Kaline (who had been injured) to return to RF and keep Jim Northrup in the lineup (he had a breakout year when Kaline went down). In the series, Stanley went 11-29, scored 4 runs, and had 8 RBIs. Kaline has said they probably wouldn't have won the series without that move by Stanley - who had played there in just 9 games that year. While he mostly played OF the rest of his career (and won 4 gold gloves), he did play 59 games at SS in 1969.

Yes having one or two versatile guys can be helpful, but we are talking about Keaschall.  And they are not talking about getting a Kaline or Northrup into the lineup, they are talking about getting Clemens into the lineup.  That makes no sense and you know it.  The backup shortstop will be the utility player, you don't need every player to play multiple positions.

14 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I like both sides of this discussion.  To buttress Arby's point I was about to bring up Pete Rose, who rather bravely took on the 3B role with almost zero prior experience there and it was instrumental in the Big Red Machine finally breaking through for a WS win in 1975,  But the upshot of moving Pete from LF was to replace not-ready-for-primetime (and miscast at 3B) Dan Driessen in the lineup with George Foster.

Like you say, the move has to be for a bigger purpose than optimizing some Terry Crowley / John Vukovich type's usage.

If Clemens has a breakthrough 5+ WAR season at age 30 I'll happily eat those words, of course.

I agree with your points here.  The difference, they are not talking about moving Keaschall to LF.  This article is about having him play some LF along with 2B.  And the reason to do this is to get Clemens in the lineup.  Even for one game, this is misguided, if 2B is his position  Let him play there every day and learn the position and get better at it.  Now if Lee and Culpepper are both just raking and we need their bat's in the lineup and the corner outfielders are not producing then I would be in favor of moving Keaschall to LF on a permanent basis to get the better bats in the lineup.  But just for a game here and there to get a lesser bat in the lineup, why would you do that.

16 hours ago, arby58 said:

In fact, this IS a game where you can just move players around.  Most teams have a player or two they can just 'move around' as needed. 

It isn't a brand new thing either. I remember the 1968 World Series, where Detroit manager Mayo Smith made the gutsy move of OF Mickey Stanley to SS - the criticism then sort of sounds this now. It worked out well, as it allowed Al Kaline (who had been injured) to return to RF and keep Jim Northrup in the lineup (he had a breakout year when Kaline went down). In the series, Stanley went 11-29, scored 4 runs, and had 8 RBIs. Kaline has said they probably wouldn't have won the series without that move by Stanley - who had played there in just 9 games that year. While he mostly played OF the rest of his career (and won 4 gold gloves), he did play 59 games at SS in 1969.

I just don't understand why a bunch of people on this website have seemingly never watched baseball before. A 2B also playing the OF is such a regular occurance in baseball, and always has been. 

Reading these complaints is like listening to people complain about the weather. People love to complain, they need to complain about something. 

15 hours ago, ashbury said:

I like both sides of this discussion.  To buttress Arby's point I was about to bring up Pete Rose, who rather bravely took on the 3B role with almost zero prior experience there and it was instrumental in the Big Red Machine finally breaking through for a WS win in 1975,  But the upshot of moving Pete from LF was to replace not-ready-for-primetime (and miscast at 3B) Dan Driessen in the lineup with George Foster.

Like you say, the move has to be for a bigger purpose than optimizing some Terry Crowley / John Vukovich type's usage.

If Clemens has a breakthrough 5+ WAR season at age 30 I'll happily eat those words, of course.

We watched that in the world series this last season. Bo Bichette played 2B for the first time in 6 years or something like that. 

It's not bad practice to move players around. In fact, it's bad practice to refuse to do so. 

35 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I've watched a lot of baseball. 

Well your stream of commentary betrays this fact. 

Your opening comment is just "Old Man Yells At Cloud" level of discourse. 

There are some (few) players who can play multiple positions reasonably well. The Twins mistake is thinking that every player can do it. 

It would be sad to have a rookie who CAN hit Major League pitching quite well but whose glove work is as steady as a knuckle ball.

Is it possible they are still hoping to find a position that fits other than 1B/DH? .

The Twins have drafted Steer, Encarnacion-Strand, Julien and now Keaschall. All college infielders. It shouldn’t be surprising that they have had a difficult time finding a position that fits. They didn’t finish college at shortstop. Major league second basemen almost all were drafted as shortstops and started their minor league careers as a shortstop.

14 hours ago, arby58 said:

Check out the top 7 non-pitching prospects at MLB.com. Here's the list and their 'position"

1. Connor Griffin, SS/OF
2. Kevin McGonigle, SS
3. Jesus Made, SS/2B
4. Leo DeVries, SS
5. JJ Wetherholt, INF
7. Sebastian Walcott, SS/3B
8. Samuel Bassallo, C/1B

Only two of the top seven are listed at one posiiton (unless you think INF is one position). I doubt any of these players is being groomed to be 'just' a utility player. Sort of flies in the face of your 'norm in baseball.'

The two that are listed at one position play a premium position (SS).  Organizations are reluctant to move guys off SS.  They give them every opportunity just like the Twins did with Lewis, Martin, and Lee.  A very high percentage of guys listed as (SS) end up playing elsewhere.  If you look at the scouting reports, McGonigle and LeVries, it's quite possible they get moved to a different position. 

I would think Keaschall's greatest value would be to back-up CF.  

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

You want one of their best hitters to be a backup and sit on the bench? 

I am not sure why you would come to that conclusion.  He could play every day at 2B and in the event Buxton was out, he could cover CF.  We have better back-up options at 2B than we do CF.  In theory, this would eliminate the need to roster Outman.  

20 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

You said his highest value is backup CF? But yes, all that makes sense. 

You're right.   I did a poor job of articulating what I meant.  I meant that in terms of secondary positions, Backing up CF would be more valuable than playing a corner OF position where we have very good prospects on the horizon.  So, I guess I do know what you came to that conclusion.  My bad.