40.7 Checking the Locks: Center Field

[crobillard]

This is a series where I will evaluate the options in each position leading into Spring Training. This is the seventh of eleven parts. I will be taking a look into the center field position in this post.

Sure fire locks: Wilson Villanuela, Niccolo Machiavelli
Near lock: Myeong-hwan Kim
Trying to get in the door: Jerry Bell

So this marks a major transition in the outfield. As our outfield defense lost some of it's efficacy that it had in the past, I wanted to bring that defense back meaning that William Wood needed to be moved to a corner outfield spot. That means Villanuela will definitely be called up this season. He's not fantastic at 7/8/3/4/8 with 8/9/4/5/9 against RHP. However, he's mostly useless against lefties. He's closer to a defense only option in some respects. His defense ratings are 8/9/12 with 10 speed, 10 stealing and 10 baserunning. He also has a 9 sac bunt and 8 bunt for hit ratings, which may help him hold a role if someone takes over the starting spot.

What helps the transition is recently acquired Niccolo Machiavelli, the fantastic defensive outfielder will hold his own at the plate as well as he batted .270/.333/.350 in 549 at bats with a 1.1 WAR last season. Most of his value comes in his defense where he had a +10.5 ZR last season and only committed one error. With 10/11/10 ratings in the outfield and 7/5/3/6/7 batter ratings we're hoping he can pick up his his offense to hold off Kim and Villanuela. He's in the last year of his contract though, so we'll need resign him if he's going to continue being a member of Edmonton for the forseeable future.

Kim is someone that's definitely challenging Villanuela this spring. I didn't expect to want to call him up, but he's fully developed now. He's ready for corner outfield spots, but CF is a little further off for him. He's only rated a 4 in center and a 7 in right currently, but he definitely has the ability for more with 8/9/8 outfield defense ratings. He's rated 8/8/1/3/9 with 9/9/1/3/10 ratings against righties and 6/6/1/2/8 against lefties, so one of these guys are going to be moved to a backup role. Love having someone like these guys as a backup that we can slot in later in the game if we need the help after defensive substitutions.
Another defensive option that we have is Bell. He's a 10 rated center fielder and has 10/8/10 outfield ratings, but the issue is with his bat with 4/6/4/6/4 batting ratings. His baserunner ratings are 10/9/11, so he can help there too. He's only 21 years old and he only just completed AA last season, so I'm not quite sure I want to bring him up this soon, but it's possible. I feel like we could definitely use a great defensive option at center.