2065.11 Several Players Working Out at 1B

[ae37jr]

With the departure of Raúl Gallehos, Mathew Malone is widely expected to get most of the playing time at 1B. But with any good plan, you need a backup and a backup to the backup. The more layers of protection, the more bulletproof you become.

Currently in house, the two leading candidates to become the backup 1B are Jorge Canó and Herman de Jonge. They are fine enough filling in a day here or there. But neither are the type of impact bat that you would want to play there for an extended time. Plus, they are all right handed. Whether you are platooning or not, it's always good to have the backup be the opposite hand as the starter. This way when you give them a day off, you at least gain a little something.

Randall Gray, Phillip Warner amd Octávio Sánchez can also play a very good first base. But they are the other 3/4 of the starting infield. So by shifting one over, you just cause another hole. Starting Ken Procter or Tyler Conklin at SS and shifting Gray to second and Sanchez to first isn't a terrible idea. We'd gain a lot of defense but at the same time we'd lose a lot of offense.

With the D-lab coming to a close, we decided to hand out some slots to some players hoping maybe to get another 1B option out of the bunch..

António Meléndez would be our number one choice. He is currently in a position duel with Chao Yuan(also training at 1B) for the teams DH position. Neither of whom can play the outfield with any competency. The 6'3 Melendez is currently on track while the 5'11 Yuan is excelling. Both players can catch the ball somewhat prolifically with 5 Error rating. And their 4/5 range rating would probably carry over nicely at 1B. While it is all up to the OOTP gods, we're fairly confident that either would turn out to be an average 1B.

Converting one of them would be a huge positive for our position flexibility. Carrying 2 left handed DH only players is about as inefficient as you can get. And both have personalities where they need to have a consistent role in the starting lineup to not be a distraction. While Malone would still get the lionshare of the 1B work, he also serves as the backup catcher. Meaning once or twice a week we'd have 1B at bats open. And on days when Stone or Jensen pitch, we can hide a bad defender in LF. So really, one of these two learning 1B is crucial to our playing time flow.

If they both fail, we also sent Pedro Aguilar to the lab. He looks like he should be an okay-enough defender in a corner outfield, but played miserably last season. 6 range is not a good outfielder unless he can put up a .900 OPS. While I'd much rather go with Melendez or Yuan, neither one of those guys can play a lick of 1B at the moment. So we sent Aguilar as a safety net. If he succeeds while the other two fail, maybe he becomes our lefty 1B option and we have to trade one of Melendez/Yuan for a corner OF. Or maybe we keep Aguilar in COF and acquire a lefty 1B.

Herman de Jonge is also in the lab and on track for a new position. I'm not really sure what position that is though. He already has ratins at 1B and all 3 outfield positions. he does have a 7 rated infield arm... so maybe 3B? Even if he gets a full +1 in all 4 categories, he'd still only be 5/4/8/4. There are two minor leaguers with those ratings. They both have a 4 rating potential at 3B. Of course it would improve his first base defense, so it wouldn't be all for naught.

We do have one player frustrated with learning a new position. Utility man Jorge Flores has been on a developmental hot streak that has put him back into our "future BBA player" pile of prospects. I originally planned just to increase one of his speed categories because he already knows 7 positions. But I noticed that he was missing 1B and was actually eligible to learn a new position. So i figured why not give him a try. maybe he'd get a little boost to his range/errors that might push him into being a positive value SS. But somehow he fumbled the chance. Which leads me to believe that stupid OOTP trying to make him a catcher.

[RonCo]

Nothing better than a hot streak on the development chart.