Monday, October 10, 2011

Pellas On the Pirates: Shortstop

Will Pellas' thoughts on the shortstop position:

I'll say it again: if you have to go with a shortstop who is a one or two dimensional guy---a flawed player, a less than ideal solution---surely he ought to be the one with the best glove unless he is totally incompetent with the bat. To me, that spells "C-I-R-I-A-C-O".

That said, given the weakness of the position all around the majors at the moment, as well as the weakeness of this offseason's free agent class, maybe Cedeno isn't such a bad idea after all, assuming his considerable defensive improvement in 2011 is real and sustainable.

I'd personally be inclined to re-sign him and make Ciriaco the backup, while giving Ciriaco enough starts to get a better idea if his bat---such as it is---and running game would provide enough offense to consider getting rid of Cedeno, either during the season or, surely, by the winter of 2012.

D'Arnaud, I think, probably has the inside track among the guys who are left, but if he doesn't hit a lot better next year, the door is wide open for Mercer. Mercer has power, D'Arnaud has speed; if I had to choose one or the other I'd take speed, at least when we're talking about shortstop, but as the saying goes: you can't steal first base.

Then again this team has a lot worse holes than shortstop, and a lot more of them. So, maybe this is a tempest in a teapot discussion.

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