Padres News: Bob Melvin Talks About Infield Outlook for Bogaerts, Tatis, More
When the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts this offseason, it gave them four players who have, at some point in the last few years, been a starting shortstop. Shortstop, of course, is perhaps the most athletic position on the field, so if you're going to have duplicates at a position, that's a really good one to go with.
Still, it leaves manager Bob Melvin with a lot of decisions to make. Manny Machado is no longer a shortstop, entrenched as one of the best third basemen in baseball. Bogaerts was signed to be the starting shortstop. So that leaves Ha-Seong Kim and Fernando Tatis Jr. to find spots for.
Talk this winter has been about Kim playing second base, bumping Jake Cronenworth over to first and sending Tatis to the outfield. Melvin was asked about the plan at FanFest last weekend.
"Well, I know we have a lot of good infielders, and regardless, we're gonna have a very talented infield with some versatility, obviously a lot of range. With the lack of shifting this year, it probably gonna become that much more important to have athletic guys in your infield. So, you know, we signed Xander to be the shortstop, he's not going to play every day, we have some options are far as it goes there, too.
"As far as Ha-Seong goes, a lot of the time last year, with the shift he's playing over on the second-base side anyway, so he's used to that. Croney's played some first base before — I'm not saying that's exactly how it's gonna go, but it gives us a lot of options, and I know, speaking with our guys, we'll talk more once we get to spring training, but with speaking to our guys, they just want to win, and they realize that they might be moving around a little bit this year."
As a follow-up, Melvin was asked if that means Tatis will be in the outfield.
"Well, first of all, it's gonna be 20 games before we get him back, so we have him in the infield and the outfield working out right now. I don't know, with him being inactive for basically a year and a half or so, shoulder surgery, wrist surgery, that maybe the outfield takes a little off his plate to begin with, it might be good for him. But he's open for anything, too, so once we get to spring training we'll start moving guys around a little bit, but he's ready to play the outfield if we need him to."
Which outfield position would Tatis be playing? San Diego currently has Trent Grisham in center and Juan Soto in right.
"I'm not sure yet. I'd have to talk to everybody about this, too, whether Juan moves to left or whatever. So those are the discussions we've had, but just in hearing what they have to say and talking to them, they say, 'Don't worry about me, we just wanna win.'"
All of these questions probably fall under the category of "good problem to have," so it's not really a point of concern, but it's definitely a point of interest this spring as we watch to see how the defensive alignment in San Diego will shake out.