Have you ever played baseball? If you have, you surely had a position. Maybe you played more than one but most people played A position, singular. You found a spot, you played it, you potentially got good at it. You perhaps even honed your talents to play at the high school or college level.
But let's take it a step beyond that, let's assume you were good enough to be noticed and get drafted (or signed) by a major league team. That team saw something in your ability to say, "we want this kid to be part of our organization." And when they did so, you have to have an abundance of talent and it's likely they see that raw ability as something that can project to the major leagues. Even if you are the world's best hitter, you have to have a position. There has to be somewhere that you play and can play well enough to be serviceable, at a minimum in the major leagues. A couple of premier hitters do come to mind - Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols - as players that have no real home in the field but have found a spot to basically just stick so that they can mash. And they DO mash.
There are also players that make it to the major leagues because they can play a multitude of positions and hit just enough to stick in the bigs. Most of these utility players are older, never really hit much but their ability to just slip into a handful of positions makes them favorable for any roster. The conventional rule of thumb for a utility guy is the fact that their defense is solid, if not flawless, regardless of where they play in the field. Any hitting that they do is an added bonus but that is certainly not in the job description.
This brings us to a player that is unfairly becoming public enemy #1 in New York - a feat that is surely not hard to do. When signed by the Yankees, Eduardo Nunez was a short stop. He was not a second baseman, not a third base man, not a left fielder, nor was he a right fielder. He played one position, he excelled at one position and while working his way up the organizational ladder, he hit. And he ran. Two of the fastest players I ever got to see run the bases were Brett Gardner and Eduardo Nunez. Who is faster? That's too close to call and surely cannot be measured home to first since Gardner bats left handed.
One thing Nunez did not do was play short stop on Monday, second on Tuesday, short on Wednesday, left field on Thursday, third on Friday, and back to short stop for the weekend. Players do not generally do that in the minors, not if they are top prospect worthy. Eduardo was top prospect worthy. Last season, the Yankees decided that Eduardo Nunez was too good to be back in the minors. He was too good to not get a roster spot over the non-hitting, solid gloved Ramiro Pena. He was ready to tackle the next level and now it was on Joe Girardi's shoulders to find playing time for this young kid. For those who never got to see the Eduardo Nunez I saw in Staten Island, Charleston, Trenton, or Scranton, you do not know what you are missing when you see only snippets of his talent on a semi-regular basis. And believe me, his talent is not nearly as hyped as it should be. The ball jumps off his bat and his speed is blinding.
Is he a future gold glove short stop? Maybe, maybe not. Ask the person who watched a young Derek Jeter if they thought he'd ever make it to the majors, let alone the Hall of Fame. Jeter's the kid that barely hit .200 and made 50+ errors in his first season in the minors. We all know what happened next and it's been a story book career for DJ. When the Yankees traded for Alex Rodriguez, arguably the best short stop in the game at the time of the deal (aside from Omar Vizquel), who moved to third base? Part of the reason for A-Rod making the move can be attributed to the fact that A-Rod just might have been the better fielder and more capable of making that move. That point has been debated for years and is truly irrelevant at this point. What matters is that players play a position, singular, and making a move is not easy. A-Rod needed time to adjust and there were some bumps in the road but he is a gold-glove caliber third baseman. The transition was known, it was worked on, and it was a one time thing. The Yankees, whether it was Joe Torre or Joe Girardi, were resolute in their decision to not use A-Rod as a short stop, no matter what happened to Derek Jeter. Rodriguez came to New York to be a third baseman and that is what he became.
For Nunez, every day is an adventure. One day he is in the lineup and in left field, the next day he is giving Jeter a rest and playing short, and then he slides over to third to spell A-Rod. Sure he takes ground balls daily at 2B, SS, and 3B - and let me tell you that fungos are EXACTLY like the real thing. Yes, he started taking fly balls in the spring and supposedly has been doing so during the course of this season but that does not make you an outfielder!
Call me an apologist but I'd like to consider myself to be a realist. If you think shuffling a player around the field because it's best for the team is the way to turn a player into whatever you wish him to be, you're delusional. If you believe that a person that was a short stop for a number of years can just shift from one spot to another without an adjustment period, you've obviously never tried to stand in the infield and catch grounders that are hit at speeds of 100+ mph, or fly balls that do the same. It's just not reality. More power to the players that can do it but when a player is not capable of doing it so easily, the player is not the one to blame. On any given day, you can flip on a Yankees game and ask Where's Nunez and there's a good possibility that today's answer is different from yesterday.
