Lookout Landing

Note: We claimed Tommy Everidge today. Tommy Everidge is a big fat guy who plays like a big fat guy.

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It's easy to say things with words. Check it out, I'm doing it right now. And it's with words that the Mariners and, far more importantly, myself have either implied or directly suggested that we're going to go into the 2010 season with Jack Hannahan serving as the utility infielder.

This, rather predictably, has made several people uncomfortable, because we're heading into the year with one of the more fragile starting shortstops in the league, and his backup has all of three games' worth of experience at the position as a professional. How much sense, these people ask, does it really make for a competitive team to go into the year with such uncertainty?

It is, without doubt, a ballsy move. It's the sort of move few people in baseball would be willing to make, like signing Richie Sexson, or joining the Mets. However, that alone is a valueless statement. There are a lot of things that a lot of people in baseball wouldn't do, and it's by doing the right ones that you give yourself a competitive advantage. It doesn't matter that Jack Hannahan is an unusual pick. What matters is whether or not picking him makes sense.

And I believe it does, for four reasons:

1. Jack Hannahan appears to be a pretty good, if not excellent, defensive third baseman. According to UZR, he's been worth more than 20 runs over 202 defensive games. According to plus/minus, he was the second-best defensive 3B in 2008 and among the best again in 2009. Even if you regress his performance towards the mean (which you absolutely should), he comes out looking shiny. Hannahan knows his way around the hot corner. Not quite to the same degree as Adrian Beltre, but Beltre is nobody's fair standard.


2. Tom Tango's Fan Scouting Reports suggest that Hannahan has all the tools necessary to play a decent short. In 2008, he was rated as being pretty similar to guys like Jed Lowrie, Bobby Crosby, and Miguel Tejada. Last year, he came out looking like Tejada (again) and Ronny Cedeno. You can choose to put stock in this approach, or you can choose not to, but the information, I believe, is not without value. According to people who have seen a lot of Jack Hannahan in the field, he has all the tools he needs to slide over to his left.


3. Moving from third base to shortstop honestly isn't that big of a deal. You can believe Tango's positional adjustment, which asserts a difference of about five runs. Or you can believe Jack Hannahan:

   "But anytime you can stay on the same side of the infield, the transition isn't too bad."
   ...
   Hannahan said he felt comfortable during his two-inning stint and doesn't anticipate any difficulties with learning a new position.

   When pressed, most people will tell you that third base is a position for sluggers while shortstop is a position for slick little glovemen. This then creates the illusion of far greater difficulty when you play up the middle. To my knowledge, this isn't reflected in real life. We can expect people to look a little worse at short than they do at third, but it's not some kind of ability crippler. If you think about it, what's really the difference? Nothing's the same, but everything's similar. The angles, the range, the off-balance throws...like Hannahan says, it isn't too bad. I'd be more concerned about his adjustment to playing a little second.
   


4. You don't only pick up experience in games. Fielding balls at short in practice isn't meaningfully different from fielding balls at short in a game, and Hannahan's going to put in no small amount of work. Hell, according to that article, he already got started around last July. The team is not just going to drop Hannahan into short for some game and say "here, play this." He will have been preparing.

On a roster with a lot of questions yet to be answered, I actually have a great deal of confidence in Hannahan's proving capable of handling his job. It's not going to be easy, mind you, but I see no reason to believe that it's too great a challenge for someone of his ability. As always, it's entirely possible that I'm missing something. Hannahan, however, got here because of his glove, and it's a glove that appears able to play a number of positions.

You can worry about Jack Wilson. You can worry about Milton Bradley. I would not worry about Jack Hannahan. He's going to be fine.