To your final sentence, at this point I hope that’s what they have Keith focused on this offseason. I’m fine with him at 3B for a season, let’s see how it looks. Can’t be as bad as Castellanos, right? But that’s a spot to claim right now, and Keith’s bat bears playing.
Along those lines of defensive versatility, some guys can do it, some can’t. As much as I appreciate that as a skill set and consider it valuable to an individual player and in the roster making of a team, there are some guys that just can’t do it. Maybe they can flip from LF to RF or 3B to 1B, and maybe that’s stretching it a bit. It’s ok. Not everyone on the roster has to be able to play multiple positions.
Baez, McKinstry, and (to a lesser extent) Vierling can offer that safety net. I thought Kim would have been a great addition to the team as a SS and freeing up that trio to be a really good bench.
A guy like Jones is going to have a tougher time because he can’t really do anything defensively and he’s on the short end of a platoon. I suspect he won’t make it through this season, I kind of think his offensive output last season might be better than it gets from here on out. On the flip side, I don’t necessarily think McKinstry repeats his offense either, but he has value to a team defensively.
It’d be great to see IFs line Lee, Jung, and Anderson show they can hit and handle a few positions, but I guess I have my doubts.