Alonso in Left?

[IslandRed]

All that's expressing is a decline in athleticism, which is different than "ease" in the sense that it's being discussed here. SS takes a lot of speed and quickness, when you get old, your body simply can't do it any more, even if the spirit is willing. It's a physical thing. We're talking more about how demanding a position is. About how much a player might "want" to play a position. That assumes that he's athletically "capable" in the first place.

Which might be true, but it's also not that relevant. The defensive spectrum is not an academic argument about the difficulty of various positions. It's a pragmatic recognition of the size of the pool of available players at various positions (which affects the amount of offense that can be reasonably expected), and the history-of-baseball-long path of transitioning from a more difficult position to a less difficult one. Argue the difficulty of third base all you want -- and I agree, it is quite difficult to play well -- but over baseball history, lots of major-leaguers have moved from shortstop to third base, permanently or temporarily; they hardly ever move from third base to shortstop. The "why" isn't important in context, it just is.

[Roy Tucker]

I just think that SS calls upon a wider range of skills and abilities.

Yes, they may have more routine plays than 3B, but they also have more difficult plays to make where they have to go in the hole and make a hard throw, range over to 2B and make a quick chuck, sprint back for pop-ups ranging from foul territory to CF, charge slow hoppers, make the pivot or make the toss in double plays in the teeth of a baserunner, cover on steals, and oh yeah, be the leader of the infield defense and make the calls.

I do appreciate the difficulties of the plays at 3B though. It ain't a picnic there.

[kpresidente]

IslandRed,

I'm sorry but you're wrong. If we're discussing what "difficulty" means to a player that's young and athletically capable of both positions, then data that expresses the result of athletic decline is what's not relevant.

[IslandRed]

IslandRed,

I'm sorry but you're wrong. If we're discussing what "difficulty" means to a player that's young and athletically capable of both positions, then data that expresses the result of athletic decline is what's not relevant.

It might be what you're discussing, but it's not what the defensive spectrum discusses. My apologies if we're not talking about the same thing.

[kpresidente]

Yeah, we're talking past each other. If you look at my original post, you can see I'm talking more about baseball skills and assuming the athleticism is there.

SS is more difficult than the hot corner? Not in my book. Catcher is the hardest position to play, 3B is next. You don't want to confuse "difficult" with "important". In the case of Votto, I'd say LF is easier than 1B, as long as you're not slow. No digging balls in the dirt, no screamers from the lefties.

[Big Klu]

Which might be true, but it's also not that relevant. The defensive spectrum is not an academic argument about the difficulty of various positions. It's a pragmatic recognition of the size of the pool of available players at various positions (which affects the amount of offense that can be reasonably expected), and the history-of-baseball-long path of transitioning from a more difficult position to a less difficult one. Argue the difficulty of third base all you want -- and I agree, it is quite difficult to play well -- but over baseball history, lots of major-leaguers have moved from shortstop to third base, permanently or temporarily; they hardly ever move from third base to shortstop. The "why" isn't important in context, it just is.

The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Cal Ripken and Hubie Brooks, and Ripken was only 21 at the time. (Brooks was a case of Les Expos jamming a square peg in a round hole--they wanted Brooks' bat in the lineup, but he couldn't displace Tim Wallach at 3B.)