Still Concern In The Dodgers Infield

I was hard pressed to find pictures of Justin Sellers handling a bat.

It’s probably because he can’t

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

The 2014 Dodgers are such an interesting team, and the season hasn´t even started yet! Look at the handsomely paid starting rotation, the Yasiel Puig, the injury risk/ boom potential that is Matt Kemp, look at the relief corps and the enigmas that exist in Brandon League and Chris Perez, the Brian Wilson, the everything. Most everything about this team is fascinating, weird, and confusing.

But what is likely going to be the most fascinating is the infield of the Dodgers. Just look at it, you have a highly priced Cuban defector who can has potential to be very good, but has so many question marks, an all star SS who just rejuvenated his career, but was hurt in nearly half the games he played last season, and finally a disgraced 3b who had an incredible 5.1 fWAR season and in fact, if you look at the numbers, he was the most valuable Dodger of the whole 2013 season which is stunning to me. But of course the previous two seasons before his late career breakout, he was one of the worst players in baseball.

So the Dodgers infield is one of the biggest question marks on the team. And i’m not sure anything that has been done this offseason has remedied the concerns. I found these Davenport projections pretty interesting for this upcoming season. Not for the statistical projections that they offer, but for the games played. Right now, Brendan Harris and Justin Sellers are projected to make close to 50 starts. Brendan Harris and Justin Sellers are projected to make close to 50 starts.

Yep Brendan Harris, who has played in 44 major league games the past 4 seasons. And also Justin Sellers. I personally am not a huge fan of batting average, but Justin Sellers is a career .199 hitter.

Yes, these are some of the major options to take over if Juan Uribe or Hanley Ramirez go down with their inevitable injuries.

Oh how could I forget, the savior CHONE FIGGINS.

Sigh.

So the point is this is a highly volatile group. One to keep an eye on in these next two weeks. We could see where Michael Young ends up going. And regardless of your feelings of Young (they’re probably bad), I’d feel a LOT more comfortable with Young and his league average bat over any one of the futility guys mentioned.

Another relevant question which makes me think. Who is going to be the starting 2b, SS, and 3b come July/August for the 2014 Dodgers. Something tells me, that group of people of infielders is going to look a lot different than this group of infielders.