New Wrinkle In The Arruebarruena Situation

This Could Be Your Third Baseman Soon

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

The Dodgers obviously signed another Cuban to join the farm system. You’ve also probably heard that he could make up to 25 million dollars, in negotiations. There are still some things to sort out, but he’ll be likely be handsomely paid regardless. There was something I found interesting, Ned Colletti gave out this bit of information today:

Interesting. I group this into the Arruebarruena contract talks because of the future of shortstop for the team. Lets start off by saying that Cuban players are hard to predict. When they come over they have so many more things available to them (good and bad) that it’s probably unfair to put a projection on any of them honestly, and I think Arruebarruena could be the same. The good thing about Erisbel is he is an all world shortstop defensively.

Wow. He’s a

good

great defender. I was very skeptical about his signing at first, I said “25 million for a Cuban

?!”. Well Sellers is nowhere near the defender Arruebarruena is/is said to be. I was thinking about completely baseless player comps for Erisbel, and I thought

could be an apt comparison. If he doesn’t develop his bat at all in the minors, then a .258/.295/.342 line with (actual) gold glove caliber defense would result in a 2.0 win player and I think that’s even realistic for him.

So what does this have to do with Hanley Ramirez and the SS’s currently on the Dodgers? Well I think this could mean that Corey Seager‘s ETA gets pushed back, Seager obviously struggled in Rancho hitting just .160 in the short time he was out there. While this was likely just him needing an adjustment period, Seager isn’t a sure thing, and it’s nice to have insurance. If Hanley gets signed to an extension, and moved to 3b sometime in the near future, I could see a scenario in 2015 where Arruebarruena plays SS, Hanley plays 3b, Uribe is playing a superutility role, and *hopefully* Guerrero is mashing at 2b. This allows Corey Seager time to develop in the minor leagues as we can see what happened if you rush a player.

*looks with disapproval at Dee Gordon‘s career thus far*

I’m a lot more bullish on Arruebarruena than when the Dodgers reportedly signed him on Wednesday, I actually like the deal, hey if he’s a utility IF at the major league level, adding one of the elite tools in the entire world to your major league team can’t be a bad thing.