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| Thursday, April 4 Updated: April 5, 6:03 PM ET History of position changes By Joe Sheehan Special to ESPN.com |
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The debates rage: should Jason Kendall move out from behind the plate before the rigors of catching sap his potent bat? Should Mike Piazza move to first base so the Mets can continue to get a .300 average and 35 home runs a year from him? How about Ivan Rodriguez? Would a conversion to second base extend his career? Catchers aren't the only players for whom the issue of changing positions comes up, but they do dominate the discussion. This is one of those baseball traditions, like the seventh-inning stretch or owners complaining about money, that is always going to be with us. Each individual argument is different, but the core issues are the same: how to balance a player's best interests with those of his team. The proponents for moving a catcher out from behind the plate point to successful conversions from the past. At the age of 28, Cardinals' slugger Joe Torre looked like he was in decline, having posted his two worst seasons since becoming a regular catcher in 1963. Torre spent most of the 1969 season as a first baseman, then took up third base on a part-time basis in 1970. A year after the switch, he had his best season, winning the 1971 NL MVP Award with a .363/.421/.555 performance. Torre would remain a productive hitter through 1974. Some guys move out from behind the plate much earlier in their careers. Dale Murphy came up with the Braves as a catcher, playing 85 games behind the plate in his first four seasons. By 1980, though, it was clear that Murphy's future was in fair territory, not foul. The Braves made him their primary center fielder in 1980, then watched as he became the best player in baseball, winning back-to-back MVP Awards in 1982 and 1983. Around the same time, another player was leaving behind his pads and chest protector for the green pastures of the outfield. Brian Downing had caught as many as 137 games in one season, and made the All-Star team as a catcher in 1979. Shoulder problems cost him much of the 1980 season, and by 1982 had forced him to the outfield. The problems pushed Downing into weight training, making him one of the first players to do that to improve himself. Downing would play through 1992 as one of the game's most productive left fielders and full-time designated hitters, but his real impact was in breaking down the bias against weightlifting within the game. The bulked-up players and big power numbers you see today are, in part, Downing's legacy. More recently, B.J. Surhoff, Todd Zeile, and Craig Biggio gave up catching at a young age. Surhoff went on have a long career as a third baseman and left fielder, while Biggio has built a reasonable Hall of Fame case as a cornerstone second baseman for the Astros for the last 10 years. Zeile has been a workmanlike corner infielder for a decade. Of course, these conversions don't always work. Kendall himself played some outfield last season and didn't take to it well. The White Sox tried to make Carlton Fisk an outfielder in 1986, an experiment that everyone involved would rather forget. Moved to third base in 1982, Johnny Bench was awful, making 19 errors in just over a half a season. It's not just catchers who go through this. Just this winter, the Padres moved two All-Stars to make room for rookie Sean Burroughs. Phil Nevin moved across the diamond from third base to first, while Ryan Klesko moved out to right field from first base. The Mets' Edgardo Alfonzo is making the second move of his major-league career, going back to third base from second base to make room for Roberto Alomar, after having moved from third base to second base in 1999. A number of current major leaguers have been shuffled around the diamond:
As with catchers Kendall, Fisk, and Bench, not all position changes are successful. Second baseman Juan Samuel tried to learn center field in 1989 and it was a complete disaster. The shift of outfielder Ken Williams to third base by the White Sox in 1988 worked so poorly that it was thought that the experiment might put an end to outfield-to-third-base conversions. It didn't, but the Cardinals' attempts to make John Mabry a third baseman may have finally killed that beast. Steve Sax played third base for about 15 minutes in 1991 as the Yankees tried to make room for Pat Kelly. (Remember when the Yankees had guys like Steve Sax and Pat Kelly?) It's the rare player who has the kind of career that Robin Yount did. Yount reached the major leagues at age 18 as a shortstop, and became one of the game's best. Yount would win the AL MVP Award in 1982. Then in 1985, a 29-year-old Yount moved to the outfield, splitting the year between left field and center field. By 1986, Yount was the Brewers' regular center fielder, a position he held until his retirement after 1993. How successful was the switch? Yount won another MVP Award in 1989. Some people will mention Ernie Banks, but Banks was a very ordinary player after he moved to first base from shortstop in 1962. He never had another season in which he hit as well as he did in his worst season as a shortstop, and yes, that is even after adjusting for the league-wide decline in offense in the 1960s. No discussion of multi-position players would be complete without a mention of Pete Rose. Rose, who was so peripatetic that it's hard to classify him at any one position, entering the major leagues as a second baseman in 1963. He moved to left field in 1967 so the Reds could get Deron Johnson out of the outfield. Rose would stay in the outfield through 1974, playing both left and right field, and having his best defensive seasons statistically. Rose won his only two Gold Gloves as an outfielder, in 1970 and 1971. The Big Red Machine teams of 1975 and 1976 featured Rose at third base, a position he took over following Dan Driessen's disastrous performance at the hot corner in 1974 (24 errors, 19 double plays, .915 fielding percentage). Rose held his own there for four seasons before moving on to Philadelphia, Think about this: after 1982, Rose had been a major leaguer for 20 years. In that time, he'd been a regular for four seasons each at five different positions, three in the infield and two in the outfield. He was only truly impressive as an outfielder, but to do what Rose did, change positions so frequently in the course of his career, and do so successfully, is unique in baseball history. You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus (tm) at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com. |
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