Gregor Chisholm and John Lott both have tweeted that John Farrell has decided to make some changes to what we thought the defense would look like:
- Edwin Encarnacion will be playing third.
- Jose Bautista will play right field.
- Juan Rivera will DH.
Farrell said he is basing it on Edwin coming to camp down 14 pounds and being more agile than last year. Personally I think he is basing it on Rivera having the range of a garden gnome. As well Jose didn't look great at third in the few games I saw this spring. He doesn't make many errors but he doesn't cover a great deal of ground.
I think telling Bautista he is our right fielder for the next several years is a good idea. But the timing is wrong. Doing it at the end of spring training after playing him at third all this time, it just seems like the wrong time to do it. I guess if you think it is the right move you should do it, but it would have been better to give EE and Jose the whole spring to work at their positions.