Saturday, March 4, 2017

Guess Who, part six

We'll wrap up this silly little series with a two-fer -- a pair of good-field, no-hit shortstops, Ehire Adrianza and Engelb Vielma.

No more than one of these guys will be on the Opening Day roster, and probably neither. A bit more than a week into the Grapefruit League season, it appears that Jorge Polanco is likely to open the season as the shortstop. Polanco is, as a shortstop, good-hit, no-field -- the opposite of these two glovemen. And veteran Eduardo Escobar is the shortstop in the middle -- a better hitter than Adrianza and Vielma, a better fielder than Polanco, and apparently not good enough at either to get and keep the starting job.

Adrianza is presumably out of options; Vielma, while on the 40 man roster, is assuredly not. So Adrianza has the advantage this spring. But he's been waived twice since the 2016 season ended -- first by the Giants, then by the Brewers -- and it's certainly possible that the Twins will try to sneak him through waivers themselves before the season begins. He probably didn't help his cause earlier this week with a mental error.

If the Twins do get Adrianza through waiver, they will have a pair of very similar players vying for the shortstop time in Triple A. Certainly Nick Gordon should be the Double A shortstop this spring, so Chattanooga is not a genuine possibility.

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