Joe Strauss chronicles Adam Kennedy’s plight this season in the wake of the sometime second baseman’s meeting with TLR to discuss playing time. Talk about a platoon: La Russa says he’s "going to play all four guys," meaning Kennedy, Brendan Ryan, Aaron Miles and Cesar Izturis in the middle infield spots. We can’t say we blame him, given that, beyond Ryan, they’re fairly indistinguishable by their RC27:

When it comes to fielding, though, it’s possible to differentiate the infielders, though not by much (we’ve listed the players at the positions where they’ve had the most time):

The RZR data still relies on too small a sample at this point in the season to be very reliable, but we can perhaps conclude Miles and Kennedy are the weakest links overall and that Ryan is the stronget.

Coincidentally, another middle infielder is actually making a case for himself to play everyday. The problem is that he’s no longer in the Cardinal organization: Edgar Gonzalez, whom the Cardinals spurned last year, is getting a chance to do his thing — which is mainly hitting — with the Padres. In 70 plate appearances this season, EGonz has an RC27 of 6.17 (that’s Miles and Kennedy combined). Though the knock against him while he was with the Cardinals was his glove, he’s holding his own (again, small sample size) with the leather so far: In 28 plays over 87 innings at second base, he’s got a .933 RZR.

It may make sense to rotate the infield foursome to keep everyone fresh. But if we had our druthers, we’d have a keystone combo of Little Cesar and The Flyin’ Irishman playing the majority of innings. As for what to do with Kennedy and Miles, well, perhaps the Padres would be interested in a two-for-one. We hear they need relief pitching, and Miles has a sparkling ERA (just don’t look at his expected FIP).

This entry was posted by Pip on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.