Alright, just as someone said, 3rd base is as much of a refex position as anything. Imagine this, a pitcher throws a mundane 80 mph fastball to the batter. Let's say the batter lines it straight at third base. The speed of the ball is going to be at least 80 mph (it really depends on if the batter is left or right handed), heading back to third base. Home to third is 90 feet, so the ball would take approximately 0.76 seconds, which by the way, it VERY FAST. Try it, get out a stopwatch and see how fast it is. Thinking isn't really an option while playing third base, and remember, this is only with an 80 mph fastball, which almost any MLB pitcher can outpitch. Not to mention that a swing of a bat puts about 32% more energy into a ball (physics). So there you have it, the most boring post ever, hehe.
Players don't move from the outfield to the infield - unless it is to first base - and have any kind of success. There is a reason they were in the outfield in the first place, and it probably had to do with them being atrocious defenders in the infield.
For the most part it's not. It is further from the plate to the 2nd base position. Occasionally a batter will hit a wicked shot at 2nd base but for the most part a 2nd baseman has to cover a lot of territory (right and left). That being said, it would be much easier to convert a 2nd baseman to 3rd than vice-versa. At this stage in Biggio's career, it is much easier to go play LF or CF than 3B. If he were in his 20s then it might make more sense to give him a go at 3rd. While I am thinking about it, I thought of an outfielder who made a succesful conversion to 3rd base - Denny Walling. Walling became a more than adequate 3rd baseman.
in your opinion what do you suggest the Astros (Hunsicker) do with the situation on the ground in reference to the clog we now have in the OF, lack of a legit CF and a "need" for an everyday 3rd sacker? We don't have a clog in the outfield - we have ONE good outfielder (Berkman), one crappy-but-full-of-potential outfielder (Ward), and one crappy-and-expensive outfielder (Hidalgo). The lack of a legit CF is just life for now - unless we add another player, it's irrelevent. Moving current players in circles won't fix that. We don't need a new 3B - we have a pretty damn good one in Blum. In fact, last year, we had the most productive -- and pretty damn good defensive -- third basemen in the league. It doesn't matter if Hidalgo "can" play 3B - he can't play it well. The defensive standards are being set by people who have played the position for 15 years of their lives. That's 15 years of experience that Hidalgo doesn't have. If those guys still make errors and screwups, what makes anyone think that Hidalgo or Ward wouldn't make tons more mistakes? Biggio has played outfield before - especially in 1999 when all hell broke loose with us losing all 6 of our opening-day outfielders at one point in time. He did fine then. It's easier on knees. Biggio can still move forward - his problem is moving sideways, which isn't a concern in the outfield.
Thanks Major for your input. Now I ask - why was every pundit or maybe some saying that neither Blum nor Viscaino can be "everyday" 3rd baseman for a contender? Personally I like Blum and yes he did quite well for us last season (maybe he even over archieved) but I am not completely sold on relying on him consistently for at least 140 games. Well maybe if our big stars big up the slack a notch or two we may not need the Blums of the world to contribute a whole lot.
Hidalgo was shot in the arm in Venezuela. That's not going to help. Craig Biggio - Catcher, 2nd Basemen, Outfielder.
Our defense is gonna suck again this year. 1/3 the team is playing out of position. Ward is a 1B playing OF. Berkman is a 1B playing OF. Biggio is a 2B playing OF. Too bad we don't play in the American League.
