I have been wanting to do a piece on the infield for a while now, but I haven’t had the time. I still do not have the time, but I am going to write the piece anyway! I want to take a look at how having Adrian Beltre (I have to use his first name because the Rangers have 3 Beltre’s in their system right now) at third will effect the infield play in the coming season and what to expect the Rangers to do with Michael Young, that is, will he be a full time DH or play a good bit in the field. I think the infield was pretty good in 2010, and not just because the Rangers went to the World Series.
The Rangers were about dead center ( 7 out of 14 ) in errors this season, as opposed to 12 the season before. A marked improvement for sure, but they still had 105 errors (in comparison the Yankees had only 69 errors). That needs to improve in 2011. In 2010, Michael Young accounted for a team leading 19 errors, and Elvis as 2nd with 16. As we all know, Michael Young will not be the everyday 3rd baseman for the Texas Rangers in the 2011 season, Beltre will be. The slight issue with that, Adrian Beltre had, you guessed it, 19 errors last season. So I will say the same thing for him that I would have said for Young: both Beltre (Adrian) and Andrus have to improve. The left side of the infield cannot account for 33% of the teams errors. It has to improve in 2011. Beltre averages 17.2 errors per season, so I do not expect his errors to suddenly drop, but Andrus went from 22 errors in 2009 to 16 in 2010. I would expect that number to go down in 2011 to around 13 -15. Just a guess.
Let us not forget the right side of the infield. There are two major questions (and I have the answers) that I want to ask about the right side of the infield. The first I discussed in a previous post, and that is the first baseman. Mitch will do a good job over there in my opinion, and I think he will be the first baseman. The second question that I have is can Ian Kinsler stay healthy, and if so can he return to his former glory (2009)? He is a good fielder, but I am worried about his bat and his speed. He was a 30-30 guy in 2009 (31 HR’s, 31 steals), but in 2010, some due to injury, although he still played in 103 games, he only hit 9 HR’s and stole 15 bases. quite a drop. Can Kinlser bounce back? If not, will Michael Young wind up playing a whole lot of 2nd base? I say, Kinsler will not stay healthy (only once has he played in more than 130 games), but he will have a better season. Mike will play a good bit of 2nd this season (at least 30 games), and I think that is one of the reasons that the Rangers were looking for another big bat to be in the lineup. I hope I am wrong and Kinsler can play at least 140 games, but history says that I am right.
The infield was productive last season (with the exception of the catching position, averging .226) at the plate. Their average as a whole was .254, and I expect that to go up with the upgrade at 3rd. Look for the inifield average to be above .260 this season, maybe higher. I expect big things overall from the infield of the Texas Rangers this season, and you should too.
