Monday, February 11, 2013
A's second base battle
By Doug Mittler
Spring training for the Oakland Athletics will feature a wide-open competition at second base, with Scott Sizemore and Jemile Weeks as the two primary candidates.
Manager Bob Melvin refused to commit to any one player recently, reports John Hickey of InsideBayArea.com, and insisted that Grant Green, the club's 2009 first-rounder who hit .296 at Triple-A Sacramento last season, also will get his share of Cactus League at-bats to see if he can factor in.
Sizemore was expected to be the A's starting third baseman last year but suffered a season-ending injury in spring training. After hitting .303 as a rookie in 2011, Weeks entered 2012 as one of Oakland's building blocks but struggled so mightily (.221 BA) that he was sent to the minors.
Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus, writing for ESPN Insider, knows who should win this battle:
Ben Lindbergh
Weeks vs. Sizemore vs. Green vs. Rosales"Who should win? Sizemore. The A's have a lot of emotional capital -- not to mention a sizeable signing bonus -- invested in Weeks, a former first-round pick, but they'll be wary of commitment after being burned when his bat went backward last season. The real Weeks lies somewhere in the middle of the models we saw in the past two seasons, but PECOTA projects Sizemore to be a better, above-average bat. If he shows that his knee can handle the strain of every-day play, he'll likely receive the lion's share of the early season starts."
