Blake DeWitt: A Good Problem To Have

Go read all of the dodgers blog postings out there from a month or so ago and one thing you won't find is anything about Blake DeWitt making the club, much less playing decently there everyday. His line isn't stellar save for the .383 .obp and the sample size isn't big enough yet to come to any future conclusions, but given that he's never played a game over double A you've got to give my father in law's doppelganger credit for makin the most out of injuries to both Nomar and LaRoche. The short term question is what does the team do when Nomar comes back from his rehab assignment? The more interesting, longer term question is what does the team do once LaRoche is again healthy?

DeWitt, if he keeps up his production, might possibly represent a piece the dodgers could use to acquire some more pitching if they still believe LaRoche is the man at third in their long term plans. But heck, maybe they could move him back to second. That doesn't look all that likely when looking at his minor league stats, but then again I don't know if he was moved to third because of defensive inability to handle third or because of LaRoche being coronated already as the third baseman of the future.

All I know is the kid plays pretty hard. He's also very selective at the plate. He's definitely a good problem for the dodgers organization to have. Being that the dodgers didn't even try to play LaRoche at second base in the minor leagues probably means he can't player there. What I hope does not happen is that DeWitt is traded away by himself for peanuts. DeWitt is special in the sense that he's the first player that will have shown and proved himself at the MLB level and then become expendable because a superior talent is already there in LaRoche. Teams will be heavily interested in either. LaRoche may have the injury prone tag slapped on him by other clubs, but he isn't the second best third baseman prospect for no reason. DeWitt's wart is probably the lack of demonstrated power at the mlb level (he's got decent but not great power numbers in the minors), but teams will still be intrigued because of his on base skills and his apparent skills against some pretty tough major league pitching. Eventually one of 'em will have to go, but today is not that day.