http://firstinning.com/players/Angel-Villalona-a

Nate!@

The Giants have future Hall-of-Famer Conor Gillaspie at 3B, making the move of Villalona to 1B a little more palatable.

most guys who are too fat (or even bordering on too fat) to play a demanding position like 3B at the age of 17 don’t have much of a chance of being svelte enough to play there at age 25. I give the guy very little chance to play 3B in MLB and I think they should just develop him as a 1B.

I know he’s not high on most prospect lists, but the guy has some power (18 HRs for Augusta last year) and has only gotten better as he’s moved up the levels. He’s hitting .289/.348/.471 since his mid-season promotion to AA. He could be a possibility as soon as next season.

Sounds like he has the footwork, arm and enough range to play 3b so hopefully the Giants will return him there. The kid will be 18 in about a week so he has plenty of development still left in his body.

Angel is 17 in his first year of full season professional ball, living away from home for the first time for half a year, learning English, learning how to do exercises that could help him muscle up and thin down, learning how to play on a team (according to one account I’ve read recently on him on sfgiants.com), learning how to be an adult, learning how to hit against professional pitchers of higher quality than last season. That’s a lot on his plate.

So the Giants put him on 1B, ostensibly so that he can focus more on his hitting and not so much on his defense. Because of all the things I listed above that he is facing, plus there’s probably other distractions like local girls coming onto him and fast food joints at every corner. What is so hard to see about that?

He’s only 17 and he’s still taking grounders at 3B every day, again according to accounts on sfgiants.com, so it is not like it is a permanent move away. They haven’t said he’s only a 1B and, if he is still learning the team concept, having him play 1B gives him a view of what the 1B is facing on every batter when/if he returns to 3B. That could only help, I think, should he return to 3B.

Again, he’s 17. How many college players out there have played one position only in High School, then went to college or joined the pros and then started playing another postion? Somehow despite either not playing it much or not at all in high school they figure it out and play good defense there eventually. So if they return him back to 3B next season, what harm is there that he played 1B this, his first full season?

Heck, they could still play him at 1B next season, then switch him back the next season, Posey changed after his freshman year and in two years he’s considered a great defensive catcher.

Contrary to most talk here, Sabean is not an idiot. They can see that there’s a big hole organizationally at 3B. It doesn’t hurt to have your best prospects play multiple positions that they can handle so that when they come up to the majors, they are not limited to one position. So I think that Villalona is headed back to 3B and prepared to play there until his body and/or defense dictates a move to 1B.

Someone mentioned McGwire as an example of just playing one position but either forgot or is too young to remember that when he made the majors, the A’s actually were playing him at 3B, not 1B. If that guy at 1B didn’t flame out quickly as a MLB prospect, McGwire might have ended up playing 3B for a few years before his size forced him to 1B or LF or DH. So either McGwire had the experience before or during his minor league play, but the point is that he had experience at both 1B and 3B and could be used at either.

And 1B is easier defensely, it is clearly so, as it is the only position where big fat slow men can be placed on the field before the DH came along, and there were plenty of them when I was growing up. It doesn’t take much to be adequate there defensively; it only takes a lot to be great there, but really, you don’t need great defense if he hits well enough. But given my druthers, I would still want good defense there, lots of balls end up there.

In any case, all this strum und drang is a tempest in a teapot, worrying like chicken little that the Sabean is failing, when they appear to have valid reasons to move him to 1B for this season. Don’t worry, be happy: we have Villalona, whether at 3B or 1B or wherever.

The good thing about the Giants is they keep most things hidden behind the kimono but when they do release the information, it usually represents what the organization is thinking and trying to do. They have said that Villalona’s move is not permanent, that it was only to lessen his transition to playing baseball professionally full time. They continue to let him take grounders at 3B during practice and had sfgiants.com report that publicly. They like their players playing multiple positions anyway because then they can come up in a variety of positions. Else Bowker could be stuck in AAA this season instead of starting for us at 1B.

Again, Angel is 17. He has plenty of time to play 3B. If he takes one year each level, that’s A+, AA, and AAA, making him 21 years old at the end of his AAA season. That would give him 3 years of experience there. Plus, he wants to play 3B too, so this should motivate him to work harder playing 3B to show the Giants that he should stay at 3B going forward. He seems to have a good head on his shoulder, sounds willing to work hard plus to show that he deserves the bonus he got, he wants to make the majors as fast as possible. Plenty of time.