Dodgers News: Alex Guerrero Will Primarily Be 3B

Last season, Alex Guerrero hit 11 home runs and drove in 36 runs in 230 plate appearances. That’s not bad for a spot player who only started 45 games last season. However, he only hit .233, and he didn’t have a true position on the club. Well, now it looks the Los Angeles Dodgers are going to give him one.

It’s looking more and more, according to manager Dave Roberts, that the 29-year old will be playing third base a lot this upcoming season, at least if you are to go off of the work that he’s going to be doing in Spring Training. And that doesn’t seem like a bad idea considering Justin Turner’s injury issues.

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From Los Angeles Times reporter Andy McCullough on Twitter today:

Alex Guerrero will almost exclusively work as a third baseman this spring, Dave Roberts said.

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) March 2, 2016

Roberts envisions Guerrero as a third baseman, and it is a position that Guerrero started 11 games at last season. He finished with a .978 field percentage at the hot corner last season, and, while it was a small sample size, it at least bodes well for him and his prospects at that spot.

It still remains to be seen if Guerrero’s bat can translate to the position, but if he’s able to produce more like he did in the first half of last season, when he finished with a .322 wOBA, rather than what he did in the second half, when he finished with a .235 wOBA, the Dodgers should be quite pleased.

The Dodgers officially signed Guerrero on October 22, 2013, and they got someone who was still locked into his athletic prime. Unfortunately, in the first two seasons with the organization, he’s been unable to produce impactful numbers. Hopefully that all changes during the 2016 campaign.

If anything happens to Justin Turner this year, then it looks like Alex Guerrero will be the team’s third baseman. And that’s fine. It’s not a bad thing. This is one of the upsides to having so much depth. Guerrero can at least fill in and do the job admirably. For now, he’s a third baseman.