The 2016 season may seem far away, but the Oakland Athletics are taking this last month and a half of the 2015 season to carefully evaluate all of their ballplayers to see who could be a potential starting player on next year’s roster. The A’s still have a handful of young or newly acquired players that still need to demonstrate what they can bring to the team. Even though some acquisitions and trades may be made during the offseason, it has become pretty clear that the Athletics’ current roster will not be that much different for the 2016 season.
One player who has been truly thriving since coming to Oakland from the Toronto Blue Jays is Danny Valencia. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle by Susan Slusser, Valencia’s talent has been slightly overlooked throughout his baseball career for a multitude of reasons. However, since joining the Athletics, Valencia done nothing but prove that he is ready to be a starting third baseman for an MLB team.
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Valencia has really only been a starting third baseman for an entire season once in his five year career and that was with the Minnesota Twins in 2011. Since then, he has not played at third base for more than 50 games with any of the other four teams with whom he played. However, Valencia has a chance to be the Oakland Athletics starting third baseman for 2016 and, right now, it seems as though he has a good chance of earning that position.
If Brett Lawrie is able to successfully make the shift from third to second, then third base is wide open for Valencia to take over. Overall, Valencia is a great defensively. He has only committed one error this season and that was when he played in left field for the Blue Jays earlier this season. In 2011 during his first full season at third, he played in 147 games and committed 18 errors. That may sound like a lot, but Josh Donaldson had 25 errors at third in 2014 with the Athletics and Lawrie currently has 18 this season. Overall, his defense is pretty good.
Besides his defensive skills, Valencia has a power bat. This season he is batting .291 with 39 RBI in 70 games played. Additionally, even though he is a right handed batter, he tends to hit successfully against both left handed and right handed pitchers. The only negative about his offense is that he does tend to strike out a lot. If Valencia can improve in this area, then he could be a great offensive force for the Athletics.
Valencia is a lot like Donaldson in many ways and the two got along well back in Toronto. Valencia speaks his mind, he has an all out playing style in the field, and he hits for power. Because of his recent success with Oakland, he will probably be given the initial opportunity to earn the starting third baseman position in 2016. He is still under club control for two more years, so hopefully he continues flourish while with the Athletics.
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