Last year, Kelly Shoppach had an outstanding year with the Tribe.  With Victor Martinez out due to injury, Shoppach stepped in and defined what a backup catcher should do.  His performance exceeded anyone’s expectations.  His career high 21 home runs really gave the Indians a taste as to what he can accomplish when given [practically] a whole season to play.

So now, with Victor Martinez healthy again, there is talk to have him play more 1st base, and let  Shoppach do the catching, so as not to lose his bat in the lineup.  This accomplishes two things:

1. Your defense behind the plate is stronger: Martinez, while he improved his defensive stats in 2007, isn’t as strong as  Shoppach is defensively.

2. You obviously don’t want to lose Martinez’s bat, so having him play first allows Shoppach, Martinez and Hafner (who will be DHing) co-exist in the same lineup.  Hafner and Martinez will likely swap 1st/DH occasionally.

So this leaves poor 1st basemen Ryan Garko scratching his head.  In 2007, Garko was a key piece in that teams road to the AL Central title.  However in 2008. Garko’s offensive numbers dropped drastically, and put the question mark on his playing time for the 2009 season.  So as it turns out, there have been conversations about having Garko try some outfield.  I gotta be honest, I don’t know how I feel about this move… at all.

First of all, Garko has never played OF, ever.  Learning a new position isn’t easy.  Sure, he’s a Major League ballplayer, but these things take time.  Second, he’s by FAR the slowest guy on the Indians roster.  I don’t think Garko will have a hard time catching the balls out there, but you have to actually get to them in order to catch them.

In the end though, this may all be for nothing.  There are plenty of guys battling for that #4 outfield spot.  Hell, the starting OF isn’t even set (aside from Sizemore).  So who knows. 

That’s right Garko, you better stretch… there is alot more ground to cover out there.