Which Position is Wil Myers Going to Play?

"Come on coach, lemme try centerfield one more time"

The simplest answer I can think of: the outfield.  In terms of which spot in the outfield: uhh... I have no clue.  

Before people go pegging me with questions as to why we're talking about a guy on a team that isn't the one we follow and who's playing time isn't our issue, I'll provide a few reasons:

1. Some people around here like the Friar Squad so I figured it would spark some interest.

2. This type of stuff is almost always fun to speculate and discuss.

3. I was bored and wanted something to do.  

So, let's get to it.  The reason I've brought this up is that Sandy Eggo recently signed everyone's secretly favourite Kansas City Royal (now former):

"Told you guys I was going to get that big cheque one day!"

Eric Hosmer.  With (the apparently) handsome Eric coming into the fold, the bag at first will now be manned by Hosmer as opposed to good ole Willy.  So the only place that makes the most sense for Wil to go, is back to the outfield where most of us first saw him play in Tampa's house of horrors.  However, sliding him back there may not be the easiest decision as to where to place him.

Player A: .231/.284/.467

Player B: .187/.282/.213

Player C: .263/.313/.409

Player D: .227/.358/.364

Player E: .247/.333/.455

Player F: .288/.347/.490

None of those slash lines belongs to our boy in question, Wil.  Respectively, they belong to the following players:  Hunter Renfroe (who plays RF), Travis Jankowski (CF, and was hurt last year), Manuel Margot (CF), Matt Szczur (LF), Alex Dickerson (LF), and Jose Pirela (LF). That's a quite a gut of players looking to battle it out for let's say, 4 spots (I'm counting one back up).

Now I think we can chop away some things right off the bat here.  More than likely the Padres probably won't consider slotting Will in left field (at least not right away).  They have 3 guys fighting for that position already.  Dickerson and Pirela seem to have split time there last year, and Szczur has played all over the OF but registers most time in left and is probably the back-up to every OF position.  Centerfield is probably off the table entirely, as Margot did decently well in Jankowski's absence and Wil was apparently a nightmare playing that spot there before.

So the only spot left to look at is right field, where he's spent most of his outfield career and slashed .257/.322/.395 (career line for RF). There's one small issue, and his name is Hunter Renfroe.  

As of right now, it's probably not a big concern as Hunter had a tough go of the majors last year. I read somewhere that he was demoted at one point for essentially turning into a walking 'K'-Mart (30% rate at that), but was called up later on and kinda learned how to take a walk.  Hunter also didn't hit righties that well, and is something that's pretty important once you're up in the bigs.  The one thing that Renfroe appears to have going for him, is that he literally drips big power. Slugging .467 while playing at least half your games at Petco and being demoted in a year is pretty impressive to me (and dangerous if he figures out how to hit RHPs).  So in the case that he does, what happens to Wil? 

Where does he play? CF seems like it'll be off the table entirely, and unless something goes completely wrong with their options in LF, I don't think he'll see much time there either.  If San Diego can't put him somewhere on the field, do they make him ride the pine?  He's currently only making $4.5 million this year, but do you want to make him the next Vernon Wells when the $20+ million dollar portions of his contract kick in? I doubt it... Maybe Renfroe doesn't figure it out this year and Wil stays in RF, maybe someone in left gets hurt or Hosmer has some freak injury and he can man one of those two spots, but if they don't put him on the field, they could/might want (or have) to consider flipping him to another team.  Unless they put him somewhere else on the fielding entirely... 

To pitcher: "Ease me back in a bit would ya? Haven't strapped these on for a while."

Check the babyface on him back in KC's farm system. Dayyyyymmmnnnn!