A few thoughts on Jacobs

I was talking with a friend today about the Mike Jacobs trade and he brought up an interesting point. Jacobs, who won the Sterling Award in 2003 as the top minor league player in the Mets organization, came through the minors as a catcher. He switched to first base as a rookie in 2005 due to, of course, mediocre defensive skills behind the plate.

Would the Royals dare to re-convert him to catching and keep first base open to Shealy, Butler, Ka'aihue? How about the outfield? Would they dare move him to a corner outfield position?

I'm assuming Jacobs will remain at first.

Obviously, no team needs four first basemen, especially when a team decides to carry 12 pitchers. Add a couple utility players and suddenly there's just not enough room on the bench.

I still feel this was a great move by Dayton Moore and is for the good of the organization.

Look, while it would probably be a mistake to trade Butler right now, at least one, probably two, of those four guys will need to be traded before the start of the year. My guess is unless Shealy or Jacobs moves to the outfield then it is Shealy who is the odd man out. This seems strange to me, however. Shealy really seemed to catch Trey Hillman's eye last September - and for good reason. I would think he did enought to warrant a shot at making the team this year.

Butler is dedicated to get in better shape and could really enhance his stock if he trims down and bulks up a little bit this offseason. Plus, he's a projected slugger who is just trying to break in at just 22 years old. Ka'aihue will be the starting first sacker at Omaha this year.

Don't worry about Ross Gload. Unless he's your utility guy (there's worse options out there), he's gone. Teahen seems the odd man out as well. I'll have more posts on this in the next few days. Right now there's just so much to figure out with this one.