Does this facilitate moving MY to third? If so, does Duran stay up to play short, and we option Shelton back to AAA?

why would Hank agree to this? Surely he has to see the move decreasing his value, as I don’t see him being an above average 1bman.

will be in Arlington this year.

Does this mean that Hank can’t play 3B anymore?
If so, then would any team be interested in him in the offseason given that he’d be seen as an average 1B (production-wise)?

This team needs to improve the infield defense in order to be successful.

Success in baseball derives from pitching and defense. Success does not derive from installing the best bat at every position.

The marginal increase in offensive production from Vasquez / Duran / Blalock to Blalock / Cat / Shelton is not worth the decrease in defense.

At third, Hank has become a defensive liability. At first, he’s an asset.

This is really a shocker. There is something clicking with this team and it looks like Hank saw it as an opportunity to get some production out of first base, so he did it. Much like MY moving to short a few years ago. I guarantee it NOBODY saw this coming.

But I’m actually fine with this. That, of course, makes me second guess whether or not I should be fine with it, but I liked the idea of moving Blalock to first (albeit down the road more) for a while.

I think it is stupid to shuffle Blalock around the infield so that Vazquez stays in the lineup and Shelton/Catt move to the bench. Incredibly stupid.

And if we had to endure Laird at Catcher “to increase his trade value”, then shouldn’t that apply to other tradable assets as well?

Blalock at 3b and Cat/Shelton is significantly better offensively with almost no dropoff at all defensively.

Ramon Vazquez’s career numbers are terrible, and german duran has done nothing at all.

Chris Shelton has started to do well, why do this now?

Washington loves Vazquez and wants him on the field. And unless his entire career is the fluke, rather than his 74 ABs this year, he is going to tank offensively, and you’ll be worse off.

But in the bigger picture, unless they are willing to revers this move, they have put themselves in a bad spot. Young needs to move to 3B imo, but Andrus is NOT close to being ready. I’m thinking 2010 at the earliest for Andrus, which would fit nicely with Blalock leaving, not with this move, followed by Young moving next spring.

And my next fear is them filling SS with an overpaid spare and eventually blocking Andrus when he actually is ready.

I just do not see the dominoes falling in a positive way here.

but a couple of guesses:

-less wear and tear on hank and he wants to stay on the field

-washington really believes that hank sucks at third and young sucks at SS and they need to facilitate the switch sooner rather than later.

Just a few weeks ago, the Rangers felt they had a weakness against LHP and that was one of the reasons Shelton was brought up. Well, this move (Blalock 1B, Vazquez 3B and possibly Shelton out) makes them more vulnerable to LHP.

Why would they block their best prospect in the minors? I guess they plan on trading Blalock, but wouldn’t he have more trade value as a 3B?

I thought I read that Max Ramirez played 1B a little while ago. What do you think happens to him if Davis ends up at 1B?