Spring Training Update: Where Will Mauricio Dubon Play?

I have to confess to fretting a bit about Mauricio Dubon.  For a quick recap, Dubon is the young infielder who came over from the Brewers in the Drew Pomeranz flip trade last year.  He tore up the PCL with Sacramento and played with aplomb after a late callup, mostly at 2B.  Not only does the kid look great in a baseball uniform, he hit 4 HR's and stole 3 bases in 109 PA and played in the field veteran savvy.  So, he's the presumptive starting 2B for 2020, right?  Not so fast there, pardner. 

Early on around the Hot Stove, Farhan Zaidi started spinning stories about giving Dubon reps in CF.  Then he went out and signed Wilmer Flores to a 2 yr/$6 M contract.  What is Flores' main position?  2B!  But FZ was not done.  As the Hot Stove was cooling down, he went out and signed Yolmer Sanchez, who was the starting 2B. for the White Sox last year.  It was a minor league deal but it's become increasingly likely that FZ wants Sanchez to make the team, for some reason.  Add in Donovan Solano who has a guaranteed contract and might not make the team at all and that pretty much buries Mauricio Dubon on the depth chart at 2B. 

What about shortstop?  He played there a few innings last year and didn't look half bad.  Once upon a time, Brandon Crawford was a better shortstop than Mauricio Dubon will ever be, but I'm not so sure Crawford is better now and Dubon is the guy with upside here.  Still, I don't see the Giants benching Brandon Crawford for Mauricio Dubon this season. 

That brings us to FZ's Hot Stove talking points.  Dubon to CF.  Hmm....if he can play the position defeinsively, and he seems to have the athleticism for it, if not the experience(reports of his prior experience in CF were greatly exaggerated).  Steven Dugger probably needs to prove out at AAA to get another shot and YtY is probably more of a corner OF.  Then FZ went out and signed Billy Hamilton to a minor league deal, but again it looks like he really wants BHam to make the team and he's a CF.  Now, if the Giants sign Yasiel Puig, and they may not, but if they do, he'll either play CF or he'll play RF while YtY slides over to CF.  Again, Mauricio Dubon is the odd man out.

Maybe Dubon plays all three positions part time and accumulates the equivalent of a starting job while splitting his time.  It probably makes the most sense for him to sub in against LHP's at all 3 positions but LHP's account for about 25% of IP and Dubon can only play one position at a time.

It's also possible that FZ is not as in love with Dubon as he seems to be.  The kid does not take many walks and you can tell from the draft picks that FZ is a classic old school Moneyballer who values walks highly.

Mauricio Dubon is going to the one of the more interesting story lines of the season and I'm not that confident he isn't going to get shoved aside in The Churn.