Last year Texas Rangers utility man Josh Smith won the American League Silver Slugger as the top hitting utility player in the league.
During spring training, Smith stated that his goal this year was to win a Gold Glove as the AL utility player.
The Rangers appear to be doing everything possible to ensure he’s in position to make that happen.
On Saturday against the San Francisco Giants the Rangers decided to give right fielder Adolis Garcia the day off from the field. In his place, they started Smith, who was making his second career start in right field.
As Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News pointed out, this is the seventh different position Smith has played this season. Well, eighth if you count designated hitter.
Looking at Smith’s baseball reference page, he’s started eight games at third base — most in place of an injured Josh Jung — along with four starts at shortstop. He’s likely to make more starts there while Corey Seager is on the 10-day injured list with a hamstring injury.
Smith has started two games at first base, one game at second base, two games in left field and one game in center field. That doesn’t count additional games he played in the field as an in-game substitute at third base, shortstop and second base. He’s done all of that in just 21 games.
That means that Smith has just two positions left to play all nine positions in a season — pitcher and catcher. He has never played either positions in the Majors to this point.
Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young and manager Bruce Bochy both said in spring training that the goal was to make sure Smith got at least four or five games in the field per week, even though he wouldn’t have a set position.
So far, the Rangers have made sure Smith is in the lineup nearly every day.
Texas is also moving Smith around in the order. At the beginning of the current road trip, the Rangers took advantage of an opportunity to shuffle their lineup and moved Smith into the leadoff position. He responded by going 3-for-4 with a home run in his first game hitting in the top spot.
On Saturday he batted in the eighth spot. For much of the season he’s batted in the third spot in the order.
No matter where he plays, he produces.
