Part of me feels bad for Trey Sweeney. I don’t think that he’s long for the big leagues. The bat just isn’t there. I think that his role on the team this year is to potentially be the guy who can be just stable enough at that shortstop position until Kevin McGonigle is completely ready. We'll obviously continue to monitor the situation, but there’s a chance that a wrench just got thrown into those plans.
As I said, I don’t see Trey Sweeney having much of a long-term impact on this organization. I understand that the league has tried to address the entire service-time manipulation issue, but there are still ways around it. I don’t see Sweeney doing much for this team this year, other than being a Band-Aid for time until Kevin McGonigle is completely ready, but a lot of that may have changed today.
I try to avoid making any long-term predictions about injuries. I’m the farthest thing from a medical expert, but with this situation, there’s at least some logic that we can use. Sweeney will be on the medical report. We are about six weeks out from the first game of the season. Shoulder issues for guys who play premium defensive positions are nothing to take lightly, so the best-case scenario for Sweeney is that he has a limited spring training, with the possibility that he doesn’t see the field in spring at all. We know how much this impacted Parker Meadows a year ago.
Does this automatically guarantee Kevin McGonigle a spot on the Opening Day lineup? I don’t think so. I think the organization is very aware of how important McGonigle‘s development is. They don’t want to take the toy out of the package quite yet. Even with the injuries to Sweeney, multiple guys on the team can play shortstop at an effective level until they feel like McGonigle is ready to go. But one thing that I’ve said for several weeks now is that I want to see how tight Kevin McGonigle can make Scott Harris‘s collar with his play in spring training.
I’ve used this comp before, but I think it’s very similar to Kris Bryant in 2015 with the Cubs. Because of the service time manipulation rule, Bryant didn’t make the team out of camp, much to the chagrin of many Cub fans. He was the Cubs' best hitter throughout spring training and ultimately made Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon's decision pretty difficult. I hope that we see the same thing with McGonigle this spring. The door isn’t completely open, but it’s slowly starting to crack. It would admittedly take a lot for a non-roster invite to make the team out of camp, but everyone whose opinion I respect has said that McGonigle is not your typical rookie. This race just got a lot more exciting.