Deven Marrero’s pissah defense at third base is wicked huge

Sometimes, you can just look at a guy and say, “hey! this guy isn’t a big leaguer!”

Sometimes, that’s a real easy conclusion to draw. We saw it with Kyle Kendrick, Hector Velazquez and others. You might honestly think it when a certain shortstop turned third baseman steps up to the plate for the Boston Red Sox–like Deven Marrero–and in that regard, you’re probably right. But, at the same time, it’s hard to knock him for what he’s doing right now.

Marrero, is a former Red Sox first round draft pick, is pretty much the Red Sox starting third baseman right now with Pablo Sandoval still rehabbing down in AAA Pawtucket. Once Pablo’s healthy, he’ll be back as the everyday guy, but don’t discount what Marrero has done so far when giving third base a whirl.

Seriously, Marrero hasn’t made an error in 17 games manning the hot corner for the Red Sox, which is a whole hell of a lot more than any of the other dudes to take a stab at the spot this year can say. Heck, none of ’em even had a fielding percentage over .900.

Certainly, he’s a plus defender–even if he can’t hit .200 and has an OPS in the .400’s. That’s far from ideal at third base. In fact, we could go a lot further than that. But he has a flat out even 0.0 WAR, and that should end up being a positive number. He’s stringing together a few singles here and there, after all–while continuing to save runs….

Let’s just put it this way: things could get interesting when Pablo comes back, if he’s not playing up to par. Marrero on the bench gives the Red Sox “a lot of flexibility”, manager John Farrell said in Wednesday night’s postgame show. He’s a guy they like having on the roster for his defense so no matter what happens, he could end up being an asset to the roster. He’s like their fidget spinner right now: he’s been around for awhile, yet they only discovered he was good a couple weeks back.

I told someone he was the best third baseman (defensively) in the Sox org before the season, but I figured he wouldn’t hit .200 in AAA and therefore wouldn’t get a chance…

Final note: the Sox are 8-4 when Marrero starts. That is all.