Nunez's invite from Tigers speaks volumesShortstop set for spring camp; organization has high hopesBy Jason Beck / MLB.com
01/26/10 6:48 PM EST
DETROIT -- The Tigers are going to get a look at shortstop prospect Gustavo Nunez next month in their Major League camp. At least one Tigers official who has already had a chance to watch Nunez is looking forward to it.
"Mark him down," team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said at TigerFest last Saturday, "because he's a really fine player. Not just an ordinary player, a fine player."
That doesn't mean that Nunez has any chance at all of breaking camp with Detroit for Opening Day. But his spot among the 13 players with non-roster invitations to Spring Training sure means the Tigers are watching him as someone for the coming years, if not maybe sometime next season.
It also means he'll be working with Detroit's Major League staff, including infield coach Rafael Belliard.
The Tigers have been talking about finding a young solution at shortstop for at least the past couple years. A year ago, Dombrowski talked about Cale Iorg as Detroit's shortstop of the future, provided he continued to develop along his way up the farm system. Adam Everett was supposed to be a stopgap as a short-term signing.
Iorg went to Spring Training with the Tigers, but struggled. Those struggles carried into the regular season at Double-A, and he never quite seemed to shake them, batting .222 in 129 games for the SeaWolves with 11 homers, 41 RBIs and 149 strikeouts. He also committed 25 errors at short in Erie. He did much the same in the Arizona Fall League with a .217 average and 22 strikeouts in 17 games for Peoria.
The last time the Tigers promoted a shortstop from their farm system to be their everyday shortstop was 2003, when Detroit opened with an all-rookie double play tandem of Omar Infante and Ramon Santiago. Infante began the year at shortstop.
The Tigers have drafted or signed plenty of shortstop prospects since then -- remember Tony Giarratano -- but none have taken the role. When the Tigers moved Carlos Guillen away from short a few years ago, they brought in Edgar Renteria to take over, with disappointing results.
Iorg will be back in big league camp next month and still has a chance to blossom into a Major League shortstop, but he has some work to do to get there. In the meantime, Nunez could be charging through the system.
Even in a system that has a few shortstop candidates, Dombrowski strongly suggested Nunez will not be blocked.
"We've got [Brent] Dlugach. We've got Iorg. [Audy] Ciriaco is also a good player," Dombrowski said, referring to his shortstop prospects already on the 40-man roster. "And I hadn't seen Nunez play too much. I saw him in instructional league here or there, and he was tremendous.
"He's a switch-hitter who can run, who made some believable defensive plays. I remember I came back and I said, 'How come nobody talks about Nunez?' And then all of sudden, people start going into West Michigan, some of our scouts, and they were saying, "This guy, he has a chance to be a star.'"
The speed is apparent in his stats, both at the plate and in the field. After being somewhat limited offensively in his first two years of pro ball, he took off on the basepaths in his first full-season stop and ended up with 45 stolen bases in 70 attempts last year at West Michigan, plus three more in the Gulf Coast League. Meanwhile, his .315 average included 16 doubles, 10 triples and five home runs.
He made 25 errors at short, but those came in 547 total chances, good for a 4.68 range factor, a sign of how many ground balls he actually tracks down. For sake of an example, only two Major League shortstops had a higher range factor last year.
"He can do it all," Dombrowski said. "He can run, he's a switch-hitter, and he can really play defense. So I think he has a chance to be a special player."
That doesn't mean he's going to be playing in the Majors that soon. He turns 22 years old next week, and the Tigers suspended him for a couple weeks last summer for what they only called conduct detrimental to the team. In other words, he could stand to benefit from some seasoning all around.
Still, rarely do position prospects who haven't played above low Class A ball get invites to Spring Training with the Tigers. They've sometimes done it with catchers in order to have extra bodies who can help catch all the bullpen sessions early in camp.
Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.