Beckham playing at second base....good or bad?

If you did not happen to read my blog post from yesterday, shame on you. I'm only kidding, but within my post yesterday, I mentioned how Gordon Beckham will be moving from third base to second base, now that Mark Teahen is on the Sox. The rookie of the year candidate will be making his second position shift in as many years, and it still will not result with him playing at his natural position of shortstop. With an infield featuring Konerko at first, Beckham at second, Alexei at short and Teahen at third, it begs the question: will the infield defense be any better next year?

Konerko has always been pretty solid defensively at first. Alexei has had his struggles defensively at short, but he could always improve next year. I still do not know a lot about Teahen defensively, so I will not comment on him until I watch him play a few games at third next year. However, with Beckham moving to second, you have to wonder how good he will be defensively there.

It is worth noting that Beckham nearly won the starting job at second base during spring training last year, a job that ended up going to the recently departed Chris Getz. Beckham also played second in the Arizona Fall League back in 2008, and he played at second while he was in Double-A Birmingham last year, too. The experience he has there will definitely work to his advantage. Nonetheless, since he will be at a new position next year, that means he will definitely have his share of errors there. Pairing him up with Alexei Ramirez at short could be dicey, since Ramirez, as mentioned earlier, has had his share of adventures at short last season. However, I am confident that Beckham and Ramirez will work hard together during spring training next year to become solid defensively together.

Since Beckham is a natural shortstop, the transition to second should not be a difficult one for him, but there will still be a learning curve that he will have to hurdle once again. Hopefully, he can hurdle the learning curve rather quickly, because there have been Sox players in the past that have taken their defensive woes to the plate with them (namely Juan Uribe). The last thing the Sox need is for Beckham's offensive production to go down on account of his poor defense.